My pc is for gaming/listening to music/watching movies/web browsing, of course i won't ever burn a DVD while playing a game, so really what is the point of a Q6600 for me other than to burn away more electricity?

not much tbth... the E8400 wil give you a lot better gaming performance - go with that

For what you need… Ya, the Wolfdale will own Q6600

alrighty just makin sure cause it seems every place i read i see some person saying blah blah blah the Q6600 is more future proof for gaming. When all I need is a system to last a few years untill nehalem is cheaper

E8400.

Tsk, Tsk! The Wolfy (even at 4ghz.) will not give you a better gaming experience than a Q6600 at 3.2+ or any C2D or C2Q at 3.2+ for that matter. Since you just want to have a fast OC...why not wait for a Yorkie. OC it to 4.0+ghz and have the best of both worlds.

Because no game that exists today, not even crysis supports quad core properly, and since his motherboard supportst quad, he always has the ability to upgrade to quad in 10 years when all the games will take advantage of 4 threads of programming!!!!

This is a thought that I simply can never understand... why do people think they can future proof their computer? In 10 years his motherboard most likely won't be able to handle what would be considered a low end videocard. So would it matter if his processor will be able to run things? By that time perhaps games will require 8GB of ram which is most likely as much as his motherboard can handle. Even if he goes with the quad core right now he will still face this down the road.

Thats why I say by mid ranged hardware to not waste your money and simply OC it. You get the similar performance with half or sometimes even less than half the cost and in reality someones top of the line computer will be just as outdated as yours every day that passes and thiers really won't stretch out to much farther and if they can afford the best its unlikely they will continue to use the old hardware in the future and accept poor performance it would give anyways. Buy a new PC every few years do small upgrades between.

I'm not trying to future proof my computer... I just want the best that i can get while it's free shipping and i only have $900. for CPU/MOBO/RAM/Drives/and soundcard. and, Since it uses less power and all i do is game i figured it might be worth looking into you know? Sorry, electricity isn't getting any cheaper and the 30 watt made me go whaaat??? but if the Q6600 overall will have better gaming then i might wait to get the newer quad 45m, if its under $300 USD and comes out in the next month or so

I mainly want something that will LAST untill the nehalems and all that new stuff in 2009-2010 get into more reasonable prices... i'm not PC crazy, I just need to get a new PC cause the Pentium 4, that im on now I'm gonna give to my mother cause her PC still uses a 3dFX graphic card. Thats how old hers is.


All I really need to know is an honest answer from a smart person, I've never built a system and im stuck between is a Quad really worth the effort and money when all I ever do on a PC is maybe listen to music, play games, download stuff, watch movies, and probibly use a TV tuner to record HDTV from my Digital Box. Because if it's really worth spending the extra $50 then I will, it's not a big deal. I just don't want some biased-fanboy blowing smoke just cause he "likes a certain CPU" ya know? Not to say any of you are blowing smoke, I'm just Saying how I wish most forums where, you know there's people who always go, "NAH F*ck that this is better" just cause they own it

I have the e8400. This is my new build, just got this baby up last week. It's paired with 2GB 667Mhz memory and a 8800GTS 320MB, not the new G92 ones. I only have Team Fortress 2 and Unreal Tournament 3. I play both maxed out and get 60+ FPS. I would highly recommend this processor. It's a beast. I upgraded from a 2.8Ghz Pentium D, and lemme tell ya... it's a whole new world. The E8400 is around $219 on Newegg, that's what I got it for. I doubt the the new quads will be under $300, but if you can afford them, go for that. It's up to you. However, I can tell you for sure that you will not be disappointed with the E8400. According to my BIOS on my Gigabyte ga-p35-ds3l, it was running at 13C this morning. My Pentium D idled at over 35C, so this is freakin' amazing.

Btw... something I realized is that frame rates matter a whole bunch in online gaming. I used to think I sucked or something at UT3 & TF2. Lately with my solid high frame rates, I've been kicking ass. =)

I play TF2 all the TIME! does it work good with that CPU? Yeah I play TF2 on a pentium 4 and a radeon X800XL that came with my HL2 in 2005 but I can't run it on high even

Since you say you're planning on a Nehalem later, then by all means get the e8400 now. A quad has its advantages, but not that it seems for what you will be using it. By 2009-2010, quads will be far more useful, even possibly more necessary, then they are now. But since neither a e8400 or a Q6600 will be going into the motherboards of that future time, your cpu choice should be based on what's best for you now, and for your use, in my opinion, the e8400 will be best.

If you play mostly FSX get a Q6600. It's the only game where a quad wins over a higher-clocked dual-core AFAIK. If you don't play FSX and don't do any work on the PC the E8400 is a smarter choice.

is FSX flight simulator? If so yeah im more of a FPS/Action/MMO/RPG im not really into simulators


But what do you mean it's the way to go if I don't do any work on my PC? i'm sure i'll extract files from WinRAR, WinZIP, and burn CD's/DVD's and such, and other tasks, but they won't have to be done instantly I always leave my PC anyways when I extract a file and watch T.V. or start like 10 extractions before I go to work, so there all done when I get home and such, and hell I can burn a DVD-r data CD in less than 6 minutes anyways with my old school pentium 4, so I don't see how a processor helps on that situation, to be honest

I know I called best buy and talked to the "Geek Squad" those fools didn't even know what a E8400 was.... they said Quads are better I was almost to ask them why they work for geek squad when they don't even know the new tech, Geeks? hardly, they are tards