E8500 vs Q6600 same price, what should i get?

[mygyth]

OK, so i know this looks like a clone post but i couldnt find the answer to this particular question anywhere.

SO, the E8500 and the Q6600 are $1 different, so close i dont care.
I love to game and want to play games like cysis and FEAR. I want to get into some low level video modelling / rendering at some stage but basically i play games, particuarlly WoW (i know, uber nerd, i dont care).

Alot of people have said on forums that because the extra 2 cores on the Q6600 are redundant, u should go the E8500.

My question is Why? how much could an extra 2 idle cores hurt? is there something that the E8500 does better? what sence is there in losing the extra 2 cores just to save $1?

Thankyou for your time

 

[evongugg]

Welcome to the forums!

The e8500 will be faster in the games.
The Q6600 will be faster in rendering.
The future is quad core.
Software is being adapted to utilize all the cores.

 

[mi1ez]

^+1

the dual has a higher clock speed which most games like.

the quad will blaze through anything optimised for more than 2 cores and shoot the dual down like a dog.

 

[mygyth]

Ty for quick reply

So as a gamer who will most likely not do serious Video rendering, i WILL find the E8500 works better for me?

Also, ive heard alot about getting a Quad to help with future games designed specifically for it. How much will an E8500 suffer when OC'ed to 4-4.4Ghz compared to the Q6600 also OC'd?

One other thing, i have heard it said that the Quads can become unstable when running dual or single thread prgrams as the cores fight to be used. Is this just a myth?

 

[Zenthar]

The "extra" 2 idle cores won't slow-down the PC (not significantly at least), the reason why the E8500 is better than the Q6600 for gaming is because of higher core/fsb speed.

 

[evongugg]

Yes, as a gamer the e8500 is better for you.

One other thing, i have heard it said that the Quads can become unstable when running dual or single thread prgrams as the cores fight to be used. Is this just a myth?

That's a myth.

 

[mildiner86]

then again wow will run fine on the quad core as its easy to run, u can OC the quad to 3 ghz happily and ive yet to finda game it truggles with i prefer the quad cause its faster at multi tasking does fine for gaming and sounds more cool to say ive got a quad core

 

[mygyth]

Ty everyone, i will go the E8500. You have all been a great help