Duo E8400 3.0 GHz or Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz?

[shadowcreaper]

It depends on your set-up.

If you got good graphics then you may find q600 will bottleneck the VGA in games, and games like crysis ect have proven this to be issue.

remember overclocking isnt going to make chip better just improve on what you got, a e8400 will allways be faster than q6600,overclocking just improves it, it like a person, you can train for years and beef up, but if you dont have good genes then you will allways have a limit to what you can humanly do.

personaly get e8400, overclockers best chip,though e8600 better though much more exspencive atm.

quad isnt realy best for gamers atm but in a few years quad will come though.

look at some reveiws and benchmarks, looking atm "visable" benchmarks best not just numbers

[polly69]

Here you go it shows the E8500 being murdered by the Q6600 the E8500 beats the quad when overclocked but thats with the quad at 2.4ghz stock if you overclock the quad it will kill it again no matter where you go on the net or what you read its everywhere that the Q6600 is the best cpu to get.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/intel_e8500/

About 8 months ago i was in you position with the same choise E8400,E8500 or the Q6600 i choose the quad after looking into it and am glad everyday that i did its an amazing cpu i have it running at 3.4ghz now and it has more to give it blows through task after task and as for bottlenecking ive never had that when running any game be it on my older 8800GT or my new 4850.

Scan have the E8500 on today only for £117 and the quad is aroud £110 theres no competition it has to be the quad like somone mentioned earlier the new E8600 could be the new king tests have had it running at some amazing speeds but for now they are expensive and few and far between and like always in a couple of months there will be somthing bigger and better than that as it stands for performance and bang for your buck you cant beat the Q6600.

[Buxton]

Just an update for those who are interested. Thanks for all the advice, was greatly appreciated even though i understand it's a bit of a toss up. I finally chose the quad with some decent bits corsair ram/psu etc and am trying out some o/cing. I know I said I wasn't going to but after reading the thread it really seemed the way to go.

I ran it yesterday at 300/2700 all night at 90%+ cpu and it was ok. Going to try 350/3.2 tonight, it's running at on average 48c at 95%+ load is that acceptable? Case/MB is reaching 33-41c.

One problem I have had is that with any o/c i try when i cold boot in the morning the bios won't boot without a restart and o/c again. Once it's run at stock speed and o/c'ed again it's fine, I can restart/shut down reboot as much as i like, it's just when cold. Any ideas on what's causing that? (It's a Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L/S3L M/B)

Thanks again for all the help.

[Blitzen]

It depends on your set-up.

If you got good graphics then you may find q600 will bottleneck the VGA in games, and games like crysis ect have proven this to be issue.

remember overclocking isnt going to make chip better just improve on what you got, a e8400 will allways be faster than q6600,overclocking just improves it, it like a person, you can train for years and beef up, but if you dont have good genes then you will allways have a limit to what you can humanly do.

personaly get e8400, overclockers best chip,though e8600 better though much more exspencive atm.

quad isnt realy best for gamers atm but in a few years quad will come though.

look at some reveiws and benchmarks, looking atm "visable" benchmarks best not just numbers

Sorry but you are SO wrong.
The Q6600 WILL NOT bottleneck any video card around today. If anything the dual cores will get bottlenecked way before the Quads.

Once at 3ghz, regardless of CPU, the difference would never be noticed. You are far too hung up on benchmarks.

[staffsMike]

Sorry but you are SO wrong.
The Q6600 WILL NOT bottleneck any video card around today. If anything the dual cores will get bottlenecked way before the Quads.

Once at 3ghz, regardless of CPU, the difference would never be noticed. You are far too hung up on benchmarks.

Havn't seen you around recently lol.

Not going to argue you with that though, you're bang on.

[Blitzen]

Havn't seen you around recently lol.

Not going to argue you with that though, you're bang on.

Disillusioned with the whole 'Hexus' thing so only drop by now and then now. I wont go into it here though as its not the time or the place and i will just get another slap.


I had to post this thread btw as it was drifting a long way off the 'factual path'.

[freddie]

i think either one would be fine, the difference would be minimal performance wise in games, especially if you overclock the q6600.

the q6600 is older and eats more power, but its still a good cpu and a decent cooler would keep it cool and quiet.

[Mithrandir]

Out of the two the E8400 should be the choice considering he stated he won't be overclocking, but both would be equally as good.

(Just read back and saw OP bought a quad)

[Beowulf1100]

Out of the two the E8400 should be the choice considering he stated he won't be overclocking, but both would be equally as good.

(Just read back and saw OP bought a quad)

Yes and overclocked it

[Bugbait]

Once at 3ghz, regardless of CPU, the difference would never be noticed. You are far too hung up on benchmarks.

Which is why you run yours at 3.6Ghz? For what? Brag rights? I run mine at 3.6Ghz because it's faster than 3Ghz, in subjective (yes, I notice in games) and synthetic (benchmark) terms.

[Mithrandir]

Yes and overclocked it

Indeed, and another convert who've now OC'd and will see the benefits I'm sure. Good one Buxton.

[shaithis]

Which is why you run yours at 3.6Ghz? For what? Brag rights? I run mine at 3.6Ghz because it's faster than 3Ghz, in subjective (yes, I notice in games) and synthetic (benchmark) terms.

Perhaps he's running at 3.6GHz for the apps that do make exceptionally good use of the extra speed.

Video encoding can see huge gains from overclocking on a quad. I am sure there are other applications that make exceptionally good use of multi-threading but video encoding is the one I am most familiar with.

[Bugbait]

Perhaps he's running at 3.6GHz for the apps that do make exceptionally good use of the extra speed.

Video encoding can see huge gains from overclocking on a quad. I am sure there are other applications that make exceptionally good use of multi-threading but video encoding is the one I am most familiar with.

Rereading Blitzen's response he may only be referring to games. It's still quite a generalization as it depends on the surrounding hardware, the game itself, and the settings used.

In regards to other applications, such as encoding I fully agree which is why I run my CPU at the highest "everyday" speed I can since every extra Mhz can help. My query is why make a statement saying that anything above 3Ghz is effectively pointless when you don't follow the advise yourself?

[shaithis]

Because he was talking about the point at which the CPU no longer becomes a bottleneck for todays video cards.

[Clunk]

'factual path'.

You found it eventually then?

[Bugbait]

Because he was talking about the point at which the CPU no longer becomes a bottleneck for todays video cards.

Hmm, in the general gaming context I do agree with this I guess .