Hi all,

I am concerned about the lack of information related to the FSB influence on the overall system performance available in the different products in the market. Let me explain you my worries about this. How can I see the differences, in therm of performance, with the following elements:

Motherboard, Memory, Processor.

Please keep in mind that the objective here is to understand the performance influence from the FSB VS processor "speed" and technologies.

As you know the FSB is the data path and physical interface between the processor and the main memory. Having said that, here comes the core of my question.

How can I understand and clearly see with detailed information the performance difference of the different combined processors, memory, motherboard, and, for each of those components, the supported FSB that could be used to build a PC?

First of all, lets facilitate the scope of the question. I would like to avoid easy answers in this thread so please take the time to describe your understanding and if possible, prove your it with facts.

The following elements are not in the scope of this topic.

1- The cost of the different devices.
2- The video card and all other devices of the standard end user PC. As stated before, lets just focus on the following components -> Motherboard, memory and processor.
3- AMD processors.
4- The latency on the memory.

Please take a look at what I care about for those tree things:

Motherboard : Supported FSB
Memory : Supported FSB (of course the amount of memory influence the performance, but dont forget my concern *** FSB ***.
Processor : On top of being concerned about the supported FSB, the technologies available for INTEL is grouped in different classes. Lets take a look at two of them -> The Core 2 Quad and the Core 2 Dual processors.

Now, I can I know which of the following configuration will be better then the other one and why?

Configuration 1 (Core2 Duo_3G_1333_4MCache)
Well, basically this configuration is using a motherboard supporting FSB 1333, the memory supports also the FSB 1333 and guess what... Yes, the processor support FSB 1333.

Configuration 2 (Core2 Quad_2.66G_1066_8MCache)
Now, the second configuration is quiet different. The motherboard supports FSB 1066, the memory supported only FSB 1066 like the processor but here is the difference. The processor is QUAD ?!?!?.

Please someone, tell me which of the configuration above is the best taking into consideration the elements stated above. You are also welcome to talk about the cache...

Thank you!

Mathieu Pitre

FSB does not play a critical factor in PC performance.
The 1066FSB of the Q6600 is sufficient to meet the needs of the processor. Since the FSB is not a limiting factor, the faster FSB does not provide much more performance.

#1) You don't want the First Configuration. Look at the E8400 not the E6850. The E8400 has the 6Mcache and is a newer more advanced processor that runs cooler and can clock higher.

So the Question is now E8400 vs Q6600.
The E8400 runs cooler and can run at a higher clock rate.
It will generally outperform the Q6600 in tasks that are not optimized for 4 cores. The difference in such tests will be moderate.

The Q6600 will run tasks optmized for QuadCores much faster then a dual core.

In general Games are not Quad Core optmized.
In general Video Encoding and other Tasks are Quad Optimized.

It really comes down to what you do with your system and the price you want to pay.

Most likely over the next few years more and more items will be quad-core optimized so that would likely be the better long-term solution.

I agree with zenmaster. Also the FSB is an old system but yet to have been saturated even with a quad core. And even if Intel decided to stay with the FSB the fact that they keep upping its frequency and memory bandwidth help the longevity of it.

Either one will be great. If you wanted to futureproof yourself go with the Q6600 and a good aftermarket cooler and OC it to 3GHz. You will have the same FSB and same speed so you will be able to keep up with the C2D and keep yourself from buying another CPU/system for about 2-3 years.