Intel C2Duo E8500 or Q6600

[tinymidget1979]

I'll basically only be playing games so I was wondering which would preform better, and if I got the C2D would I have to upgrade soon? or should I get the Q6700?

 

[faster3200]

I am going to assume Q6700 is a mistype for Q6600, as that is the only 65nm quad that makes sense.

For gaming it will depend on whether or not the game is multi-threaded and if it supports more than 2 cores. If it doesn't than the one with the higher clock speed will win out (although Q6600 has more L2 Cache iirc). If you are factoring in OCing the E8500 will probably be able to go farther than the Q6600 will, due to requiring less power and producing less heat. If you are talking about games right now the E8500 should win out, although it won't be by much since they are both competent and the GPU effects fps more.

That said I would still go with the Q6600 as it will proved more future compatibility. Better yet, save for Core i7, chances are it will blow all of this away.

 

[dagger]

Yep, it depends on the game. See this benchmark:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2quad-q6600_8.html
The two cpus tested are not q6700 and e8500, but it's also a higher clocked dual vs lower clocked quad. Of the 5 games benched, last 2 are highly multithreaded, first 3 are not.

 

[tinymidget1979]

It'd be for crysis tf2 css

 

[dagger]

It'd be for crysis tf2 css

E8400 vs q6600 for Crysis, which should be somewhat close to e8500 and q6700.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/intel_e8400/8.htm

The other 2 aren't cpu intensive, so usually aren't tested by benchmarkers.