Hi,

My current comp is way out of date (had it since 2001). It is very very slow now, so its time to build a new system.

I would like to buy a computer now, and would likely get the E6600 as a CPU. However, ppl and news sources say that Quadcore is the CPU to get and is gonna be the standard as soon as it becomes affordable.
Since Intel apparently announced a significat price reduction for their quadcore processors, is it wise to delay my purchase of the comp for another 2 months so I can get the Q6600 for half price?

Is it unwise to rush and get a system right now with E6600 which is affordable and is quite fast.

PS
I'm not a big gamer and not planning to play games such as Crysis. Although I do play games and would not want to upgrade my system in one year for example for a Quadcore processor+ a new motherboard.

Replies would be cool!

What do you do with your PC?

you have the same dilemma as I am not a long time ago (April), where I just learned that the Q6600 price would be dropped to the same price level as my E6600 (I bought it for US$240), I think it would be safe for everyone of us if you have the patience just wait for July 22nd and grab the Q6600, even if you're not a gamer, for current games (pre-half 2007) the Q6600 and E6600 would give about the same performance since games aren't already optimized to use more than one core (except Quake 4 patch 1.3 maybe), they're clocked at the same level 2.4 GHz. But as for myself, had I known the price of Q6600 would drop to E6600 level, I'd wait and grab the Q6600. The Q6600 would give a processing power headroom for future application (that depends on the application type though such as audio/video editing, CAD, 3D apps etc) that has been recoded and recompiled to use multi core CPU. Hope this helps. (PS : I planned to grab Q6600 myself and transfer my E6600 to newly built econo rig for my staff work needs)

You say you'd like to buy a computer now.

Build it? or buy a prebuild?

Any OC considered?

If you have the cash to burn, the E6600 should be a solid CPU, ran stocked or OC.

On the other hand, even a cheaper version (E4300) can be ran at the same speed.

As long as you do your research on the MB, you should be able to even upgrade to a quad later on, if you feel the need for more cores.

If you don't need it right away, I do agree to wait some more for the prices to come down. You do have allot of options to choose from, but what really fits your needs and then some should be that matters.

Not only will the Q6600 be cheaper, but a new line of C2D will be out that will be cheaper as well. If memory serves me correctly, you can get the X6850 for the same price as the Q6600, but it's 2 cores clocked at the X6800+ speeds.

But if you must must get a new computer now, get a E4300 with a good motherboard. Then when the price drops, sell the 4300 and get a good replacement CPU. You will lose ~$50-100 by doing this but think of this as $25-50/month of usage.

It's a total no-brainer. Intel tells us they are going to make big (I mean big) price cuts. OK....so we don't buy anything from Intel until after the price cuts. 10-4

I think unless you like to upgrade pretty often, it's great to buy that quad at the $266 price point coming.

That's something we can admire Intel for.

same here, i am also waiting for the price cuts from Intel but my dilemma is whether to get the Q6600 2.4Ghz 1066fsb quad core at the new price point or the new E6850 3.0Ghz 1333fsb dual core at the same price point.

Thanks all for the replies!

I would like to get (build) a new comp. This will be my first build.
My current P4, 256mb ram system is VERY slow. No HDD space, not enough memory for current applications or even websites, which take forever to load. :x

I like to play games, but not necessary a graphic enthusiast. I am not planning to invest into a $400 graphic card (more like $199). Im enjoying more games such as: NFS, FIFA, STALKER, COD, Company of Heroes. Of course GTA IV would be nice if it would come out on PC. In addition, I would like to get the optimal Internet browsing/applications experience; basically, no lags, slow loading webpages due to graphics or slow running progs which all annoy me very much.

I would like to avoid to constantly upgrade my PC. I just like to upgrade the storage hardware (HDD, optical drives).

Sounds by the replies that it is better to wait another 2 months and then get the Q6600. I just hope that the price of motherboards that will support the Quadcore CPUs will be decent as well.

Like I mentioned, just do your research on the MB for future upgrades.

For example, I did a build for my old pops b-day. I got him a MSI P6N SLI MB for $113 bucks at the time. Even looking up the MB now, I see it will support quad core. So my dad could upgrade to it if he really wanted to.

MSI P6N SLI

[code:1:644aa47cfd]
Core2 Quad (65nm, L2 Cache)
Kentsfield Q6400 2x4MB (2.13GHz) sample 1066 8 OK
Kentsfield Q6600 2x4MB (2.4GHz) 1066 9 OK
[/code:1:644aa47cfd]

So I'm just saying look at your options when choosing a MB, it will be the most important part of your build, as well as the features it supports, for example over clocking.

Just for perspective, most of your current slowness in general comes from having only 256MB ram (if you have at least Windows XP or newer) and worse that's in combination with presumably an older (slower) hard drive. When your computer doesn't have much running web page slowness is often from having a slow ISP. But....Norton Antivirus is notoriously slow and demanding for older computers also. If you have a fast broadband connection, that another computer or laptop can surf fast on, then you'd know it's entirely your computer. But to test it with your current computer you could close everything but 1 internet explorer window open only (shut down Norton, etc), then your page loading speed (at a variety of sites, and over a couple of hours) should show you something about your ISP speed (once your computer has been on an hour and finished automatic updates and such).

One strategy before your upgrade, if you want to use your computer a good bit until then, and also sell or give it to someone for continued use, is a cheap RAM ($30) increase like this (this one is DDR (but you might need SDram instead!), and don't worry about matched pairs which is much less important than just getting above 512MB):


DDR:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820161615

or SDRam instead (256 or 512 at newegg)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] rchInDesc=

I seriously have no clue as to why my current comp is slow. For example, when I watch a streaming video online, it loads fine, but once I move the mouse cursor, the video is buffering and sluggish (like slow motion). I guess this should be a post in a different forum, not in CPU discussion, so I'll leave it at that.

I wouldnt want to invest into SDRAM for my current comp.
From what I understand based on the replies, it is smarter to wait 2 months and get the Q6600.
Buying something like E4300 right now with an expenisve mobo that will support quadcores CPUS will probably be expensive. Maybe the mobos that will be available in 2 months will support DDR3 in addition to quadcores..

Don't worry too much about DDR3, right now it's slower than DDR2 and much more expensive. This will change, but not that soon. There are some interesting articles about the P35 chipset and DRR3 at www.anandtech.com if you want to know more about this.

I got a related question for the experts: would you buy the Q6700 for $530, or the Q6600 for $266? Please assume no overclocking...

I wouldn't, it all depends on what you do with your system. If you use a lot of multithreaded applications, do a lot of Photoshop or whatever, then you might want one. The only reason other than that for getting one is just to tell your friends you have one. For the average gamer and PC user I would be more inclined to suggest the E6850, that will be a superfast chip and should run almost half as hot as the quads. More than enough power to run anything well. I know you said no OC'ing but the E6850 should overclock like a champ, just one more reason. I'm going to wait for the 45nm quads before I think about 4 cores.

Well scenario A costs $32 and speeds you up noticibly for the moment (I'm confident having only 256MB is slowing you down in a big way), and then you go ahead and build a new system with the quad core in a couple of months or whenever.

The E4300 cost -$32 is the cost difference between scenario A and B.

While the quad would some day be less than the $266, that could be a ways off, hard to say.

So you have a lot of options of course. I'd go scenario A: $32 now, and build in a couple of months with a quad.

That said, there's nothing wrong with scenario B: build now with the e4300. You'll find the performance quite pleasing, and you can put off the quad for a while longer I bet. I wouldn't be surprised if you put off the quad a year if you did that scenario, because you'll find the e4300 performance quite satisfactory (with 2GB ram), especially if you overclock.