Core 2 Duo V's Quad

Dont expect any QC intel products this year to carry anthing less than a $999 price tag in the consumer end of things. I say go with the E6700 system now unless you can save another ~500 dollars for the QC chip.

I don't intend to de-rail this topic - or to go on too much of a tangent - but why would you suggest the E6700? I realize the E6800 is an Extreme Edition release (ergo - very expensive for the benefit), but I thought the E6600 was more than enough for most gamers and enthusiasts.

Of course there is no such thing as too much power - but is there any other intrinsic value to the E6700? Please advise.


Cheers.

A perfectly good question. Any debate on this is good for me bcause I need to make decisions.
I chose the E6700 because it was at the top end of my budget for the processor. (I had originally decided on the AMD X2 4800).
The E6700 seemed to be a good choice because it (apparently) kicks the 4800's butt and it is around my price.
I guess, though, reading the first reply to this thread, that there isn't likely to be an Intel Quad around the same price but with better spec.

P.S. I'm not really interested in a Mac because there seems to be a big premium to pay for the name and I don't have the budget. Tell me if I'm wrong.
I re-emphasize that this system is for music production so has to be setup for lots of plug ins, multitasking, low latency etc. I would venture to suggest a more powerful system than one for gaming (notwithstanding the graphics card).

I suggested it because it was his original choice which he was second guessing with quad-core.

I recommend Gigabyte's GA-965P-DQ6 motherboard that will support quad core. If it is in your budget, go with the E6700 and upgrade later on. If you can't afford both the E6700 and a quad core, then just get a cheap Conroe now (or a really cheap P4) and upgrade to quad core later. This way you have platform that is ready for quad core now but you can enjoy Conroe until then.

You'll want a 'more powerful rig than gaming' in some ways, not others.

You dont need much of a gfx card, hell integrated gfx would do.

You want low latency RAM, this is more important than speed of said RAM. I'd even consider trying it running at 1:1 with the FSB, meaning dual channel DDR2-533 (which has a 266mhz clock, the same as the e6700 which uses 266 quad pumped), if you get some decent faster modules you could declock it and reduce the CAS latency, and see which is better for you.

You'll want a reasonable CPU, the e6700 would be plenty

You'll want fast hdds with a low seek time, this again is about latency. I'd consider two or three raptors on a RAID-0 array, even if it means spending a little less on the CPU (e6600?)

The creative X-Fi sound cards are pretty damn good but as a music person you probably know more about the various specialist options here than me, that can be better for professional music production, there are even models availible with valve amps rather than transistors, whereas X-Fi is in alot of ways focussed on taking all sound processing load itself to allow the best frame rates in games etc, alot of the professional music production cards will rely on the CPU a little more, but you are after low latency, not high framerates  

actually, memory latency really doesnt matter with C2D. It's not worth the premium you have to pay for 1% increase in performance. What really matters is how much you have. Extra money that would be spent on "gaming" ram would be better invested in more of it.

I really appreciate all of you guys' suggestions. Thanks for taking the time. Keep 'em coming.  

For quad core, you need to KNOW you need quad core.
Such as, do you want to play a high-end game, encode lots of MP3s, and burn a DVD at the same time? Run 2-3 computers at the same time off one chip? Use VM-Ware a lot?
Anyway, you can't go wrong with the E6700. Then you KNOW if you need more down the road.
In any case, I think the quad-code is more future-proof. Today's software can't do much with more than 2 (or 1) cores, but that will change a lot next year.
I am personally waiting for quad-core because my P4 can still play Oblivion and encode Divx (at it's own pace). I need to wait for Dx10 Crysis which seems able to actally use all that power.