The Q6600 isn't a true quad and it's running a fsb of 1066 with 4mb of l2 cashe vs the E8400 at 1333/6mb. Add on top of that the 3.0 to the 2.4 and i'd say the E8400 at 209 bucks is a steal.
Because it's the best overclocking processor at the moment for under $300. E8500 is tempting, but if it's possible to get the E8400 for $100 less = no brainer!
Q6600 can't clock. Q9450 is the next contender, but at $350 and lower clock speeds, it can't hang with the E8400. Unless you like making pron DVDs, a dual core is the way to go.
Plus the quads performance scales better at higher clocks. Not that you would really see any difference, but I'd rather game on a 3.6GHz Q6600 than a 4.0GHz e8400. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/c [...] 600_8.html
edit: But at $200 or less for a retail e8400, I would not hesitate to buy one for a gaming or testing/benchmarking rig
Plus the quads performance scales better at higher clocks. Not that you would really see any difference, but I'd rather game on a 3.6GHz Q6600 than a 4.0GHz e8400. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/c [...] 600_8.html
edit: But at $200 or less for a retail e8400, I would not hesitate to buy one for a gaming or testing/benchmarking rig
Of course quads scales better at higher clocks. You're overclocking twice the cores! And I seriously considered e8400 against Q6600 back when I built my rig. It was a hard decision back then, and I almost went with the e8400 because it cost less for more short term performance. But now, at higher price for less futureproofing, it no longer makes sense.
And yeah, Q6600 oc quite well. I got 4ghz prime95 stable too, 70/70/68/68 stablized temp on air cooling. Tuned it back to 3.6 for day to day operations. Eventually I'll probably upgrade to Q9450 or higher though.
Message edited by dagger on 04-12-2008 at 05:08:45 PM
Nice OC. When I bought the option was e6850 or Q6600 priced the same. No e8400. The choice was not hard although it became a e6750 vs Q6600 choice because of the savings. I'm Glad went with the quad.
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MSI P6N SLI Platinum, Q6600, 2GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC8000, SLI BFG 8800GT OC 512MB, SB X-Fi Fatality, Antec TruePower Trio 550W, Windows XP pro
Why is everyone jumping through hoops for that cpu? I don't get it.
The fact that you don't have one is why you don't know.
Try an easy 4300mhz and enough processor to drive quad gpus with only 2 cores....for 200 bucks.
That's why.
Plus the quads performance scales better at higher clocks. Not that you would really see any difference, but I'd rather game on a 3.6GHz Q6600 than a 4.0GHz e8400. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/c [...] 600_8.html
edit: But at $200 or less for a retail e8400, I would not hesitate to buy one for a gaming or testing/benchmarking rig
try 22k in 3dmark o6 with either a 3870x2 or a 9800gx2.
Because of the cache and die shrink, you can clock it much higher which massively increases the shader performance. Especially in a quadgpu setup like I have.
I have both the q6600 and the e8400. If you are benchmarking with both in 3dmark as an example, you have the ability with a dualcore and a good overclock to beat the q6600, unless of course it is capable of an o/c of around 4ghz. This is also because of the improved shader performance in the gpus that the much higher clock capability of the e-8400 provides. This is because you cannot really keep all 4 gpus as busy with a slower clock speed. This is a big part of the scaling issues with the 9800gx2 and the 3870x2 used in quad mode.
Of course the quad is going to score higher in the cpu tests, but what the e8400 can do is beat it with way higher video scores. I get over 12000 in the shader model 3/hdmi score alone. with the e8400 at only 4ghz!
CPU is a bottlneck at any speed you'd get on water or air though. The higher it is clocked, the busier it can keep the gpus and the higher your shader scores will be. Pretty neat.
truth be told, we are really at a point where we need more mhz in our processors be it a quad or a duo at least in 3dmark.
That is a ton of money for 3dmarks. I hope you actually game too.
We don't need more MHz for even hardcore gaming. We need stronger GPU's that can laugh at crysis at very high 19x12 with 2xaa/16xaf.
Although I have purchased each 3dmark version since 2001se, it's been a long time since I've really cared about the overall highest score. If there is any real world gaming difference at playable settings in a game, that's different. 4.3Ghz is freaking sweet with that e8400! How high does your Q6600 go?
