Hello all first time post, and if this is not were its supposed to be please mods feel free to move it.

I'm going to be buying a complete new system and I need to know which would be the better choice of a processor for me.

I'm thinking either the Q6600 or the Q9450. Either or would be on a Evga 780i mobo with 8 Gig of OCZ SLI Ready DDR2-800 ram and what ever the top of the line video card is at the time in SLI or Crossfire. Also going with some kind of 1000 Watt PSU.

I'm building this pc for playing Diablo 3 and some Crysis, etc..

So, which would I be better of getting of the two processors? I've never overclocked anything before but I really want to try it out for sure. I'm also getting a Zalman 9700NT heatsink and fan and either a Antec 1200, NZXT Tempest or a Zalman GS1000 case.

This pc will be mostly gaming and surfing with the occasional DVD rip or Blue-Ray movie watching. I also will be using Vista Ultimate 64bit


Thanks for your help, and if you have questions do not hesitate to ask!

Q6600 is the best bang for the buck, while q9450 delivers average 10% better performance per ghz.

Q9450 is harder to overclock, due to its 8x multiplier, compared to q6600's 9x, and its 1.3125 vcore tolerance, compared to q6600's 1.5v. But it runs at a higher stock clock, giving it an advantage if you do not overclock.

Would I have much of a problem getting the Q6600 up to 3 or 3.2Ghz with that Zalman 9700NT cooler?
Granted it will take me months of trying to figure out how to over clock but I do want to try.

I'm currently running a Pentium D 830 2.8GHz and it seems to be getting slower in Vista... :-(

None at all, I use a similarily performing cooler, and get 58C max load prime95 at 3.6ghz, 69C at 4ghz. Q9450 should do better than Q6600 temperature wise. It's just harder multiplier and vcore wise.

you won't need that much ram, 4gb should be enough, and that motherboard you picked only supports nvidia's SLI...if you want ati crossfire, you will want to get a x38/x48 motherboard

1kw psu is overdoing it, get something around 850watts, im sorry im not very good at picking psu's

and i would personally pick the q9450 because it has a larger cache, which games apparently like, and can easily be OC'd to 3.6 with no voltage change

ps
diablo 3 release date hasn't even been announced... so if your building it for that game, than you should wait it out till better parts are released... crysis still can't be run at max[perfectly], so it should be in your best interest to wait till diablo 3 is close to release

Thanks, for the input guys!

I will wait on ordering the parts in the hopes of a better deal but I was just trying to get my ducks in a row.

No, you cannot get q9450 to 3.6ghz stable without bumping up vcore. It's not possible. You'll likely need 1.4v for 3.6ghz, which is above the recommended 1.3125v max.

Also, due to lower 8x multiplier, 3.6ghz for q9450 is 8x450mhz=3.6ghz, compared to q6600's 9x400mhz=3.6ghz. The 780i motherboard you chose runs at 1333mhz (4x333) fsb natively, and reliably oc to 1600mhz (4x400). You'll likely be able to get q6600 to 3.6ghz stable, but not q9450, which requires 1800mhz (4x450) fsb.

Here's some other ocer's experiences, should be useful:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messag [...] id=2190950

What? Is there some kind of unwritten rule that says a Q9450 absolutely, positively, can't reach 3.6GHz without 1.4V?! I don't think so. I've seen many hit 3.5 - 3.6GHz at around 1.3V. If anything the 8x multi is more the limiting factor when overclocking this chip, as some mobos simply can't handle the 450FSB required to hit 3.6GHz.

Btw, I agree the Q6600 is the easier (and more cost effective) chip for overclocking.

I said "likely 1.4v," not "at least 1.4v," because that's the most common for people running prime95 stable 3.6ghz wth q9450. If you get a low vid chip, you can go lower. But 3.6ghz on the stock 1.1-1.2vid is absolutely impossible, no exceptions.

As for the multiplier, I mentioned that earlier.

you're kidding me right? 3.6ghz without voltage change? do you even have a Q9450 or had your hands OC-ing it? i can tell you now, that is flat out impossible. get your information straight please.

Indeed you WILL need to increase voltage to get 3.6Ghz STABLE. Key word is stable. Sure you might be able to boot in to Windows at 3.6Ghz with out a voltage increase but it wont be stable. By stable I mean Prime95 Small FFT 8+hrs without errors.

A q9450 won't make 1 minute in prime95 small fft at 3.6ghz on the stock 1.1-1.2v. It may not even make it to Windows. Try it and you'll see.

Who would want to OC if it's not stable anyway? Unless they want to try taking a quick screenshot and brag (lie) about their accomplishment.

Agreed!

That depends on how you look at it. For example if you are just trying to break benchmark records (ie. 3DMark,SuperPi,etc) then you would only need the stability for the benchmark run. However, it would be wrong to brag/lie that the OC was stable without a intense stress test (ie Prime95 for 8+hrs).