New build (CPU concerns)

[afitzwater]

Proposed specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad 6600
Gigabyte EP45-DS3L
G.Skill 8GB (4x 2GB) DDR2 800
2x WD Caviar 640GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0
EVGA GTX 260 (216)
Corsair 750TX
Vista 64-bit

Uses:

Gaming (1920x1200) for WoW (dual-boxing) and The Witcher.
Adobe Photoshop and Premiere CS3 (my reason for 8GB)

Concerns:

I fear the 6600 will be a bottleneck for the video card (or any CPU that is below 3GHz).
I am hearing dual core is better for gaming than quad core but quad is better for video editing/rendering.

My intention was to get the 6600 and upgrade to a 9550 when the prices were lower but should i ditch the 6600 for a E8500 and then go to a 9550?

Any thoughts? Thanks!

 

[roofus]

no, you will be able to overclock the snot out of that 6600. you have a nice config picked out there. good mobo, great video card, sufficient power, etc. pick yourself out a nice CPU cooler and start tinkering!

 

[xnem3s1sx]

As far as the photoshop is concerned, have you opened the NVIDIA main page? You won't need 8GB of ram if you have a gtx 260, it will run smoother than and cpu based version on any system. and as far as the bottle necking is concerned, neither of those 2 games should eat up all of you CPU.

 

[afitzwater]

Thank you for your thoughts and for pointing our the nVidia page.

I just wanted to be prepared because Premiere gobbles up all 4GB of RAM on my current (albiet ancient) system when editing hi-def content. I don't mind spending $60 more for 4GB more RAM but I guess I can always buy more later if needed.

 

[xnem3s1sx]

Well if your editing High Def video, it might come in handy, but don't forget, that if you want to use more than 4 gigs of ram, you need a bit operating system, and probably a 64 bit version of Premier.

 

[afitzwater]

I am using Vista 64-bit. Premiere is currently only 32-bit but I can use VM OS which allows up to 16GB to be used.