Q6700 or wait for E8500???

[nzxtlexa]

Hi all,

I'm looking to upgrade my CPU at some point in the first half of 08 and can't decide what to do .
The striker extreme will support the dual core 45nm cpus but not the quad cores so the quad core 45nm's are out of the question and I think too expensive anyway.

So the question is do I wait a few weeks for the 45nm dual core E8500 or stick with 65m and go with the q6700. I plan to overclock so any comments on this will also help, although I'm pretty sure you will all say the e8500 overclocks better.

Thanks and happy new year

 

[Maziar]

Hello mate and happy new year
well E6750 @ 3.6 will be enough, its a very powerful CPU,do u have any single problems with it ?

Remember, upgrade when u really dont get the performance u want

 

[nzxtlexa]

Thanks for the quick reply. I don't really have any problems at the moment with my e6700 but how can you resist the thought of getting an E8500 (that costs less than my current e6700) to maybe over 4ghz on water!

I guess that kind of answers my question for me but I'd still like your thoughts!

 

[aevm]

Why not get a Q6600 and overclock that? Save more than $200 compared to Q6700, and I bet you won't notice a difference in real life between overclocked Q6600 and overclocked Q6700 . You need a VERY good hard disk to actually use even a stock Q6600 at max.

 

[rubix_1011]

I vote Q6600 over Q6700. No point in spending the money for minimal stock clock increase that can easily be overcome by mild overclock.

 

[nzxtlexa]

Ok thats fair enough that the price difference between the q6600 and q6700 is not worth it. But surely an E8500 at anywhere above 3.8 ghz (which it can apparently easily reach, especially on water) is better than a q6600 at 3.2ghz which seems to be most peoples limit even with water cooling??

 

[jbj190]

A G0 q6600 will go beyond 3.2ghz with little effort...

 

[aevm]

It depends on the type of application. In most games the E8500 will beat the Q6600, because cores 3 and 4 of the Q6600 do nothing. In applications that know how to use 4 cores (like DVD Shrink or SQL Server or IIS) the quad will win. We've had several threads about this in the past, most of them about Q6600 vs E6850.

Looking at the overclocked 8800GTX in the OP's sig, I'm guessing this is a gaming machine. OK, E8500 sounds better than both Q6600 and Q6700.

Is it worth upgrading from E6700 to E8500? What kind of applications are you guys using that manage to max the overclocked E6700 and want more???

 

[nzxtlexa]

Ok thanks aevm. You would be right in thinking that this is mainly a gaming machine but I do run all games with everything set to full, meaning games like fsx put quite a lot of load on the CPU although I guess my E6700 @ 3.6 will probably do me fine at the moment.
Its just that I'm about to build a system for another member of my family and they are willing to basically buy my current parts off me (for the "as new" price) for their system if I want to upgrade any of mine , meaning that they can give me about $320 for my E6700 and I have that to spend on a new CPU. Pretty good seeing as a E8500 is set to cost about $275!

 

[someguy7]

if your going to wait for the new dual cores e8500 then conisder it againts a new quad not the q6700/q6600. But then again who actually knows for sure if the quads are coming out on the 20th so it might be a choice between e8500 and a q6600.

 

[aevm]

Yeah, Q9450 at $316 sounds beautiful

FSX is one of the few games that can use a quad properly AFAIK, thanks to a patch they released last year.

 

[korsen]

Ok thats fair enough that the price difference between the q6600 and q6700 is not worth it. But surely an E8500 at anywhere above 3.8 ghz (which it can apparently easily reach, especially on water) is better than a q6600 at 3.2ghz which seems to be most peoples limit even with water cooling??

I was using an Abit IP35-e, a G0 Q6600, and a 550w Xclio greatpower with an AC Freezer 7 Pro in a Xclio BK Case (two 250mm fans)

Overclocked to 3.6GHz without effort. Voltage at 1.42 Stable.

Just FYI.

(Edit: I immediately put the FSB to 400, the voltage to 1.4, and it worked, though unstably. So that's why 1.42)
(Edit 2: Orthos stable at 50c)

 

[patater]

when the q9450 coming out? i want that one for next build

 

[nzxtlexa]

The q9300 is listed as Jan 20th but the q9450 and q9550 are just listed as Q1 Jan. (thas what most of the sites say.)

The annoying thing is that most boards support the dual cores, but only the Intel chipsets will support the quad cores.
I think this is Intels way of fighting back for Nvidia not allowing them SLI support on their boards. No SLI for Intel and No 45nm Quad support fo Nvidia. You guys may remember a couple of months ago, rumors of the X38 supporting SLI came around again. This must have been when the two companies were having talks but they obviously couldn't come to an agreement. Thats what I think happened anyway...

 

[jjblanche]

I'm kind of in the same dilemma as the original poster. My rational is, I buy a CPU for a good two years of service, maybe a bit more. I figure that within that time frame, most games will begin to unlock the potential of four cores. Given this, I'd say that a quad is probably a good move, especially considering that they've been available to the mainstream for around a year now, maybe more. With 9450 being potentially pushed back, and given the fact that I'd like to play games now, my thinking is that a Q6600 OCed to 3.3 - 3.6 (whatever my hardware will support) will be more than fine for my purposes.

Beyond all this, the newest games seem to be more GPU dependent (a la Crysis). Spend as much as you can on the video card, and throw the rest at the CPU, that's my thinking.

 

[yipsl]

Hello mate and happy new year
Remember, upgrade when u really dont get the performance u want

That's a good measure to go by. Right now, I don't see any game using a quad core well, let alone taxing one, though 3DS Max benefits. I'm in a similar boat on the AMD side of the river of technology. I'd rather wait for the 45nm Phenom's but the performance of the X2 3800+ in one system is getting a bit behind, while the X2 4600+ in the other still seems to be doing okay.

So, do I get 65nm Phenom with a bug that I'll not be likely to encounter or wait for 45nm and maybe better thermals than 95 watts? Right now, the per core performance of even the $189 Phenom 9500 is better than the Athlon X2 by a decent margin, and close enough to the Q6600 to make me happy.

Our ASUS 690G boards at least have a bios available for Phenom, even though it's HT 2.0 with DDR2 667. So, should I wait for 45nm? Heck, I could wait for Swift, but that might be pushing it back a bit.

 

[Ironnads]

I read that the 45 (inch? - sorry, lol) cpus have been put back till March!? sorry no link..
Ryan

 

[nzxtlexa]

Yes I just googled it and apparently the Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550 are all delayed. Striker Extreme can't take one anyway so I'm not worried but I know quite a few on this forum are waiting for them. 45 nm by the way lol

 

[jackieboy]

I'd get the dual core....lower power requirements and nothing really uses all 4 cores yet.....and I doubt anytime really soon....I'd say they are best for servers...And that dual core will freakin fly

 

[patater]

suxors...looks like im going with a dual anyways, until they start making realistic daily software that will use quads, then upgrade again (prolly when nehalem hits market...maybe)

 

[closed_deal]

That E8500 looks tasty mind imagine a easy 4.7Ghz with an air cooler.

http://forums.tweaktown.com/showthread.php?t=25544

Edit* here's a link for ppl worried the new quads not working in thier asus or DFI mobo's.

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7158.html

 

[nzxtlexa]

Thanks closed_deal good find. That means I may wait around for this BIOS to be released and then get one of the 45nm quads. thats great news thanks.

 

[Ironnads]

That E8500 looks tasty mind imagine a easy 4.7Ghz with an air cooler.

http://forums.tweaktown.com/showthread.php?t=25544

Edit* here's a link for ppl worried the new quads not working in thier asus or DFI mobo's.

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7158.html

HHmm drooling on stand by kids!

Ryan.

Ps. When's he gonna get rid of that damn kitten thing though..??

 

[thepinkpanther]

are the new 45 nm faster clock for clock? or do they just produce less heat and better for overclocking? I dont think their will be a performance increase in games from a 3.0 c2d to a 4.7 c2d or i might b wrong.

 

[nzxtlexa]

I think you may get better FPS in games but a definite increase in speed when your not gaming eg quicker start up/shut down times and quicker performance in photo editing software like CS3 etc...