Good article, it took a long time to read. It's nice to see that AMD (with the 6000+ at least) still has fairly a competitive product. It clearly shows that quads are the future and as more programs take advantage of them the will leave dual cores in the dust, anyone who was wondering Q6600 or E6850 just needs to read that. Good job.

Exactly right there AUsch30 -- just get a Q6600 and OC it to 3.0 GHz and you got all you need for a damn long time. No need to spend the $$$ on the Q6700 or QX6800. Especially with more and more games headed for multi-core use just look at the Supreme Commander benches - the quads RULE!!!

And like you zenze I have been reading a LONG time. I got bit by the 939 not being upgradeable to dual. I like AMD, but have never built an Intel system.

Am I reading the article right that a currently available AM2 6000+ running on a Nvidia 680I chipset WILL work on that socket with a future AMD Quad due out in next 6 months? So that the only thing I have to change would be a bios flash and the new quad dropped in to the existing MB, etc.

Trouble is E6850 and Q6600 are the same price.

The way I see at the moment is this when choosing between them:

1. Are you a gamer?
If yes then go to 2.
If no then get a Q6600.

2. Will you be mostly playing current gen and last gen games or next gen games?
If Current + Last gen get a E6850 (5-15% better than Q6600 in this area)*
If Next gen get a Q6600 (Up to 80% better than a E6850 in this area)*

*Percentages very rough guestimates based on the benches I have seen so far... there will always be exceptions though.

...not really true if you consider overclocking and cooling. To overclock them to the same speed (which you won't be able to do - the Duo with it's new G0 stepping will clock much better than the older stepping Quad), would require a more expensive cooling solution on the Quad, making it more expensive, overall.

I guess I see it a bit differently than listed above, for a few reasons...

- if you have a few apps (be it games, 3D rendering, media encoding, folding, whatever) that you use often and can already take advantage of multiple cores and you don't mind your system running hotter/slower for everything else - then get a Quad.

- Otherwise, the newer stepping Duos are more than capable for most users needs for the next few years, will overclock higher, run cooler and cost less at the same time.

- 80% better?? That's either highly specific to some game where it won't mean an 80% better playing experiance to start with or just highly unrealistic. Game developers will start migrating to running more threads where it makes sense, but they can't start writing games that require a Quad to run. Either way, this migration will take time. I'd consider "80% better" to be the exception, not the rule . But hey, check back with me 3-4 years from now and I might agree.

...I expect the picture to change with favor swinging more towards Quads, a little bit once they get a newer stepping and again once the move to 45nm is made (lower power consumption, less heat), so if you think you could utilize a quad, it might still be better to wait if you're not in any hurry.

So, theoretically; crysis will run better on the E6850? since supreme commander also uses 4 cores; why does it run faster on the Duo?

or am i just getting all crosseyed?

From what I saw in the charts the Q6600 was slightly slower in most benches than the E6850 and the benches in which it was faster it beat the pants off it. If you plan on getting a 45nm quad when they come out I would say go for the E6850 but if you plan on keeping the CPU for a few years the quad would be the better choice.

Yeah, I thought I read that the Q6600 was getting the G0 stepping as well, but I don't remember where now. Personally, I do 3D rendering/modelling for a living and do folding as well, so my next cpu upgrade will be a Quad, but I'm more interested in what the situation will look like with the Oct. (or even Feb. 08) price-cuts than the July 22nd ones. Hopefully by then the quads will be on the new stepping and we should have a better picture of what the Intel 45nm chips and AMD offerings look like.

Here are a couple links that provide a bit more information on next weeks prices.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] spx?i=3038

htt p://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=8065

Enjoy

Of course... but what's that got to do with how well the Q6600 will perform relative to the E6850?

Update your article. Its out of date.

Intel 965, 975, Officially supports 1333FSB CPU with BIOS update as of today.

http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=7866

And I noticed the absence of my FX60. Surely its better than a lot of those celerons and such. It may only be an old fashioned 939 cpu, but its still fairly quick, especially when overclocked to 3.1 ghz.

That quad cores will out perform a faster dual core is a common misconception, and one that has been promulgated relentlessly by the 'wide eyed' tennie bopper crowd that is overcome by the 'more is better' theory, but dont understand multi threading or advertising.

Saying that an app is multithreaded or optimized for multicore does not mean it will give better perfromance for a greater # of cores. There are at least 3 ways (that I know of) to write multithreaded programs; fine, course and hybrid. Depending on which method is used to write a given program, that application may or may not see improved performance by increasing core #.

In the case of course threading, it will give you the best overall performance increase of the 3 methods, but a thread must be writen for each core...meaning a course threaded app written for 2 cores will see no improvement by going to 4 cores. It will not scale.

Fine threading on the other hand will scale, but will not give the same performance boost that course threading will. So a fine threaded app will not run as fast on 2 cores as the same app would if it were written in course, but the fine threaded app will improve in perfromance with more cores, up to the point it runs out of individual loops to process.

Hybrid threading combines the two methods and like fine threading will make scale up on more cores, but also like fine threading, does not give as good a gain as course threading.

So, when an app is advertised as making use of, or optimized for mulitcore, it doesnt mean it will scale up in performance for every core added, only that it will use more than one core. Of course, most kiddies see 'optimized for multicore' and just assume it means the app will take as many cores as you can throw at it. Those same kiddies then proceed to run around the internet crying 'buy the quad, buy the quad, it rulz' but as the test results show, clockspeed is still important.

Something to consider. Dual core processors have been around for awhile now. Apps that make use of dual core (with the exception of the heavy data crunchers like 3d rendering, video editing, encoding ect) havent exactly been been 'raining' down upon us. There are a handfull of upcoming big title games that will make use of quad core, but these are only a fraction of apps currently or soon available. But because these games are highly anticipated, and highly hyped, they are getting a lot of attention, making it seem as if every new app to be released is going to be quad capable. Just not true. Trust the benchmarks, not the stuff you read in the forums.

The article was refering to official Intel support, and by da ways, Intel cant stop 3rd party manufacturers if they want to make a mobo based on their chipset officially support what ever they see fit. Remember when 915 chipsets were made compatible with the pentium D proc?

If you do not argee with me, then try calling Intel Tech Supp.

In other words the article is not outdated.

Cheers

I'm planning a build right now and will buy the CPU after 7/22. I too have been torn between the E6850 and the Q6600. I was leaning towards the Q6600 until Tom's posted their latest CPU charts. In almost every benchmark the E6850 beat the Q6600.

turpit said it well:

I think you have to know what you use your PC for to make a good decision on whether to get a dual or quad core. In my case, I do some gaming, a pinch of video editing, some development, and office applications. So now, after seeing the new CPU charts, I am definitely going with the dual core. It will suit what I do better than the quad. In addition, the new 45nm chips are soon to hit the shelves so all of a sudden the current chips are last generation. I figure the dual core will suit me just fine for a few years until more software is out that will properly utilize quad core chips and at that time I will just upgrade my chip when it makes sense to do so.

Cheers.

The nVidia 680I chipset is for Intel processors, The nVidia 680a chipset is on AMD's dual socket L (AMD's quad ). If you want SLI on a AM2 platform you will have to get the nForce 590SLI chipset.
Good luck getting a AM2 processor to fit in a LGA775 motherboard.

I got a big hammer that says it will fit

No guarentees that it will ever power up, but it will fit, one way or another.

Many thanks for this article

I'm currently on an AMD 64 3800+ which is adequate for most things but is starting to drop behind in games. As this is what I mainly use it for, I've been doing some research into upgrading for about 8 weeks now.

Looks like the E6850 is the way to go, I was very much considering the Quads but I mainly play HL2 mods so I wouldn't make real use of them. Now I just need to get the cash to make the upgrade

Then the article should state that in the first place. Other wise it gives false information and/or misleading.

I'm on a 7600GT at the moment but upgrading to an 8800GTX when I buy the CPU

Not 100% on the board yet but looking at an Enermax Galaxy 850W and probably a Zalman Cooler, still undecided on that as well

Another way of looking at the choice between Q6600 and E8850:

In all games that are out today Q6600 will give you enought preformance to enjoy the gameplay to the fullest. On the other hand in most of the future games they claim to have an "optimised" support for Quad CPUs. In 2006 chairman of Remedy went as far as claiming that they got Alan Wake to the point where they can use one core just to calculate physics. I couldn't find any detailed info on what they mean by Quad core support in games besed on new Crytek/Unreal engines or even an "optimised" Valve engine but if they can use the extra two cores for physics and AI E8850 will plainly fail vs Q6600.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j6rR-Xv2Ro

Some here have said that you have to trust benchmarks but all benchies in toms review are based on pretty much outdated games, Q6600 doesn't lag that far off behind the E8850 in Supreme Commander and in the review on anandtech E8850 falls behind Q6600 in Cave and Equals in Snow tests.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] i=3038&p=1 5

I belive that it all comes down to your expectations. If you expect the gaming industry to find a way to REALLY USE Quads in the upcoming titles like UT3/Crysis/Wake and/or you work with apps benefiting from Quads - you hit Q6600. If you think that gamedevelopers are slow on the uptake you hit E8850 and live with fear that you might be wrong And overcloking pretty much comes down to the same. If you overclock E8850 to 5 Ghz and Q6600 to 4 but your game/aplication has the ability to use all 4 cores it will be a total 4 Ghz increase for E8850 vs 5.36 Ghz increase for Q6600

* I was addressing the question of Q6600 vs E8850

I do work with a lot of "what ifs" and "supposed" facts but lets review what we know to be true facts:

Compared to E8850:

- Q6600 has more proccesing power if all 4 cores are used.
- Q6600 does it's part much better in games already released in 2007 (Lost Planet, Supreme Commander)
- Q6600 cannot be overclocked to the hights of E8850 but as far as four core applications go the benefit of 4 slighty less overclocked cores will outway the benefit of 2 overclocked cores. ( I only belive the latter to be a fact because of simple math ( as E8550 oc @ 5 Ghz will give us 2 * 5 = 10 Ghz vs Q6600 @ 3.5 * 4 = 14 Ghz), but there might be factors I am not aware of)
- Many of the upcoming titles such as UT3 + all games running U3 engine, Crysis + all games running new Crytek engine, Alan Wake claim to be Quad core friendly but noone is willing to tell us to what extend... (those games are not years but month away)

and that brings us back to where I've started:

* The answer of choice (for gamers) between the Q6600 and E8550 lies in eather you bet on game manufactures ability to utilise all cores in near future or their failure to do so and to that we do not have an answer based on solid facts.

PS: It's cool that people still play CS 1.6 but will you be better off with 150 FPS with E8850 then with 135 FPS with Q6600? Same counts for most of todays games ---> Q6600 should deliver you a cool gaming experience in any modern game.

PS2: Another two facts:
- I have not yet seen one site that would give a satisfactory prediction or even a guess in how the future gaming will/won't be boosted by Quads. My guess is that they have no solid facts to work with and are afraid to give guess as thier reputation in on the line.
- with a lot of howevers, buts and ifs, Anandtech went for Q6600 in the end

Socket 939 IS upgradeable to dual-core (Opterons + X2s) - unless you have an unusual motherboard?

Yes, the older stock will need to work it's way out of the market. If you want to be sure to get a G0-stepping, you could get on TankGuys list.

from the test result chats, i see the cpu, e6650.
i don't think e6650 is existed.