E6850 or Q6600 for upgrading?

[jacquesvg]

Hi guys, i would like to upgrade my CPU and are having trouble to decide between these two?

Keep in mind i have the Gigabyte GA965P-DS3 motherboard and it only supports up to 1066FSB, will i be able to run the E6850 which is 1333FSB?

I bought the 8800 GT, but now i am lacking some CPU power!
This will be primarily used for gaming!

Any advice plzz!!

Thanx guys or girls!!
Cheers

 

[dragonsprayer]

q6600 or e8500 should be what your asking

q6600 clocks to 3.6 everytime - i shipped 3 for christmas

 

[rayzor]

Like dragonsprayer said, the q6600 overclocks pretty well. Also, as time progresses more and more games should begin to utilize multi-core processors, which will give the q6600 an advantage.

 

[halcyon]

A spin-off question:
I purchased an E6850 in September for my Striker Extreme, I currently run it @ 3.5Ghz, as that keeps it cool enough that my Zalman 9700 remains pretty quiet. The 6850 does nicely and I can't even try to complain. However, I do virtualize and multi-task a good amount.

With that profile, would it be worth upgrading to a Q6600? I would overclock it but I'd still want my Zalman to stay rather quiet, so I may only take it to 3.1~3.2Ghz. Should I seriously consider that or just stick with the 6850 until later?

I'm not planning to replace my Striker Extreme right now so the new 45nm Quads need not apply. Thx.

 

[Maziar]

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3038&p=8
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2quad-q6600_8.html

 

[halcyon]

It seems to show that the Q6600 would have been the better choice between the 2 for what I do, but it doesn't show that it would be wise to replace my E6850 with the Q6600. Perhaps I'll wait and get a QX6850 a bit later.

Thx.

 

[someguy7]

dragon im not sure if that mobo supports the 45nms. I dont recall see'n anything on the giga 965 boards supporting the 45nms. All i seen is some of the asus's will.

If it does though that would be great(I have the same mobo).

Also if pretty sure the mobo does support the e6850 or any of the e**50s with the lastest bios.(f12) It auto overclocks the fsb from 266 to 333 I believe. Just to go gigabytes website and read the info on the bios updates

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Support/Motherboard/CPUSupport_Model.aspx?ProductID=2456

 

[jacquesvg]

Thanks guys for the quick reply and links!

someguy7: the giga 965 mobo link is for the rev3.3 board which supports upto 1333FSB, i have rev1.0 unfortunatelly which supports upto 1066FSB!

I assume like RAM the E6850 will automatically downgrade to the max mobo FSB specs?

 

[someguy7]

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Support/Motherboard/CPUSupport_Model.aspx?ProductID=2314

well according to that the board doesnt support them. Im not sure if the 1.0 rev boards will post with e6#50's in them. If they do the board would most likely run at the lower fsb. You could then just set the fsb to 333. Try a google search to see if they work together.

 

[halcyon]

Just for grins I tried turning the FSB on my E6850 down to 1066 to see if there were any issues. ...didn't boot up @ all...no POST. ...fortunately I have a Striker Extreme. A reboot automatically set it back to 1333 which I changed back to a more appropriate 1550 FSB.

I say all that to say I'm not sure the E6850 will run @ 1066 FSB

 

[rallyimprezive]

Just for grins I tried turning the FSB on my E6850 down to 1066 to see if there were any issues. ...didn't boot up @ all...no POST. ...fortunately I have a Striker Extreme. A reboot automatically set it back to 1333 which I changed back to a more appropriate 1550 FSB.

I say all that to say I'm not sure the E6850 will run @ 1066 FSB

Could it have been that your memory doesnt have default SPD timings for that speed?

 

[halcyon]

Could it have been that your memory doesnt have default SPD timings for that speed?

Shouldn't have been that, I have my RAM manually set to 860Mhz, or am confused? It should have stayed around there when I changed the FSB, shouldn't it have?

 

[vagetaqtd]

In my opinion, the E6850 is not worth the money. I mean it cost as much as the Q6600 and it only has 2 cores. If you do that math:
E6850 = $275/2 cores = $137.5 per core
Q6600 = $275/4 cores = 68.75

The Q6600 can overclock to 3.4 easily. In the long run, the Q6600 would be a better value and performer than the E6850. Sell that SOB if you can. I sold my E6750 on ebay for $172.50 and upgraded to a Q6600. Never been happier.

 

[dcinmich]

Hi guys, i would like to upgrade my CPU and are having trouble to decide between these two?

Keep in mind there are but a handful of applications and games that support multiple cores. For an eye-opening read I suggest this before you decide.

Note: I just had someone point out that this article is pretty old, so keep that in mind. In the end it boils down to what you want to get. I opted for the Q6600 over the E8400 because even though I may not utilize all four cores having the most up-to-date CPU in my PC will keep me satisfied for quite a while.

 

[halcyon]

I like my E6850 and its not slow, and its not hot...but I now wish I had a quad core. I think it'd just allow smoother virtualization and general multi-tasking. ...perhaps I'm wrong. So I'll probably upgrade my 8-year-old daughter's Xeon 3060 with my E6850 and go Quad this Spring...but it won't be a Q6600.

I'd really say that, at this point, a Quad is a better long-term investment unless you know you're going to be upgrading again soon.

 

[vagetaqtd]

Yeah, I just used TMPGENC for the first time today with my new Q6600, let me tell you, its twice as fast as the my old E6750. And it does use all 4 cores to 100%; sweet! I'm pretty sure high quality programs similar to TMPGEnc will begin to ultilize Quad cores soon. I encoded a 2:30Hr xvid movie to dvd mpg in less than 50 mins. Before it was close to two hrs with the E6750 overclocked to 3.4Ghz.

Now I know the true value of Quad core.