Are quads worth getting?

[staffsMike]

Refocussing the thread a little towards the OP's needs. His update of requirements has suggested 3D modelling etc.. which obviously lends itself very nicely to a quad.

You could even game and render at the same time using two cores for each if you wanted to (and had enough RAM) lol

[SiM]

Sorry SIM but that statement is so completely wrong.
There is no way on this earth that at £130+, the E8400 is better value than the Q6600.

I can guarantee you that my gaming experience is every bit as good as someones with an E8400.

When thats coupled with the fat that the Q6600 is better at EVERYTHING else, how can you say the E8400 is better value.

It simply isnt.

Your Q6600 is overclocked.

I am talking about comparing stock E8400 (£126) with stock Q6600 (£136) at this year's games.... No multitasking, no folding in the background, no overclocking, no Q9450, no 3d rendering... Just gaming... I agree, if you do any of these then the Q6600 is better value

If anyone can show me a real life gaming measure of a stock Q6600 outperforming a stock E8400 consistently at gaming, then I will admit that I am wrong.

Refocussing the thread a little towards the OP's needs. His update of requirements has suggested 3D modelling etc.. which obviously lends itself very nicely to a quad.

You could even game and render at the same time using two cores for each if you wanted to (and had enough RAM) lol

Yup, the OP should get a quad, there is no disagreement there

[SiM]

Just ran a google search to see what the general consensus is.
e8400 vs q6600 gaming - Google Search

There are people arguing both ways but it does seem that the E8400 is the winner for gaming, even when taking overclocking into consideration as the E8400 can hit 4.2GHz+
E8400 VS Q6600 for gaming? - [H]ard|Forum
E8400 vs Q6600
AnandTech - E8400 vs Q6600 for $200

[Dr Cool]

WHen it comes to gaming you mayaswell go buy an e8200/e8400/e6750/e6550/E6850/E7200 and overclock it over 3.6GHZ

[Blitzen]

If anyone can show me a real life gaming measure of a stock Q6600 outperforming a stock E8400 consistently at gaming, then I will admit that I am wrong.

SIM fella...thats not what i said.
The E8400 has a VERY slight advantage in gaming, i know that already.

The fact is though, the increase is so minimal that its not even noticeable.
This is why i said that its was wrong to say the E8400 is better value.

Regardless of whether the OP wants a gaming machine or not, the Q6600 is still the better core value wise and longevity wise.

The Q6600 will do all he wants in todays games (more than the E8400 in tomorrows games), and if he decides to start doing other things aswell in the future, the Q6600 will do those better aswell.

Look at my rig...if i swapped the Q6600 for the E8400, can you honestly say my gaming experience would be better or worse. The answer is neither. I wouldnt even notice.

WHen it comes to gaming you mayaswell go buy an e8200/e8400/e6750/e6550/E6850/E7200 and overclock it over 3.6GHZ

Why when the q6600 is practically the same prices as all those. Thats a real false economy.

[Bugbait]

There will always be those that swear by quad cores. It's like having a Porsche just in case you decide to drive more spirited or just in case you take it to a track.

If you spend 99% of your time gaming and surfing that web like a lot of my friends then do you really need a quad core CPU? For those who claim that there is no noticeable gaming difference between a stock Q6600 and E8400 then I suggest you check again. I noticed a difference in CNC3 and WoW (sorry, that's all I play at the moment) between my Q6600 @3.6GHz and E8200 @4GHz. The minimum framerate in WoW was the big one especially in densely populated zones.

Sure, you can overclock most Q6600's to 3.6Ghz+ but that's not on stock cooling. Compare that to the E8400 on stock and see what you get, about 3.4-3.6Ghz?

Futureproofing? If you make good use of 2 cores then a quad is clearly the winner for "the future". If you rarely multitask and don't run a lot of background applications then dual will likely suffice for years to come. Although I see the clear advantages in quad cores I don't think they're the best solution for everyone, especially those that don't overclock or multitask.

[Gr44]

Forged Alliance _does_ make use of extra cores.... that would be nice to see some benchmarks on that game...

I'd vote quad core anyway, Q6600 is the best 'investment' imo.

[aidanjt]

People going bug-eyed over benchmarks are deluding themselves, nobody uses the bare minimum of Operating System and Application software that's used for benchmarks. Yes, the E8400 only *just* manages to beat the Q6600 in benchmarks, but in real world use, the coin flips around. Every gamer I know, has at a minimum, of Firefox (often with flash ads, or players embedded in pages), {Skype,Ventrillo}, {Live,Yahoo,AOL,Google} IM clients, Steam, and a variety of other software such as AV, AS, as well as other security software running under the DX/OGL overlay. Always treat benchmarks with scepticism, they are almost never indicative of real world performance. In the real world, the additional software load (and general bloat of some of them), will certainly render the E8400's extra MegaHurtz irrelevant as they eat into game engine ticks. The MegaHurtz == better myth has been dispelled long ago, let it stay dead, and put this matter to rest.

[dangel]

At higher res' i'm limited by my GPU - so there's a law of dimishing returns in having a faster core dedicated to the game's process. That's why my quad sits at 3ghz - i just don't need the extra mhz for gaming. period.
However, in the real world, i'm often running tens of other processes concurrently - and having them not needing to steal from the game is such an obvious benefit to me. Stuff the benchmarks - it's just common sense that tells me that having an OS that's built for multicores, running lots of system processes AND third party apps WHILST playing a game is a good thing. That and the fact the system never ends up being unresponsive (comparitively) too.
More cores is good. But the choice is yours..

Used to have single core. Used to do the dual thang. Now on quad - and yes, I do think it's better for it.

[DanceswithUnix]

This thread is funny, it is just like some time-warp discussion of whether dual core is worth it or do you spend the money on an FX-57 as that gives the ultimate frame rates

Programmers do enough competative willy waving that the world does actually catch up before too long. Not as fast as we would like perhaps, but it does catch up.