Q6600, E8400 or Q9450

[evolmonster]

Hiya gang

I am on the verge of ordering my new build, but the CPU is causing me some problems!

I was set to get a Q6600 Quad, then the wolfdales came out and spoiled my party. And now the new 4nm Quads are due out very soon, which is proper messing my decision up!
And then the wolfdales came out, which makes my brain melt with the decision!

I will be gaming, and am hoping to keep this PC for at least a year or 2.
I'll be getting a 8800GTS 512mb graphics card.
I'll also be doing the usual surfing and downloading and stuff, and I want the PC to do things quickly in normal apps. I will probably be running a few apps at once too...

My question is this. Which processor should I go for?
I plan to overclock to a comfortable level, so its not too hot, and the CPU cooler doesn't run too loud.

Any advice?
Cheers
DB

 

[tricky trees]

I'm in a similar position as you and have been reading what people have had to say of late regarding buying CPU's.
I suppose if you can hang on and aren't on a really tight budget then the q9450 has to be the logical buy but if you want to save a bit of cash and put it towards extra RAM or something then the q6600 is the winner.
That's the conclusuion i've come to and am now just deciding wether to hang on for the q9450. (probably will)

 

[aznguy0028]

i just pre-ordered a q9450 online i guess you know what i would persuade you to buy right?! if you're into video/audio encoding things, i suggest you should get the q9450. SSE4.1 has some good benches. i never been this excited about computers in a long while. i don't think i can sleep tonight, for good reasons. i say, to hell with it and get a q9450... q6600 = 279$ (newegg) ...q9450 = 325-345$ depending on where ur ordering from online (i got mines for 325$, after tax/shipping, it was 367$), so 50$ish base dollar difference for

:65nm to 45nm tech.
:lower temp
:SSE4.1
:1333FSB
:266mhz jump from the 2.4ghz of the q6600
:c0 stepping (i think?)
:x number of boxers you're going to change = priceless :]

take the dive! >

 

[evolmonster]

The issue I have is, the new Wolfdale Dual cores are overclocking up to 4ghz on air.
Now, as I will be mostly gaming, and watching movies, it almost doesnt make sense to got for the new quad.
It may run cooler, but its not going to overclock any higher than the Q6600, due to its lower multiplier...

 

[vagetaqtd]

I was in your shoes too. But for me, I upgraded from an E6750 because the dual core bottlenecks too easily. I didn't want to wait until the E8400 to be release because I know that will drive the value of my E6750 down when I resold it.

I bought the Q6600 about last week and sold my E6750 for $175 on Ebay. Considering I bought it for $204 two months ago, I say that's a good sale; I threw in some Arctic Silver 5 as a bonus.

The decision to upgrade from a dual core to a quad core was a great choice for me. If you can hold off until the Q9450 releases, maybe by then the Q6600 will be even be lower in price maybe less than $250 which would mean you'll have $100 extra to put into a better video card which would give you the most noticable difference in gaming.

So wait until everything is out, read some benchmarks and overclocking results with the Q9450 and decide.

 

[aevm]

am hoping to keep this PC for at least a year or 2.
I will probably be running a few apps at once too...

Q6600, hands down, unless you can wait two months for a Q9450. The quote above shows why you should prefer a quad to a dual. A year from now games and other software will benefit from quads more than now.

The Q6600 is supposed to drop to $224 (tray price) when the Q9450 is out. I guess $250 retail is very likely indeed. The Q9450 will probably be $350 retail, maybe less if supply can keep up with demand.

 

[Evilonigiri]

Yes, Q6600 would be a good idea. Although a Q9450 can run cooler and perhaps faster, the low multiplier makes it a let down.

If what aevm is true about the prices, wait for them to drop down. Then OC to 3.6Ghz!

 

[Shad0w]

Two months of wait for q9450? That's only if things goes as bad as it could?

 

[evaninspain]

What do you suggest for someone who NEVER games? Q9450 / E8400 / Q6600? I'm about to buy an E8400 but I could wait or switch if convinced. I mostly surf/watch movies/MS Office/Some Photoshop. I might try to overclock for the first time. Thanks.

 

[aevm]

Yes. Intel has only specified "Q1 2008" which may be as far as March 31. Of course, if things go well, they may release the Q9450 in February.

 

[aevm]

What do you suggest for someone who NEVER games? Q9450 / E8400 / Q6600? I'm about to buy an E8400 but I could wait or switch if convinced. I mostly surf/watch movies/MS Office/Some Photoshop. I might try to overclock for the first time. Thanks.

Sounds like a job for the E2160.

 

[winkgood]

If I were in your shoes, my last choice would be the Q6600. In 95% of applications, the E8400 is going to outperform the Q6600 at stock clock. If you overclock the E8400 to 4.2Ghz or higher, then it will blow away the Quad. You'll be lucky to reach 3.5-3.6 on the Q6600 G0 stepping. For the types of things you will be using your computer for (eg - gaming, surfing, normal apps) there isn't really an advantage for quad cores. I am currently using an e6400 @ 3.33 Ghz and the only time it really maxes out is when I'm encoding video. If I want to play games while encoding video I can simply put the encoding to lowest priority and then game just fine.

If you have more patience then I do, then wait for the q9450, which should have similar overclocking potential to the q9650 which hits about 4 Ghz. I didn't want to wait till March so I went ahead and ordered the e8400. The few minutes you MIGHT save encoding video on a q6600 are not worth the loss of fps in games and slower performance in most of your other standard applications. The multitasking arguments are pretty weak as most open applications running in the background typically suck little to no cpu usage if they aren't actively being used. However, if you plan on doing a full virus scan, decompress a 10 gig file, have some video rendering in premiere going on, and play a cpu intensive game all at the same time then I could see where you might run into trouble. But honestly, who does all these at the same time anyway?

 

[evaninspain]

Thanks. I think I'm going to order the E8400 in the next few days. Now if only I can decide on a motherboard to go with it. I'm debating between the GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R and the ABIT IP35 Pro. I need 6 SATA and it would be really nice to have a parallel port for my old HP printer. I read every day about little issues (bios updates, incorrect temps etc) with these MB's and the new E8400. I'll keep studying.

 

[ritesh_laud]

I agree with Winkgood, for the OP it's E8400 ftw. For the stuff he's running the E8400 will outperform both Q6600 & Q9450 at stock, has more overclocking headroom than both, runs cooler than both, and is cheaper.

It only makes sense to get a quad if:
- you do quite a bit of audio/video encoding or rendering
- you mega-task with several CPU-intensive tasks running at the same time (office, virus scans, web browsers, etc don't count)
- you play a lot of Supreme Commander with huge maps and tons of units

There is, however, a small chance that game developers will transform their coding philosophies overnight and we'll see quad-core optimized games coming out en masse later this year. More likely though it'll be the second half of 2009 before that happens, so if you're a gamer it makes more sense to get the E8400 now and then swap it out for a fast Yorkfield in mid-2009.

 

[winkgood]

Good choice. If MS decides to take advantage of 4 cores in their next OS and if games other than Supreme commander decide to do the same thing in a year or two then you can upgrade then. You should be set for 1-2 years with the e8400.

 

[Ironnads]

I agree. Though the 4 core is surely gonna be the bandwagon in a couple of years. The wolf at ya door is the wise update for now. Looking forward to my new rig.. (wolfie 8400 with an atix2! - then another x2 whenever I have another 400 dollars to blow.. Though 4 core CPU and 4 gpus does also seem to make intrinsic sense..
Matt

 

[Ironnads]

I don't agree Matt. (and get your own log in please) Get the 4 core cpu and enjoy the benefits sooner than you expect.. Remember how soon dual CPUs became the run of the mill, less than a year after being introduced.. Also, wait for nvid's 9800, as it will surely kill ATI's dual gpu card..
Ryan.

 

[SpinachEater]

Ahh...wtf is up with the multiple personalities there ^

 

[Ironnads]

My damn brother jumps on the computer whenever I stand up.... (-;
Ryan.
p.s - he reads (and answers) my e.mails too..

 

[fattony7]

I can understand people who buy extreme quad cores, they want to get best of the best. But it is simply stupid to buy mid range quad now for games and simple apps. And surely 42nm dual > 65nm quad ! Quads are now a marketing bullshit just like 64 bits were some time ago or mmx long before that. Back then you could read things like - "64bits apps will be few times faster than 32bits in a year !". Where are 64bits now ? If u need 4gigs ram thats ok to have 64bits, and you actually need that only if u use OSes like Vista. But performance wise - 64 or 32 bits no difference... Ofcourse there is a segment of market which needs 64 bits, 8 cores, SSE16 and so on, there always have been such a segment and there always have been special line of products. Now whoever buys mid range quad for gaming is a sucker. If games ever catch up with multicore processing that won't be happen next month and you will be changing your system by then anyway (probably to 35nm dual quad for half price of todays extreme quad processor)...

 

[aevm]

AFAIK the only game that really benefits from quads is FSX, but the difference is spectacular, as in 80% at the same clock. SupCom also benefits, in a smaller measure. There are a few others who claim to support quads but it's mostly hype, with cores #3 and #4 used at 10% or so.

Edit: I voted Q6600, but that's because I think the OP will run other things at the same time as the games. If he doesn't have any serious background tasks while gaming then a higher-clocked dual is better, yes.

 

[SpinachEater]

My damn brother jumps on the computer whenever I stand up.... (-;
Ryan.
p.s - he reads (and answers) my e.mails too..

Haha, that sucks.

 

[Winly]

if i was you i will wait for the Q9450 to be release

 

[Ironnads]

I predict (that's sounds rather thundermany doesn't it..?!) that we are gonna see a veritable surge, here on in, of pluri-threaded games that will be only, more and more capable of taking advantage of 4 (AND SURELY ALREADY CONSIDERING 8) cpu cores. I wouldn't be surprised if the second installment of Crysis comes with the same engine, of course, but drastically modified to work better around multiple cpu setups (and hopefully also multiple gpu setups)
Personally, I was planning on Wolfy for my up coming rig, but am now seriously reconsidering..
Ryan

 

[althius]

Maybe they'll push back Spore another 9 months to maximize performance for Quads.