which Intel Core Duo processor for my new system

[umster]

Hi Guy's

Which processor should I use for my new system and why? I'm not a gamer.

Uses: Movie editing, genral business use and surfing/ downloading. I want somthing FAST!!!

I would like to overclock this system as much as I can.


Intel Core 2 Duo E6750

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850

Intel Core 2 Quad-Core Q6600

Thanks

[staffsMike]

Q6600 is the best chip really. The new G0 stepping seems to overclock quite well and its a lovely fast chip.

Something about knowing you've got 4 cores..

[Andy3536]

The E6850 and the q6600 are vertaully the same price now, how much difference is there between them in performance?

[umster]

The E6850 and the q6600 are vertaully the same price now, how much difference is there between them in performance?

Very good question?

[Pup]

Take a look around at the many review sites, theres been quite a bit of talking about the new e6850, e6750's and comparisons to the q6600 due to its price drop. There was a really good comparison between those three and the extreme models, which i cant't seem to find now :s but essentially if you aren't using it for games, then i'd say go for the q6600 as the four cores tend to out perform the dual cores for applications, especially those that are designed to take advantage of quad cores.

This review of cpu's (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/cpu-ch...view-2351.html) is pretty extensive and should give you a good idea of what to expect.

[umster]

Take a look around at the many review sites, theres been quite a bit of talking about the new e6850, e6750's and comparisons to the q6600 due to its price drop. There was a really good comparison between those three and the extreme models, which i cant't seem to find now :s but essentially if you aren't using it for games, then i'd say go for the q6600 as the four cores tend to out perform the dual cores for applications, especially those that are designed to take advantage of quad cores.

This review of cpu's (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/cpu-ch...view-2351.html) is pretty extensive and should give you a good idea of what to expect.

Thanks for this link, it would be really good if you could try and find the other comparison link.

Best Regards

Umster

[acrobat]

Q6600 is the way to go. Although... if you where dead set against overclocking, then the E6850 is faster.

But the Q6600 overclocks very well, so you could make up the speed difference, and then you still have the benefit of 4 cores. Which I think will really pay off in the coming year or two. Currently, even dual cores are often not used to their full potential properly. But software is catching up gradually, and eventually, the software will be making full use out of multiple cores. And the Q6600 is the only one in that list which has 4 cores rather than 2 So assuming you are interested in games, there are going to be games eventually, like Alan Wake, which will use all the cores, and at that point, I think people who have a quad core will be thankful.

I wish I had one.

[umster]

Q6600 is the way to go. Although... if you where dead set against overclocking, then the E6850 is faster.

But the Q6600 overclocks very well, so you could make up the speed difference, and then you still have the benefit of 4 cores. Which I think will really pay off in the coming year or two. Currently, even dual cores are often not used to their full potential properly. But software is catching up gradually, and eventually, the software will be making full use out of multiple cores. And the Q6600 is the only one in that list which has 4 cores rather than 2 So assuming you are interested in games, there are going to be games eventually, like Alan Wake, which will use all the cores, and at that point, I think people who have a quad core will be thankful.

I wish I had one.

Thank you for your comments, I'm not a gamer, I will be using it for general busniess use, movie editing and surfing / downloading
so is this still the best for me... looking at http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/cpu-ch...view-2351.html it seems to me that the E6850 is the best for my use..correct me if i'm wrong.

Thanks
Thanks

[Pup]

Thanks for this link, it would be really good if you could try and find the other comparison link.

Found it It's an early review though (the first that I read) so there's tons more info out there since then. Gives some decent benchmark results, but then the other one I posted does too.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/cpu-me...E6850-E6750/p1

It just shows that it kinda depends on the software you are using as to which will give you the greater benefit. To give you an example, I remember seeing some other benchmarks where xvid encoding gave little difference, yet for divx (which presumably is better optimised to make use of the quad core) the quad core literally encoded in half the time of the dual.

[Pup]

... it seems to me that the E6850 is the best for my use..correct me if i'm wrong.

Not necessarily I know that some of the e6850 results look better than the q6600, but I imagine that is more down to the software not yet being optimised for quad cores. As more and more software gets updated to take advantage of the extra cores, you will notice the difference more.. my example above between xvid and divx being a good one.

I'm sure there are plenty more knowledgeable people on this forum who know better than me, I've just been reading the comparison sites a lot lately

[Dorza]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/cpu-ch...view-2351.html it seems to me that the E6850 is the best for my use..correct me if i'm wrong.

Thanks
Thanks

As soon as I read that someone will use their PC for movie editing, animation or other 3D stuff I would recommend they go the quad core route. The more cores you have for that type of work the better. Applications of that nature as way ahead of traditional applications/games when it comes to utilising multi-core/cpu systems.

It doesn't matter how fast a similarly priced dual core is, more cores = better in this scenario. Besides there is FAR better value in the Q6600, think about it for a second...you are getting TWO extra CPUs for the same price as the DUAL CORE E6850 plus I would argue that quad core will be more future proof, not at that means anything in this day and age .

[acrobat]

Thank you for your comments, I'm not a gamer, I will be using it for general busniess use, movie editing and surfing / downloading
so is this still the best for me... looking at http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/cpu-ch...view-2351.html it seems to me that the E6850 is the best for my use..correct me if i'm wrong.

Thanks
Thanks

Ahhh, not being a gamer does actually make a difference.

But still, this is a tough one to decide. The best decision for you, depends purely on firstly, what specific pieces of software you use, and then also on how the newer versions of those will work in the future.

The way it works is simple though. All software is sent to your processor to be processed. Most of it is sent in one stream, because its always only ever been processed by a single processor... But nowdays, some PC's have dual cores and quad cores, so the software is still catching up. If it splits its workload, and sends some stuff to one core, and some stuff to another core... then it makes really good use out of a dual core processor, and therefore, a dual core processor is usually better for that particular piece of software. (And then a quad core is even better still... because the software can break everything down into 4 streams, and then each stream of stuff has an entire processor core of its own to process it)

So you really need to know if the software splits up the workload into multiple streams or not. Its called being "Multi Threaded". Most software is way behind on this... but some stuff is keeping up to date. Games in particular are good at this, so thats why I suggested the Q6600 (quad core), if you where a gamer. Because games now and moreso in the future, will be more and more multithreaded, so will use multiple cores really well.

If all you did was browsing, downloading, and using MS Office, then I don't think multiple cores would pay off at all. In that case, you would be much better off with the first two chips you mentioned, because they are faster chips.

But some business related software is becoming gradually more multi-threaded, and quite a lot of applications are already making good use of the multiple cores. Like I said though, someone else will have to tell you which in particular. I may be wrong... but I'm sure I read somewhere that the later versions of Nero for example, is multi threaded, so makes good use of multiple cores. I would guess Photoshop is too, and id also guess that code compiling, video editing, video compiling and compression software, etc... is all multi threaded. And if not already, it will be soon.

So basically, the dual core chips are faster, and the quad core chip is only better if the specific pieces of software you use, would make good use of multiple cores. And the only way of knowing this, would be to list exactly what software you use, and then hopefully someone here will know if its multithreaded or not, and maybe people will know what the plans for the future is too. And if people didn't know, we could always just google together to find out. So the best choice depends purely on which software you use, and how that spreads the workload out.

One final important thing though..... is whether you would overclock or not? I haven't a clue which chip is best at overclocking, but other people here will be able to tell you that. But say for example, the Q6600 could be overclocked more than the other chips... then that would be the best choice. Because once its overclocked, it may end up at about the same speed as the other chips, BUT with the extra added benefit of it having 4 cores instead of 2. So we could do with knowing if you would be happy to overclock or not? Its not really difficult, but some people would not be happy to overclock for various reasons.

[umster]

Not necessarily I know that some of the e6850 results look better than the q6600, but I imagine that is more down to the software not yet being optimised for quad cores. As more and more software gets updated to take advantage of the extra cores, you will notice the difference more.. my example above between xvid and divx being a good one.

I'm sure there are plenty more knowledgeable people on this forum who know better than me, I've just been reading the comparison sites a lot lately

Thank you, it's all making sense now.

[umster]

Ahhh, not being a gamer does actually make a difference.

But still, this is a tough one to decide. The best decision for you, depends purely on firstly, what specific pieces of software you use, and then also on how the newer versions of those will work in the future.

The way it works is simple though. All software is sent to your processor to be processed. Most of it is sent in one stream, because its always only ever been processed by a single processor... But nowdays, some PC's have dual cores and quad cores, so the software is still catching up. If it splits its workload, and sends some stuff to one core, and some stuff to another core... then it makes really good use out of a dual core processor, and therefore, a dual core processor is usually better for that particular piece of software. (And then a quad core is even better still... because the software can break everything down into 4 streams, and then each stream of stuff has an entire processor core of its own to process it)

So you really need to know if the software splits up the workload into multiple streams or not. Its called being "Multi Threaded". Most software is way behind on this... but some stuff is keeping up to date. Games in particular are good at this, so thats why I suggested the Q6600 (quad core), if you where a gamer. Because games now and moreso in the future, will be more and more multithreaded, so will use multiple cores really well.

If all you did was browsing, downloading, and using MS Office, then I don't think multiple cores would pay off at all. In that case, you would be much better off with the first two chips you mentioned, because they are faster chips.

But some business related software is becoming gradually more multi-threaded, and quite a lot of applications are already making good use of the multiple cores. Like I said though, someone else will have to tell you which in particular. I may be wrong... but I'm sure I read somewhere that the later versions of Nero for example, is multi threaded, so makes good use of multiple cores. I would guess Photoshop is too, and id also guess that code compiling, video editing, video compiling and compression software, etc... is all multi threaded. And if not already, it will be soon.

So basically, the dual core chips are faster, and the quad core chip is only better if the specific pieces of software you use, would make good use of multiple cores. And the only way of knowing this, would be to list exactly what software you use, and then hopefully someone here will know if its multithreaded or not, and maybe people will know what the plans for the future is too. And if people didn't know, we could always just google together to find out. So the best choice depends purely on which software you use, and how that spreads the workload out.

One final important thing though..... is whether you would overclock or not? I haven't a clue which chip is best at overclocking, but other people here will be able to tell you that. But say for example, the Q6600 could be overclocked more than the other chips... then that would be the best choice. Because once its overclocked, it may end up at about the same speed as the other chips, BUT with the extra added benefit of it having 4 cores instead of 2. So we could do with knowing if you would be happy to overclock or not? Its not really difficult, but some people would not be happy to overclock for various reasons.

WOW!!!! Thank you for your comments, I enjoyed reading this...you have explained it really well.

I will get back to you with a list of apps I use.

once again thank you.

[gha128]

Would it be possible to create a list of multi threaded software & games?

[TMD]

Would it be possible to create a list of multi threaded software & games?

nicked this from another forum but its a good list

THE LIST:
Real-World Applications
3D Studio MAX using Mental Ray Renderer (>99 % of 4 cores)
Adobe Premiere Elements v3.0.2 (52-85 % of 4 cores depending on source type, filters, etc.)
AutoGK v2.40 (30-53 % of 4 cores depending on source type, filters, etc.)
Cinema 4d Rendering (>99 % of 4 cores)
Dr. DivX v2.0.0 (47-65 % of 4 cores depending on source type, filters, etc.)
DVDShrink v3.2 (~90 % of 4 cores)
Lightwave 3D (>99 % of 4 cores)
Nero Suite 7.x (>90 % of 4 cores when encoding)
Noise Ninja v2.13 (~80 % of 4 cores when doing the noise reduction on an image)
Sony Vegas 7.0e (83-100 % of 4 cores depending on source type, filters, etc.)
TMPG XPress v4.2.3.193 (65-100 % of 4 cores depending on source type, filters, etc.)
Winrar v3.70 (~85-90 % of 4 cores on benchmark; ~75% in practice)
x264 v0.55.663 (>99 % of 4 cores when doing the 2nd pass of a 2 pass encode)

Benchmark/Distributed Computing Applications
BOINC Clients (most of them) (>99 % of 4 cores)
Folding@home SMP client (>99 % of 4 cores)
Muon1 DPAD (~85 % of 4 cores)
OCCT (>99 % of 4 cores)
Prime95 v25.3 (>99 % of 4 cores)
wprime v1.50 (>99 % of 4 cores)

Games
Crysis