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which cpu ?

Arge

Arge

Arge

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22 Oct 2006
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Hampshire
Will be upgrading my gpu and cpu on monday, this weeks "this week only" has thrown up the two cpus i was looking at which is good but doesnt help me decide which !

My computer is used primarily for gaming, getting a 4870 1gb monday too !

I am torn between the q6600 and e8400 !??

I have searched this issue and it seems theres mixed opinions...
The e8400 is newer tech, less power consumption, clocks higher
The q6600 will clock relitively high, has 2x more cores !

Do people think that farcry 2 and all upcoming (next year or so) games will make full use of 4 cores or should i stick to a e8400 ?
 
I'm in the position of owning both CPU's.
Most people here will say the E8400 (including myself) however these CPU's have a bug in them (well mine has anyway) which when using temp software (speedfan, coretemp etc) the readings are higher than they actually are (works OK apart from that) your board will probably need a Bios update for the 8400 as well (don't do it in windows, I've heard about boards not rebooting with asus updates when done so) Not certain about what gaming coders will do as regards optimising for 4 cores, but the Q6600 is a stonking CPU that handles anything I throw at it, the most difficult being H264 media file playback which every CPU previous to that just didn't want to know.
 
based on reviews im leaning towards the newer, cooler, faster e8400.

Anyone wanna change my mind ?
 
E8400 EO stepping would be and is my current chip.
4.2Ghz at 1.268V under water. 24c idle and 50c @ 100% load.

Matt
 
I've decided to go for the E8400 for now. Faster stock speed and higher OC potential. Quad's extra cores dont' matter for the games I play...when they do I'll be able to get a cheaper Quad for the same money.
 
I currently have 32bit XP - not using full RAM or capacity of the processor.

I would need to buy a new OS to do so. It just seemed a little odd to go out and buy XP 64 when for a little extra I can get Vista 64.
 
i prefer the Q6600, future games will begin to utilize the extra cores more efficiently making it more "futureproof" as it were, and in general the computer will run and respond faster when multi tasking. But theres nothing wrong with the E8400 as it can easily overclock to high speeds, just depends what your doing.
 
9TurningMirrors said:
I currently have 32bit XP - not using full RAM or capacity of the processor.

I would need to buy a new OS to do so. It just seemed a little odd to go out and buy XP 64 when for a little extra I can get Vista 64.
Click to expand...

Ah you didnt mention ram, sorry. Yes get x64 vista, will work much better with plenty of ram then xp does.
 
This has thrown a spanner in the works !

Sooooo, still havnt made my mind up and really ought to tonight as both the e8400 and q6600 are on 'This week only' Untill tomorrow and also the 6% promo code will run out tomorow aswell !

Was almost going to buy the e8400 but then saw this ...

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,661894/News/Far_Cry_2_Hardware_nerdsundrsquo_gaming_experience/

While playing, we noticed that Far Cry 2 uses up to 60 percent of the CPU capacity in some situations. This is remarkable since those values are reached on the high-end device QX9650. The two programmers of Ubisoft, whom we interviewed, told us that a quad-core CPU would deliver 30 percent better performance on average than an identical dual-core processor.
Click to expand...

Do people think this could be possible or is 30% a bit much !? also, do people think the extra clock speed i should be able to get from the e8400 (overclocked of course) would cancel this out ?

Man I just cant make up my mind !

Help me please !
 
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