Dual Core vs. Quad Core? (Now about E8400 CPU)

[Elesirdur]

So, I'm down to the last decisions on CPUs for my new build and am really wavering between the Core 2 Duo E6850 and the Core 2 Quad Q6600. I also have the Duo E6750 to chose from which is nice and cheap (only $190 on sale from ncix)

Now, the E6850 is the most expensive at $285 with the Q6600 falling at about $270 so price is not much of a question. I'm not trying to build a system that will last me for more than 18 months or 2 years so I'm leaning toward the Dual Core as FFXI is my main gaming habit and I don't know if I'll even have the same CPU by the time a lot of games are available with multi/hyper-threading. CPU ratings over at Tom's Hardware show the E6850 usually trumping the Q6600 in gaming performance and often in a number of applications, though the Q6600 definitely steps ahead in certain application tests and raw computing tests like Arethmetic MFLOPS and Multimedia Floating Point standards.

So what's the line on this? Should I go for the Q6600 and plan to keep it for longer, or should I snag the E3850 for some crazy speed on current stuff for the next 1.5-2.5 years? Or am I nuts to spend the extra $100 when I can get an E6750 and do nearly as well.

[Shuemue]

Wait a few days until the new E8400 and E8500 are freely available. Intel released them yesterday, the E8400 for example will price at about the same as E6750 and run a bunch faster, 45nm instead of 65nm, also 3.0ghz over the E6750's 2.66ghz.

[Elesirdur]

Will they use the LGA775 sockets? I see NCIX is showing a E8400 for only about $220 which is a pretty damn awesome deal.

Edit: Found a review that they are indeed LGA775 sockets. Too bad the mobo I need only has a 1066 FSB - maybe I'll axe my current video card and get a full PCI-X card with the money I save on a E8400.

[Shuemue]

I was all about the E6750 until I read about the E8400, apparently people have even overclocked it to 4.0ghz with air cooling. In that price bracket it's the obvious choice imo.

Asus for example are providing charts to show which boards can handle which of the new 45nm chips: http://event.asus.com/mb/45nm/

[Elesirdur]

I looked up a review showing the E8400 pretty much at the same performance, or better, than the E6850. Thanks for drawing my attention to it!

[Furtwangler]

Don't wanna derail this but what in the world is the difference between the quad cores and the extremes?( think thats what they're called) both are quad core, dunno what else is different(not taking into account the clock speed)

[Avanarius]

extremes have unlocked multipliers

[Shuemue]

ya, the extremes aren't really for anyone but the most serious overclockers and such

[Avanarius]

Also on further noting, some of the 1066fsb boards just need a bios update to support the 1333fsb cpu's as well as the 45nm chips.

[Elesirdur]

Also on further noting, some of the 1066fsb boards just need a bios update to support the 1333fsb cpu's as well as the 45nm chips.

That's certainly good news for existing S755 CPU users. Although in my case I think I've decided to take the plunge and go for the following:

CPU: E8400
Motherboard: ASUS PK5-E
GPU: EVGA 8800GT 600MHz 512MB

I'll probably just nab some dirt-cheap 1GB 5300 (667) RAM sticks to run dual-channel for now and look at getting some better 1066 sticks later.

I've already got the other required stuff so this should set me up pretty well for a while, even though it's quite a bit more than I planned to spend in the first place. At least I can sell off my current mobo/CPU/GPU/RAM combo and make some money back.

[Shuemue]

Something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231098 would probably do nicely, $40 off at the moment.

[Elesirdur]

There's a shop in town that I can get some discounts at so I was planning on getting RAM and a new case and cooling fan system should I need it. The retail prices of the items I've chosen are about 15-40% higher than ncix's prices, all because it's from Canada. I'm hoping it only takes about 2-3 weeks for the E8400 to arrive - local shops quoted me over $400 and early March for one >_>

[Lordwafik]

Quad core isn't that amazing considering there aren't many things programmed to support it efficiently, however a nifty use of it is to set affinities of certain programs to certain CPU so they don't hog it all. Probably stick with what's cheaper now if you're only building a machine that's not going to last long.

[mootsfox]

My quad did 3.5GHz on the stock cooler.

I'm sure that any good revision of a 8 or 9x multipler dual would do the same (e2xxx series not included).

I've heard reports of the E8400 doing 3.3 on stock voltage (that's what I run) and the E8500 doing about 3.6 on stock voltage. The highest I've seen is 4.5GHz for either. Without a higher multiplier, or a motherboard that can stably do in excess of 500FSB (this number is very tiny and comes with a high price tag) you're not going to go over 4-4.5GHz.

[Rags]

My computer is running the Q6600 at 3.0Ghz with 4gigs of ram. I have heard we can get it up to 3.4Ghz but there is no need for me to push it that much,

[levish]

I'd have deep seated regrets not running it at precisely 100-200 mhz under the speed that causes instability at 1.45vcore

but that's just me <.<;

500mhz @ 3000 is about 15% of performance missing with regards to cpu power in games

[mootsfox]

I'd have deep seated regrets not running it at precisely 100-200 mhz under the speed that causes instability at 1.45vcore

but that's just me <.<;

500mhz @ 3000 is about 15% of performance missing with regards to cpu power in games

Luckily that extra power in any game besides FFXI isn't noticed. Most games are GPU limited and a bump on the COU doesn't make a difference.

[Robert]

just curious but why is the E6600 still more expensive than the E8400, maybe someone can clear that up for me

[Avanarius]

They're not making it anymore, it was replaced by the E6550, and E6750 (or atleast until a E6650 comes around). So naturally they don't lower the price of the E6600 until they get more stock which they never will.

[mootsfox]

They're not making it anymore, it was replaced by the E6550, and E6750 (or atleast until a E6650 comes around). So naturally they don't lower the price of the E6600 until they get more stock which they never will.