E6850 vs. Q6600: faster clock speed or quad core?

With titles like Crysis, UT3, and Alan Wake supporting four cores, I think the Q6600 would be the better choice.

The E6850 does better at games because it is running faster and games are not optomised for 4 cores.

The quad does better at apps because the apps ARE optomised to use all 4 cores, and the extra 25% core clock speed of the E6850 cannot make up for the sheer horse power of the quad cores.

Although you amy want to have the quad for when the games ARE optomized for quad.

What is the "more" important aspect to you, the work or the gaming? Is higher FPS more importand then having your computer doing its "work" 25% faster. And what is 25% faster really? If in reality, it is only saving you 10 minutes over the whole day, then hell go for the FPS. Those are the questions your decision needs to be based on. And besides, a good video card will certainly have a better impact on gaming then the CPU. If your FPS is not CPU capped then one or the other CPU will not make a very noticeable differance anyways.

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3...

Thanks for the link to that Anandtech article; I couldn't ask for a more in-depth reply to my question!

One question I have about the advantage in 3D apps like Max is whether that advantage only appears when rendering something, or whether it also appears when modeling. Rendering is time-consuming, but it's not something I do all day long. Modeling, on the other hand, is a big part of using any 3D program like Max, Maya or ZBrush. Do you suppose the quad-core's features are used in modeling, or is that more akin to gaming, where FPS is king?

well in todays games the E6850 (DualCore) wins QuadCore , but games like crysis or the next unreal will utilize quad core for gaming ,

since the only thing slowing down your gaming would be the clockspeed and *maybe* the fsb, remotely, far-fetched, so, get the q6600 and OC it to 3ghz, best of both worlds.

When THG tested, they were able to OC the Q6600 extremely close to what they could OC the E6850. The result is that the tests that the E6850 won, were so close that there would not be a perceptible difference. However, anything that could use 4-cores, then the Q6600 would destroy the E6850.

Vote: Q6600

I went with the E6850 simply because I do not use the apps that would benefit multi-core. Multi-core optimized games will still be sparce for the next couple of years that by the time I am ready to upgrade again what we have now will look pitiful. I have never really been one to "buy for the future", I always buy for right now. For now, I am very happy with my choice but your mileage may vary with your computing lifestyle. Good luck on your decision!

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the E6850 easily OC's to 3.6GHz with little effort and very little extra heat.

E6850 OCs better than Q6600 ,(according to what i have read here and other places)

Since you have had many answers to your question I will just give my vote of the Q6600 and strongly suggest that you take that route.

Best,

3Ball

Note: The E6850 and E6750 will OC about the same.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/08/extreme_fsb_2/pa...

These charts or those at other sites will show that the E6750 or E6850 will have a very small advantage under the best of circumstances or finish very far behind in others.

If you run Max and zBrush, the Q6600 should be a no brainer???

The Q6600 also overclocks easily above 3.0Ghz if thats your benchmark speed and of course it will run warmer it has twice the cores and cache of the E6850, why wouldn't it??? It begins to have more thermal related problems above 3.6Ghz, but currently most Core architecture chips do unless special binned and very well cooled.

Thanks for all the great replies! I'm leaning toward the Q6600 because, as the previous poster said, I do use Max and ZBrush a fair bit. I just wasn't sure if the quad core advantage manifested itself only in rendering, or also in 3D modeling. 3D modeling can be a bit like running a game.

I worry about keeping either chip cool. I assume neither chip should be run with the stock HS/F if one has ideas of overclocking. Are there "cooler" motherboards to consider? Asus's Striker Extreme is interesting; it might tempt me to try overclocking, which I'm usually too chicken to attempt. It has big cooling pipes, but I don't know if that's a plus or a minus, since I also read that they can interfere with aftermarket HSF arrangements. My computer room isn't the coolest place in the world, so I worry about cooling whatever I choose.

Easy choice, go for a Q6600 with a G0 revision and overclock it! It will easily hit 3GHz and probably even more!

I faced the same decision ~2 weeks ago.
Games and vid editing.
I went with the quad core as my mobo will run 45nm chips, and i didnt want to upgrade for ~18 months then so i need some future-proofing.

Q6600 ftw if a 2.4 ghz core 2 duo is bottlenecking your FPS then I wanna know what video card you have.

I went with the E6850 because the current rig I built this for is a dedicated audio recording workstation. At this point in time the recording software I use (Sonar 6) performes better under raw power then multiple cores. Also, I figure that there is really not that much software out there making use of the extra cores. Sure this will be the trend from here on out but by the time it will effect me the Q6600 will seem outdated.

***Keep in mind I don't mind updating my CPU in a yearly cycle. Even with this in mind I still don't think we will see enough major software implemenations with in the next year to sway my opnion***

Actually Stock Cooler and OCing works for both.
Just not Max OC.

The G0 Stepping Chips are just insane.

Is there a way to ensure that one receives a G0 stepping if one buys a Q6600?

Ask what the last five letters are on the box/label are, if the answer is SLACR then it's a G0 but if the answer comes back SL9UM then put the phone down/walk away.

Thanks for the advice! I've always ordered onlne with newegg.com, but it looks like they have a phone line too...

I've read that the Q6700 always has the G0 stepping. Is that true? Right now the Q6600 looks more like the "sweet spot" for power/price, but this *is* a birthday present to myself...

Don't waste money on the Q6700. The Q6600 can run just as fast.
ClubIt.Com promises the G0.
TankGuys as well.

if its a brithday present , then get the Q6700 , althought the difference wont be noticeable