Power Requirement Q6600 vs E6600

i put quad in the cpu settings... should i use single?

yes, by putting quad your telling it you have 4x the quad 6600.

You won't need nearly a 1000W psu. My whole setup is only using about 350W max load according to my APC 1000VA UPS software which tells you how much power is being drawn out of it through the PSU, ect. I have an E6600 OC'd to 3Ghz, 2 GB ram, an 8800GTX videocard, 1x WD Raptor 10000 rpm, 1 DVD burner, fan controller, X-fi Soundcard, BFG Physx card. I plan on getting the quad core Q6600 myself after the price drop, but i don't think it will use more than another 50W. I'm using a 1000W PCP&C myself, but i think it's way overkill. I think a quality 550 would do just fine.

This is a question that has been asked many of times and I don't know if I ever found a clear answer myself. While everyone has clearly agreed that you do not select the quad settings, as you do not have four chips present, many have wondered if you are justified in selecting a dual setting.

I myself understand the argument for both and I don't know if I ever found a clear answer. This particular problem/question may be specific to the design of the calculator itself, remember, this isn’t directly provided by intel and may not be exactly accurate. Anyway, that being said, have tested the system under many conditions, one example was by keeping one CPU selected but changing between a quad chip, duo chip, and a single old Pentium chip processors. In each case there was absolutely no change in the power requirements. I wondered why to be honest, especially once you go from single to dual cores. If you read the spec sheet provided by intel on the Q6600 you can see an obvious difference in many of the voltages when compared against that of signal core processor E6600. That being what it is I would think you should at least some change in requirements. I do agree though that since you have only one chip and not two you are not actually drawing the same amount of power from the system just because you have two cores versus one core. Simply put, two independent chips have different requirements over one chip with two cores but two cores will have a different draw requirements over a single core.

Now what the draw is I don’t know, but to be honest, if you want to be safe, I would say set everything up as best you can, go back and select one chip, record the power requirements, then change the single chip settings from one chip to two chips, record the power requirements, finally, take the average of the two values. I would say that if you have a PSU at the average value then you are probably being safe.

Example 1 lets say, using a single chip setting calls for 430Watts, and when you change the settings to reflect two chips the power requirements just to 545Watts, than I would take the average, 488Watts.

Anyway, this is just my opinion on the situation. I figure it is always better to be safe than sorry, and in the end, just being reasonable with some of your assumptions can go along way.

Quick update,

I was reading a recent issue of PC Gamer, special edition (PC Game Building) and in there they break out Power draw differences from the E6700 to the QX6700 and it is just shy of being double. They list the Power Draw for the QX6700 as 125W and the E6700 as 65W. Now to me that is interesting given that when change the processors on the calculator the wattage draw does not change, yet if you change from one processor to two processors you see about the same jump mentioned in the article.

Anyway, just thought you may find that interesting, I think the calculator may need some updating, either that or the article needs a better QC department….

Try this psu calculator:
http://web.aanet.com.au/SnooP/psucalc.php

Not bad....

Thanks