Hi

I'm confused which one of these processors to buy

The three fall almost in the same price range now

My rig is for gaming and should serve me at least 3 years

Motherboard will be Gigaabyte X48T-DQ6 or P5E3 Premium for futureproof

Of course who does not like Core 2 Extreme QX9770

And I'll keep monitoring prices to fall down for upgrade within a year

That's why I prefer to stay away from Q6600 , combined with the fact

that the performance of a 3GHz dual core in gaming is similar to 3GHz overclocked Q6600

Thats why I believe an overclocked 3 GHz dual core to 3.8-4GHz is a better option

So What about E8400 which has 45nm technology and should be overclockable easily ??

Reviews are frustrating as it's reported that missleading core temp is recorded and the

quality differs from a batch to another , some overclockers reached 4GHz with 1.35V core voltage

while other were not not able to get 4GHz with 1.5V core voltage !!!!

Now E6850 which has 65nm technology and can be overclocked to 3.8-4 GHz

Reviews seems good

I intentend to moderately overclock CPU using aircooling Zalman9700 cooler

Another question , my monitor max resolution is 1280X1024 (Viewsonic VX922)

Is it true that Two Graphic cards SLI/CF will shine only on high resolutions ??

And one good card will be enough for me ???

Any help is appreciated

Best thanks

At least in Norway the E8400 won't be available till mid-May..
So I myself am going for E6850.

I would recommend the 8400.

so... i think you should hold for the E8400 even if it isn't found on all shelves right now. It's alot cooler and gives same performance as a quad (a little more in gaming).

Regarding your VGA choice, for a 19inch screen, a 8800GT(GTS too) 512 will do just fine for the next 2-3 years.

hope this helped

E8400 is the best choice, plays games at higher fps than q6600. buy.com has them in stock for $212

I suspect my webshop saying they can't get them in till May to rid themselves of their 1000+ E6850.. Fscking profit-r-everything nonuts.

i know its hard to hold on

Seems buy.com are out of stock now, too.

I'm bored so... useless pic (and caption) of the day

An E8400 I have at Very Stable 3.6GHz on air Rocks

I say 8400 since you dont need the quad and not sure about all of them but mine needed very little volts to hit 4 GHZ.

My $0.02... The E6850 is last on the list. You should be able to find (if you're patient) the E8400 for cheaper, and it performs better. The E8400 and Q6600 are pretty close, so it would depend on whether you want short-term gaming speed, or a more general long term approach. The E8400, with it's higher clock-speed, will beat the Q6600 for single or dual-threaded type applications (including most games). The Q6600 will beat the E8400 if you have applications that use multiple threads effectively.

Clint

You are absolutly right E8400 is best option , the only problem is the differences betweem batches

So Paul you confirm that two graphic cards are of no benefit for 1280X1024 resolurion

Please can I know the batch No. of your processor ??

<-- spins around 5 times.. and points.

DAT One.... (points at 9600 phenom)

. o O (I gotta go now)

I'm almost sure that I do not neet Quad core as I never use video editing or encoding software and it is only games

Seems you are lucky with your processor and that is what was expected

Can I know the batch No. of your processor Please ??

And that's what I'm looking for exactly

Gaming for one year then upgrade when prices fall down

Different paul, but I wanted to add that "no benefit" would not be accurate. Currently little benefit is more accurate. But look at this link: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardwar [...] page12.asp

12x10 2x/16x and medium details two 8800GTS scale above a single GTS. Now make that high details or even very high details and/or 4xaa and two cards would pull way ahead and make a real playable difference. Typically for most games, 12x10 is not a resolution where SLI can shine though as single cards do very well.

in all fairness all q6600s coming out are G0, and are so easy to put at 3 GHz - anybody can do it with a mediocre case and $40 cooler. Going with a just as fast dual core that can overclock a bit further, is just an option. the percentage gain in gaming will not hardly be seen outside of benchmarks, if you can land a quad for 199, i would do that, and spend the rest of your money upgrading video cards.

Then of course there's always the i8088.