Q6600 vs e8650?

I see on benchmarks sometimes that the Q6600 provides more fps and sometimes the e6850 provides more fps. Also, I see mixed signals with loading and rendering things, and I honestly don't know what to account for speed anymore.

All I am asking is if someone would fill me in on what is to be considered as far as speed and performance and frame rate and all of that. I like to think I have a decent knowledge about it all, but I sometimes I see charts that contradict my idea of what you look at for speed.

So, what do you look for in a CPU?

Yes, gaming. I want to be set for gaming for years as far as processor goes.

At the moment the E8400 would be the better choice, it overclocks to a higher speed and most games can't use the Q6600 four cores.
But if you look to the next couple of years gaming is going quad core so even at its slower speed the Q6600 might well perform better in forthcoming games.
I suppose it depends if you are a frequent upgrader or not.
I have just bought a Q6600 as I know that will have to last me a long time, also when I finally do up grade again I'll use the old Q6600 in my other system which I use for video encoding which is far superior on a quad core.

PS the guy that bought his Q6600 for £199 spent too much you can pick them up for £150

The dual vs quad core debate has been spirited to say the least but it is generally accepted that at present most apps/games are not multithread optimized so higher mhz is favored over multicores. This will change to favor multicores and while the rate of this change is unknown... the direction is not. Basically, any C2D over 3.2-3.4 ghz will max out available GPUs for gaming if that is a concern. All available Intel quads seem to be capable of reaching this OC or higher so there isn't much visible real world advantages to the higher mhz the dual core offers. If you don't OC or have a restricted budget, or upgrade frequently then the E8400 would be a great choice. Now that the Q6600 can be found @ $200ish...it is really your preference and intended use that should guide your choice. I have no regrets over my getting a Q6600.

Yeah the next couple of years do you know how outdated the q6600 will be in 2yrs?? Go with the e8400.

Its just a perception on how you look at future proofing. I look at it as an upgrade path. So I will take the extra time to look at for example, what a MB has to offer in future upgrades. Unfortunately, it doesn't always happen the way manufactures say it will support things down the road.

My general opinion would be the quad is better. The simple reason is that it has the potential to do more at one time. Now the E8400 on the other hand, can just reach higher speeds at lower power consumption at stock (3ghz seems to be a general speed that is ideal). But then OCing the hell out of it just ruins that lower power consumption part, but still is impressive since it can be ran on a typical air cooling solution.

Then again, I really don't see how much of a better feel it comes to games when you get that additional 5-25 fps on certain games. Athough if a game really can utilize a dual core to the fullest, then what will take care of other operations when the dual core is busy?

In that sense, I'd say until the speed falls behind dramatically, it basically won't matter much in how outdated a CPU may become, as long as it does its job well.

Go for the quad. Or better yet upgrade to the 45nm version of the quad when it comes out.

Meh screw all that. Buy a Skulltrail for the bragging rights . Just playin.

It seems Skulltrail is good for game designers as it processes code like no other but not so good for us gamers. The Q6600 is great. A dual core in my mind is nice and able to clock higher but there will be a limit. I doubt you can do as much on a dual as a quad while gaming.

But the E6750 is nice. Any C2D/C2Q is nice. Just depends on your preference. For me the more cores the better considering I payed $275 for mine which is what I payed for my single core P4 3.2GHz w/HT 4-5 years ago. And yet we complain that $250 bucks is too much for 4 cores that blow that away.