Which of these Core 2 Deals is the best?

I would like to upgrade my current setup with an E4300 (OCed to 3Ghz).

I have a Evga 680SLI, not sure if it matters?

I will be using it for Development work and Gaming.

Please let me know which way to go and if possible the rationale.

I don't know where you're shopping, but they're all too expensive. Let's get a little more realistic, then ask the question.

Do you mean the best deal for the Retailer? Those prices aren't realistic.

I voted for the one I bought before the price drop, E6600.....

*walks away with head down in shame*

Tom's hardware cpu tests:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

the E6850 actually performs just as well, sometimes better than the Q6600. It's very close. People shouldn't automatically just jump to "quad core is better" without thinking about it. This is stock though, it's a different story overclocking.

I'm personally finding it hard to decide between the two. Some say E6850 and some say Q6600.

Have a look at the tests, then make a judgment again.

Thanks for all the replies.

I did indeed read the E6850 vs Q6600 THG article, but that is why I was asking the question.

Initially i was just going to get the quad but after the article I was not so sure anymore, psecially since my Dev Env does not take advantage of 4 cores :-(.

Also I do plan to OC regardless of which CPU to get. So looks like the E6750 might be the way to go cause, I dont think I will get much more performance from the Q6600 with a 40% price premium.

I really worry that the momemt I make that decision, a whole bunch of stuff comes out to support Quads.

Sorry I forgot to say, but those are Canadian dollars and of course real prices in Canada.

With all the comments about it being unrealistic, I wonder if it warrants a trip to Buffalo ;-)

EDIT ----------------------
Just checked the prices on Newegg and there is about a $20-$30 price premium on CPUs by shopping in Canada. I guess thats a good trade for free health care ;-) and certainly not worth the trip to buffalo.


I wonder what is the price diff, nw that the US and Canadian $ is pretty much on par.

Surprising that nobody caught this before. Yeah, the Q6600 will give you the same or lower performance than what you already have, in most programs. It will be a major improvement in some things like video encoding, but you probably don't do much of that. Another vote to wait for Penryn...

zenmaster, great reply. I am somewhat of a n00b so this is great info.

Yes I have a pair of Corsair Twin2x1024-6400C4. I run it unlinked at 4-4-4-12-2T at 800MHz.[/quote]

I did not realize that the E6750 would not give me almost any improvement.

So if I am going to buy anything it looks like the Q6600.

Off course I could wait for Penryn like aevm and bruce suggested. Not sure what that means in price or performance, but I'll do some research.

BTW, one thing I did not mention (because my son lurks around here) is that part of the reason for the new CPU is that I want to surprise him with a "budget" build using some new and some re-using parts from my build as I upgrade.

The quad isnt worth a penny more than $266. Dont forget, while there may be a few apllications that will actually push your cpu past 50%, none of them are free! Free stuff, like any nsoftware that uses the Lame encoder for example, does not take advantage of 4 cores. Get a dualcore and OC the crap out of it.

@ SpeedyVV. The penryn will give you huge improvements when it comes out. I would wait, the new core is a native quad and has lower tdp and 45nm and will allow for crazy overclocks.

e6750, the board you have can do the insane fsb needed, the chip can too, it will oc like a trooper, your board also has the 4:3 memory divider so you mayn't need as good ram to get there

MU_Engineer, thanks a lot for your informative reply.

I do a lot of development in a WinXP32 IBM\Rational environment using both RSA (Rational Software Architech) and ClearCase. Sometime I have to do this in a VMWare environment.

I have no idea what the limiting factor would be for such an environment or even if it takes advantage of multiple cores. I guess i could call support and find out ;-)

As for gaming, after doing some reading, I would have to agree that CPU is not my problem but my GPUs. I run 2 7600GTs in SLI for gaming.

For development work because I use 3 displays I need to use the 2 cards in non SLI. 2x20" at 1200x1600 and 1 30" at 2560x1600.

I would love to get a 8800GTX for gaming, but I would also need to get an 8600GT because I can't use a 7600GT with the 8800 under XP and I dont want to go Vista :-(