cpu just for gaming which one

both are very good choices. most games right now don't fully take advantage of the extra cores but they may in the future. one question would be if you plan on doing ocing? i think at stock the higher clock of the dual core for strictly gaming is going to get the nod. but if you are planning on ocing the quad that may be less of an issue.

are you building or do you already have the rest of your rig. meaning is that ram and gpu what you already own? if not what is your budget?

You get a prize for the 1001st thread asking this very same question.

Upgrade soon E8500 OCed, upgrade later Q6600 OCed.

^LOL...Zorg beat me to it.

There is a search feature in forums for this exact reason. Maybe Tom's should make it a front page headline, permanently...or until the next major CPU debate festers.

A sticky wouldn't do any good...newcomers don't read those...

Get the Q6600 now, over clock to 3GHZ and call it done. It will be more future proof for games and any performance difference right now will be negligible at best when compared to the Dual Core.

The Quad will benefit from future games and you won't have to worry about tapping out the Quad Core anytime soon.

The Q6600 is cheap enough now and will have more longevity.

There the same price and the Q6600 can pretty easily hit the MHZ of the E8500 on aid cooling.

Seems like a no brainer to me, Quad core at the same price that can easily hit the same MHZ speed, but some people are still going with the dual cores for some reason.

i was thinking the same thing huron. i'm sure as soon as i buy either one a month later 775 socket will be obsolete anyways... I'm thinking of maybe just going with the e8500 for the 45nm the bigger L2 cache size and the higher clock per core. the games i'll be playing don't take advantage of 4 cores now anyways i don't think...(AoC, WAR, Crysis, Fallout 3 when it comes out, CoD4, stuff like that) Plus i was told that the stepping of the new Q6600 had it's multiplier disabled...just needed help making a good decision. thanks for the positive feedback!

P.S. adding on to an existing rig, buying the mobo, the memory, and the cpu and heatsink. everything else i have already

strangerstranger go try to phase change your phenom or do something useful how about a link to these other topics specifically pitting these two exact processors against each other with pros and cons with my exact rig set up....

the thing about these previously started topics is changes in environment whether it be a change up in an individuals hardware or maybe even just an updated stepping. it's very easy to say "use the search newb!" when you can't answer it yourself. i'm not on top of the current success with these two processors so i came here for advice. you got two choices: contribute to the topic, or just be a tool....up to you

Ah, but there are plenty of threads about this and they are all the same as this one. If you would like I can link you to five of them pretty quickly.

I guess you just wanted confirmation on what you already knew, or at least that's what I thought until I saw this comment.

Go find whoever told you that and slap them for giving you any advice at all. The Q6600, or any other non-extreme series CPU, never had it's multiplier unlocked in a positive direction, not that it matters anyway.

The Q6600 will OC to 3G, 9 multi @ 1333 very easily and 3.2G, 8 multi @ 1600 almost as easily. It will certainly OC as high as you would ever want to i.e., 3.6G, 9 multi @ 1600. With the right cooling and 1066 RAM the OC is not limited by the locked multiplier 4.8G 9 multi @ 2132. It might get a little hot at that frequency assuming you can keep it stable at all.

At any rate, you are correct in the assumption that you had when posting. If you are keeping it for a shorter time and want maximum OC then get the E8500, which also has a locked multiplier by the way.

go for q6600 and oc @3,00 ghz and you'll be pleased
you don't want to buy the E8500 with 2 cores only.. however you oc that CPU it will only be a 2 core
go for q6600 and you'll forget about upgrading the CPU!

and nehalem forcing multi core apps is not even set in stone. no idea if this power boost thing or whatever they call it works. but if it allows the cpu to handle single threaded apps significantly better that could enable programmers to keep the status quo.

if i was a betting man i would bet we will see more apps using multiple cores but no guarentees.

Good luck with the build. If you have more questions about components, let us know.

well i was actually going to try evga's step-up program and go with the 9800 gx2

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130338

I've got a 21.5" monitor that i game with at 1680 x 1050