which processor to get?

[mythrandyr]

Hi guys,

I have an E8500 in my current rig but i am considering buying a Q6600 at the end of next week. Is this a worth while upgrade? or is it a downgrade? because what i hope to acheive by doing this is getting a straight 5.9 windows vista rating without having to overclock and i want to avoid buying a big, beffy processor since i will be upgrading again at the end of the year to the nehalem processor.

cheers.


Myth.

 

[Sgt_Pepper]

personally i would think it a waste of time and money, also Windows index score means nothing.

 

[Cob]

Ignore the Vista rating. It means next-to-nothing.


What do you use your computer for? If it's mainly for games then the E8500 is grand. If it's mostly video or design work then a quad-core would be an advantage.

You also have to remember that a Q6600 is over 25% slower than an E8500 in software that runs only one or two threads (before any overclocking is taken into account ofcourse).

 

[mythrandyr]

i dont overclock any of my systems, period, to be honest i dont beleive in overclocking. But a lot of the review sites have said stick with core duos for the time being since the nehalem processors are coming just around the corner.

I use my pc for a lot of video converting (winavi) and gaming and general use, the one thing that puts me off buying a quad core at the minute is the lack of support for quad core processors in software applications.

 

[Cob]

I would stick with the E8500 tbh. Most video software now supports quad-cores (tho i'm not sure about Winavi as I haven't used it for a long time), but the difference between an E8500 @ 3.16ghz and a Q6600 @ 2.4ghz wouldn't be worth the change (considering how quickly todays processors can convert .avi to DVD. Even my current E2180 running at 1.8ghz can convert a 2 hour .avi to DVD in a little over 30 mins with ConvertXtoDVD. My quad-cores were faster at it, but only by a matter of minutes).


Wait for Nehalem.

 

[mythrandyr]

well, what i was considering was this.

I am currently using an MSI X48C motherboard which doesnt like DDR3 memory and only has 4 sata ports.

I have 3 150GB Raptor X HDD's, i am only using 2 at the minute cos of the lack of sata ports on my motherboard (i have 2 sata dvd burners) and i also have 3 GB of 1600Mhz DDR3 memory which the board wont handle. Now if i bought either an Asus P5Q3 Deluxe or an Asus P5E3 Intel X38 and a 150GB Velociraptor (instead of the Q6600 and raided all of the 4 raptors together since they are all 150GB in size) that should provide quite a boost in system performance until one of the 1366 motherboards/processors come out later in the year. What do you think of that idea?