So I was browsing trademe (nz ebay website) anyways this guy listed a q6600 as 9.6ghz, 2.4GHzx4. I was always under the assumption that you don't multiply the cores they simply help for multi tasking and what not.

your right(the cpus work in parallel), the ebay seller either does not understand or wants to scam people. Lots of users just don't know and like the sound of 9.6.

An application that only uses one core will run the same speed on that as a single core, But with more cores, more apps run more smoothly together. and some apps(audio video and some games) can use more cores together for a boost

Or maybe the seller is just trying to dumb it down so he can reach more potential customers. Some people will think E6600 and Q6600 are the same since they're both running at 2.4 GHz. It's mostly Intel's fault, after years of brainwashing ads that stressed the higher clocks.

Here's an example:

You're encoding a video, and your hard disk is VERY fast, and your software works on all 4 cores. Then yes, the job is done on a Q6600 at 2.4 GHz about twice as fast as on an E6600 (2 cores) at 2.4 GHz. You can think of the Q6600 as an E6600 at 4.8 GHz. If there was a single-core CPU in this family, yeah, it would need to run at 9.6 GHz to finish that job in the same time.

The sad truth is, in most programs, including most games, cores 3 and 4 will be idle, and even then the hard disk or video card will be a bottleneck preventing cores 1 and 2 from running at 100%.

the guy doesn't know wha he's talking about. hopefully he's charhing $200x1 and not $200x4 lol.

Thats why you game and encode

well - yes thats true

i will admitt - i fought people over that since its wrong and finally i did the same thing to show them it was wrong

its wrong - kinda of


if all 4 cores are working together why is it not the same?

no 3.6x4 cores does not equal a 15ghz machine but it can be about the same under many circumstanous and a good way to rate systems


E8400 at 4.25= 8.5 equivelent rating
while a Q6600 at 3.6 = 14.4E

it does give a good feel for multitasking

then a tri core at 2.5ghz = 7.5E

now if you take in consider the number of calcs per cycle you have a good rating system.

a p4 does 2 while amd and c2d do 3

so a p4 (old p4 the name is resused and its a c2d for the most part) such as a dual core 3ghz at 4ghz would be an 8 x 2/3 = 5.5E

so i would take the E8400 at oc over an amd tri core