Which upgrade path?

[bosshoss]

Time to replace my ol' E6300 and was just wondering what way I should think about going.

The 2 CPU's that I have been thinkin about are:

E8400
Q6600

I just purchased a DS3L motherboard and will be overclocking whichever one I finally decide on. My problem is that 75% of my PC time is devoted to gaming, the other 25% is devoted to encoding movies into DVD format. I'm not sure if TMPG utilizes all 4 cores of the Q6600, but even if it does should I still think about the 8400? Or would my encoding times be MUCH more drastically reduced by the Q6600 vs. E8400?

I figured I could slap in the 6600 juice it up to 3ghz and probably be very close in gaming as the 8400, but not totally sure.

Thanx fellas

 

[faster3200]

Well the Q6600 has more L2 cache so even if the program you use doesn't support quad core it will be faster clock for clock. If it does support quad core, than it is no contest.

Quads are faster for gaming (read here) but overall clock speed is more important so assuming you go for max overclock the E8400 will probably win out on air cooling.

 

[epsilon84]

You'll be fine gaming on either CPU, obviously the E8400 would be a bit faster due to higher clocks but it won't be a drastic difference.

The Q6600 will definitely cut down on your encoding times, how much depends on the codec beind used. A caveat is if SSE4.1 is used, a higher clocked E8400 may be fairly competitive against a Q6600.

 

[dieseldre2k]

well since u overclock, i dont think ur going to see a difference in gaming no matter which u choose. however, u will notice a difference in encoding with the quad. so i suggest u get the quad, especially since its more future-proof.