Q6600 Vs E8500 for OC & Games

[Blitzen]

You could do with apologising for saying I changed my sig too! You seem to gloss over this though. You do not give any evidence in those posts just unfounded statements. I rest my case!

Just it im afraid. The numbers are there for all to see and you have no case.
BTW...i didnt just pluck the voltage from out of the air. (Unlike all of your imaginary evidence that no-one has seen).

Did you not even bother to look at my last post? In all those posts listedi stated facts. In only dropped to your level when you started your whining! The ONLY post you have made with any factual stuff involved is your 3D Mark 06 score, and that actually proves all of your arguing wrong by the score achieved.

Your whole case now has boiled down to the sig point. (and not at all important anyway as it transpires, even though its all you have left to hang on to).
You have tried the flaming - Got you nowhere
You have tried fact - you couldnt provide any
You have tried supposition - Seen through it
You have tried a benchmark, thankyou (only worthwhile thing) - Far from conclusive in your favour

What next?

Blatant lies such as resorting to saying I changed my sig to support my claims

Support your claims of what exactly? That the E8400, whether overclocked or not, isnt as good a value as the Q6600. I simply cannot see what the E8*** series have in their favour. Instead of this merry go round you have got me on, can you not just explain. I have tried to explain to you my argument. All you do is flame it back with no factual evidence.

You haven't said, shown, unveiled ANYTHING to the contrary.

Last time.......your overclock is very impressive, it really is!
The fact is though, as good as your overclock is, it's still is only a number and doesnt have any relation to 'real-time' performance.

THIS is what i have been saying all along and what you seem to find impossible to grasp.
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Right!!!!
Forget the flaming now please!

I would like you to tell me why the E8*** series core is better value for the Opening Poster than a Q6600 or Q9450.
The meor someone else can retort and it can all get back on track.

This needs to get back to topic.

[Biscuit]

yeah guys im sure u all have much more importaint things to deal with than this argument. Just agree to disagree and leave it

[Blitzen]

Just for the record, and as i said i would add another.
Here is the Q6600 at only 3.2ghz:

[Biscuit]

nicebackground

[iranu]

3dmark06 is e-peen. It is heavily dependent on the number of cores and certainly won't show real world performance unless 4 cores are actually being utilised.

The choice all depends on budget, what you utilise and how long you want to keep the chip for.

Btw heat is not an issue for 45nm cpu's until you start chucking ridiculously stupid voltages through them like 1.5+V. Their architecture and manufacturing materials are different to the 65nm chips and they just don't require water cooling for 4ghz clocks because they are more sensitive to voltage and you'll zap the chip before heat becomes an issue. I'm testing mine at 1.4V @ 4.165Ghz and it doesn't break 55°C loaded (lapped cpu and lapped TT BT). I could shoot for 4.5Ghz with 1.45V but I don't want to risk that - well maybe not yet.

If bang for buck then a E8300 at £112 is better value than an overpriced E8400 at £140.

[iranu]

nicebackground

InterfaceLIFT: Widescreen Wallpaper called trajectory.

[Biscuit]

Btw heat is not an issue for 45nm cpu's until you start chucking ridiculously stupid voltages through them like 1.5+V. Their architecture and manufacturing materials are different to the 65nm chips and they just don't require water cooling for 4ghz clocks because they are more sensitive to voltage and you'll zap the chip before heat becomes an issue. I'm testing mine at 1.4V @ 4.165Ghz and it doesn't break 55°C loaded (lapped cpu and lapped TT BT). I could shoot for 4.5Ghz with 1.45V but I don't want to risk that - well maybe not yet.

You may not 'zap' the chip but you probs wont get years of faithful service running at those kind of voltages.

[Blitzen]

nicebackground

Ta.
I change it alot as i gets a little dreary looking at the same one all the time.

3dmark06 is e-peen. It is heavily dependent on the number of cores and certainly won't show real world performance unless 4 cores are actually being utilised.

The choice all depends on budget, what you utilise and how long you want to keep the chip for.

Btw heat is not an issue for 45nm cpu's until you start chucking ridiculously stupid voltages through them like 1.5+V. Their architecture and manufacturing materials are different to the 65nm chips and they just don't require water cooling for 4ghz clocks because they are more sensitive to voltage and you'll zap the chip before heat becomes an issue. I'm testing mine at 1.4V @ 4.165Ghz and it doesn't break 55°C loaded (lapped cpu and lapped TT BT). I could shoot for 4.5Ghz with 1.45V but I don't want to risk that - well maybe not yet.

If bang for buck then a E8300 at £112 is better value than an overpriced E8400 at £140.

I agree....its is very synthetic. It does give you a very good idea though of how you components react with each other.

[iranu]

You may not 'zap' the chip but you probs wont get years of faithful service running at those kind of voltages.

Which is always the trade off with any overclocking, the question is how long a faithful service do you need. If a chip is designed to last 20 years and you overclock reducing the lifespan by half then you have to weigh up whether you will be using the chip still in 10 years time.

The real art of overclocking is to get maximum performance for that duration, the problem of course is that you don't know until you try, at which point it maybe too late. 1.4V is a 2.68% voltage increase on the 45nm and whilst that may sound tiny it's about as far as I'm prepared to go for 24/7 use. The thing is that these new chips have a different voltage/speed curve.

This excellent article is worth reading AnandTech: Overclocking Intel's New 45nm QX9650: The Rules Have Changed specifically this graph AnandTech: Overclocking Intel's New 45nm QX9650: The Rules Have Changed

Which is why I'm going to back down from 1.4V and 4.185Ghz to 1.365V and 4.050Ghz. I think that if you are overclocking with these new chips then getting a pen and some graph paper (excel) and plotting voltage V speed is a good idea to see where the sweetspot lies.

[Blitzen]

4ghz is plenty for anyone isnt it.

Thats why you have made the right choice and not pushed silly voltages into your CPU for 24/7 use.
Thats stupid when people do that as there is no real benefit.

I bet backing off those volts just the small bit you have, has increased the life of your CPU by a fair bit.

[Biscuit]

that is a good article, made things a lot clearer cheers iranu!

[Pleiades]

OP here. Thanks guys for interesting (if a bit heated in the middle) discussion. Am holding off until after Intel announces price cuts. Also waiting on new chipsets (P45 & X48) to see what effect they have on the market, may ask about that in a different thread...

Cheers!

[atmadden]

Just for the record, and as i said i would add another.
Here is the Q6600 at only 3.2ghz:

That is a very good score. Oh by the way when did you benchmark the E8400 in your rig?

[Blitzen]

I havent on mine.
A colleague has EXACTLY the same spec as me but went E8400 @ 4.4ghz

He gets just over 14K

(lets not start the flame again...lets make it a proper discussion )

[atmadden]

I don't intend to. I have just bought a Q9450 and another retail Q6600 and I am gonna overclock both of em to the max at safe voltages and see if my opinion changes. I am testing the Q9450 first and have it stable at 3.6ghz at 1.25v it does 15600 3d mark 06.