CPU Decisioin Quad or Dual Core

[Guyza]

Hi,

With July 21st a week away im finding it hard to decide on a CPU for my setup (p5n32-e sli MB, 2gb corsair xms2 ddr2-6400 RAM, nvidia 8800gtx OC Graphics Card) I had my heart set on a quad-core q6600 but now im not sure what to go for! To say i have a budget would be fair its around £200-£250 ($400-$500) for me! I could go a "little" higher who knows! After reading some forums saying that your not getting full use out of quad-core just yet and that dual-core is better for some games has made me unsure what to get! I was thinking maybe e6850, e6700, q6700 who knows! Id be looking for something great with up and coming games mainly crisis but at the same time also good at multitasking too! Was wondering if anyone out there could help me come to a final decision!

Also i have never overclocked before so maybe i could easily overclock a q6600 up a few notches to make the clock speed as fast as a qx6700??? Any help on this would be greatly appreciated aswell! Especially news of what i could get out of a stock fan!

Thanks

 

[schneimj]

If you are building a system for Crysis I would go with a quad for sure. From what i've read Crysis will be able to use all 4 cores so buying a Q6600 over a E6850 is a no brainer. With a $400-500 budget you could get a Q6600, pair it with a nice cooler like the thermalright ultra 120 extreme along with a scythe sff21f fan and still save a few pennies. With that setup you should be able to OC it to the same speed of the E6850 and have two additional cores.

 

[enewmen]

If you are building a system for Crysis I would go with a quad for sure. From what i've read Crysis will be able to use all 4 cores so buying a Q6600 over a E6850 is a no brainer. With a $400-500 budget you could get a Q6600, pair it with a nice cooler like the thermalright ultra 120 extreme along with a scythe sff21f fan and still save a few pennies. With that setup you should be able to OC it to the same speed of the E6850 and have two additional cores.

Where did you read Crysis can use quad-core? Thanks.

 

[ezmack]

same position as you.....i was trying to choose between E6600 or Q6600 and finally decided that by July 22nd if the prices for the 2 processors will be almost the same, i might as well go with the Q6600 since it will be future proof and after this build, i am going to cut back on the spending on computer parts....(maybe just water cool and get a better graphics card later on but thats about it)

 

[Aono]

Crysis, Supreme Commander, UT3

The only 3 games I know of that take advantage of it. I'm not convinced it's worth it yet, and I think it will take a while before multi-threaded games become a standard.

At the moment the E6850 beats the Q6600 in all games except the few multithreaded ones right?

Anyone know any good benchmarks showing the new high end dual cores vs the different quad cores, specifically on normal games and then multi threaded ones?

 

[turpit]

At the moment the E6850 beats the Q6600 in all games except the few multithreaded ones right?

Not correct. Be careful and dont let yourself be confused by all the kiddies saying quad core will run multi threaded apps faster than dual cores. There are different methods of multi threading, fine course and hybrid. Course will only take advantage of the number of cores its written for, so a multithreaded app (course) written for two cores will run no faster on a quad than a dual, except for backround apps being shunted to an idling core. Fine and hybrid thread may or may not take advantage. How do you know if an app is fine course or hybrid? You dont. The only thing you can do is look to see if an app is specifically optimized for quad. If it says optimized for 'multi core' that doesnt tell you a thing. An example of this is quake 4, which demonstrates a definate advantage on a dual core over single, but no significant advantage on a quad vs dual.

 

[Aono]

Soooo... basically Crysis is really the only game we know of that says it takes advantage of quad cores. And we don't even know how much of a performance gain it gives over dual core at the same speed.

So am I right in thinking that for the near future (1 year at least), for gaming we're still better off with faster dual cores over slughtly slower quad cores?

 

[ringtone]

Go with the Q6600 it's just a bit slower than the E6850, but it's fast enough to run any current game with a 2900 or 8800 CPU. Also, all future games thru 2008.
Just my opinion.

 

[Aono]

Also, all future games thru 2008.

Where are you getting this from?

 

[Harrisson]

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/243705-28-quad-core-games

 

[maverick7]

crysis will use all 4 cores, and i heard that right from the ceo of crytek

btw there is no point not to get a quad core quite honestly...

 

[Aono]

Take a look a look at these two benchmarks, Q6600 vs E6850:

Performance difference:
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3038&p=8

Game benchmarks:
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3038&p=15

Interesting benchmark, Q6600 vs E6850. What do you think?

Basically the E6850 performs 5-15% better in games apart from occasional quad core optimised games where it performs the same or slightly worse. However the E6850 performs better even on the two of the supposed quad core games, SupCom and HL2 multithread test. So... right now, for gaming, E6850 is better and will be for the near future.

Will be interesting to see Crysis and HL2:Ep2 benchmarks...

 

[ringtone]

Look, I,m still uses a P4 3.2, I can play any game to date. It's the GPU that really matters.
Just my opinion.

 

[deerhunter716]

e6850 runs at 3.0GHz also Compare that to the top line quad at 3.0 GHz and the 6850 is toast. EASY call = get a Q6600 and OC to 3.0 GHz and enjoy it for a few years.

 

[Dslyder]

Then again, you could always OC the E6850 to 4 Ghz with a good air cooler and blow the doors off a max OC Q6600 due to the heat differential.