E8500 or Q6600

[onlypure22]

hey, just wondering whats a better processor....need to get one for mainly gaming...whats best???

Which one is easiest to overclock? i read that you can oc a q6600 to 3ghz just by changing the fsb to 333. also will i be able to get a stable overclock on the asus p5q p45 chip mobo?

please leave your thoughts....lol
thanks

[Salazaar]

You probably won't be able to see much difference between them in terms of real world performance in games. The GPU will make far more difference.

[SiM]

For today's game either will do as both are fast enough for the gpus of today...

[TAKTAK]

i would reccomend the quaddie, as it more of a future proof option and will perform around the same....

also, the quaddie is better for folding

[Stevo3000]

According to all the sources I've come accross on the internet there will be no noticable difference for gaming. I personally went for the E8500 due to it being a newer architecture. Now with the price having dropped down to about £150 they are looking better value!

[NovaSphere]

I'd go for the E8400 though (which I will in my new build xD)

[SiM]

the E8400/E8500 clock a lot higher than the quad, so are worth it if you want single thread speed...

[professorx]

whichever is best at overclocking....E8500

[staffsMike]

I wouldn't waste all that money on the E8500, E8400 maybe..

To be honest if I were to buy any 45nm dual core it would be the E7200. clocks well enough and produces more than enough speed for games right now and for the near future.

I'd buy a Q6600 if it were my money but I have uses for all the cores at the same time, if it's just gaming then get a dual, and a cheap one at that.

[LegacyOne]

The cost of the E8500 you could get the Q6700 or Q9300.

[Clunk]

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=349549 E8500 are worth the £130 in my opinion.

If you know that the software and games you use is definitely going to make use of the quad core, then go for it, but as others have pointed out, spend the extra on a better GPU and more RAM.

[Zhaoman]

the E7200 or E8400 are best bets for the price since they are both great for overclocking. Very few games can make use of 4 cores but the Q6600 wouldn't be a bad choice. With the current state of things, you can't buy a bad processor or a bad graphics card for £125.

[Salazaar]

also, the quaddie is better for folding

QFT

Get the quaddie and fold for Hexus!

[Lourdes]

According to all the sources I've come accross on the internet there will be no noticable difference for gaming. I personally went for the E8500 due to it being a newer architecture. Now with the price having dropped down to about £150 they are looking better value!

What sources are those? Even at stock speeds the only difference between a Q6600 and E8500 for games is if you run them at 1024x768, any higher and they're identical.

[amrit3568]

I would say get the E8500 as it overclocks higher.

[ezri]

E8500 I would not bother with, I would either look at the E8400 or the Q6600. It all depends what you want to do however. The E8400 would be better for games, the Q6600 better for video editing/photoshop/folding. Sod all games at the moment use a Q6600. I bought one 6 months ago under the advice of future proofing, but here we are 6 months later and still you can count games that use a quad core on a single hand. The extra 600 Mhz on the E8400, and the extra Penryn goodies make it better for gaming than a 2.4 Ghz 65nm quad core.

E8500 basically gives you an extra 166 Mhz over the E8400 and also a 9.5x multiplier instead of 9x. Overclocking, you'd reach higher amounts with the E8500 due to the 0.5x extra multiplier, but the difference is nothing to write home about.

There are a few games coming out in the next 6 months that will use a quad core, such as Spore & Alan Wake, however I'd still rather have the dual if all you are mostly getting it for is gaming.