Q6600 or i7 920?

[Vos17]

Hey everyone, i know most people who just read the title are gonna be thinking go with the higher priced processor.
Though, my question really is, which is a better bang for my buck?

I will be overclocking the Q6600 to a minimum of 3.0Ghz (3.5ghz max).
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
4gb of kingston hyperx ram
Sapphire hd4870 1gb.

This comes to about 750, it is about 300$ more to build a i7 computer.

I will not do any video coding, or anything of the sort.
Just play games, surf the web, and listen to music.

What it comes down to is life time of the system.
If the q6600 will keep its ground playing games at high-medium quality for at least 2 more years.
Then i am all for saving the 300$ because intel will have a new processor by then, and the i7 920 would be in the same position the q6600 is in now (close, not exact of course)

So wil this build last well into 2010 like i hope?

 

[spathotan]

Switch the Q6600 out for a Q9400 at least, prices have droped and the Q9400 or Q9550 will run over it. The Q6600 runs way to hot and is too voltage hungry to recommend now, espically with the recent Intel price cuts on Q9000 quads yesterday/today. The chip is already 2 years old, keep that in mind.

But if life of the system is really important (which is should be in top priority of any build) then buy an i7 920.

 

[Amg]

I would vote for i7 if the boot fits other wise the Q9XXX

 

[Akebono 98]

You might want to look at the new Q9550s. Have a look at the specs and you will understand what I mean.

 

[Vos17]

Yea but if im shortening the gap from a 300$ difference to a 150-200$ then it seems like i should just go i7 then.

 

[dobby]

putting an i7 in now will extend the life of your machine significantly over buying a core2 CPU.

if you can afford an i7 get one.

 

[pr2thej]

i7 if you can afford it

 

[Vos17]

Yea, i think i will get the i7, the decision before was to save money, or to go a little higher, if i went with a q9550 or whatever, which is the same price as the i7 920. then im only savin money on a cheaper mobo and ram, which defeats the purpose cuz im willin to save 300, not just 100-150 dollars =p

 

[TurdBurglar]

Well, what I think some people are missing is that for your uses, a Q6600 at 3.0-3.5ghz will undoubtedly serve your needs for the next two years (gaming, surfing, music). The i7 is nowhere close to worth it for those uses. Just my $0.02

 

[Vos17]

im just confused cuz im tryin to figure in that, plus the cost to upgrade.
So u kno if intel has somethin brand new out by the time i need to upgrade and the i7 build is just as cheap as a quad core, then i will go with that. or if new processors would use the same socket then that way i could just upgrade the processor. idk this whole buildin a computer is very confusing from a price/upgrade ability stand point

 

[nerdic]

These two processors aren't really comparable.

But if you're just going to do basic things, then the q6600 should last till 2010.. Save your money man, and just get the q6600.. i built a system a year ago with this processor and its still blazing along; and i stil haven't OC'd it.

 

[cadder]

If you compare the system builds that Tom's has done, they got their i7 up to 4.25GHz. But even at that speed it wasn't much faster on some benchmarks than the E8500 they built. They got increased gaming performance with their more expensive builds, but maybe that was because they spent a lot more on the GPU. E5200, E8500, Q6600 at their overclocked limits are very fast computers. If gaming is your interest, you can probably gain more by spending the extra money on your GPU's, otherwise you have to ask if you need that much power anyway.

 

[TurdBurglar]

Well you won't need a whole new platform for the proposed Q6600 build, which saves a bundle especially when you are talking about expensive i7 motherboards and triple channel DDR3. My Q6600 at 3.2ghz does not inhibit my gaming at all (Crysis, Far Cry 2, Call of Duty 4). My 8800GT will need replacement before my Q6600. I just know I am able to average 33 fps through the Crysis benchmark and comfortably play (average in the mid 40s fps) Far Cry 2 on Very High settings without AA both at 1680x1050. If you need more than that performance in gaming (which is by far your most taxing use) then I would go i7 and dual GTX280s.

 

[jthorn]

I would take advantage of the 40 percent INTEL CPU price drops announced 1/19/2009 and go for a Q9XXX. The price drops do not apply to I7 though. Q9XXXX has become the best bang for the buck right now but it will require a whole new MB if you upgrade to I7 later.

 

[billiardicus]

If you're going to use the 4870 1 gb as your video card...will an i7 even outperform the Q6600 in games? It seems to me your GPU will always be your bottleneck (and that's a nice GPU). I would think building an i7 system with a 4870 GPU to play games is rediculous. If I were you, I'd buy a E8400 (or E8500/E8600), OC it to 4 ghz, and you'll be good for a year. After that upgrade your GPU. I don't think games are going to start really using or requiring quads for awhile. GTAIV is an exception...but it's a horrible pc game anyway.

I've got a Q6600/512 8800GTS that plays everything pretty well right now. I'll upgrada the GPU before the Christmas 09 game releases. I'll consider building an i7 system before Christmas 2010.

My $0.02.

 

[Vos17]

So a q6600 will suite my needs for now.. this is the biggest thing, and i don't know why, but my goal is to build a computer than can play games well into 2010. Not sayin ultra high, or even very high, but at least evening out on medium at that time. With the exception of maybe needing a new video card. Would a q6600 overclocked to 3ghz 1333fsb suite my needs for this?

or should i go with the i7 just to be sure?

Ever since bethesda said to look for elder scrolls V in 2010, that has been my goal. Fav series, spent so many hours on all their games. I would hate to have to resort to buying it for the 360 XD

 

[Akebono 98]

Notwithstanding the other thread discussions, I would still think that the best value in "gaming until 2010" right now is to use a highly overclocked Core 2 Duo. Savings can be put towards the video card. IMO, that relative balance is better for gaming.

And there have also been great deals on high-end DDR2 going on, such as 4 GB of Dominator 1066 for $39 at Newegg, magnifying your saving as compared to i7.

Have a look at this article regarding Intel's price cuts: link. Sort of changes the price / performance equation a little.

I actually think that the best value for gaming is the E7x00 series and Intel has just released the E7500 at 11x multiplier with R0 stepping. In that league of value, there is also the newly released E5400 at 13.5x multiplier and R0 stepping. Both of these should be excellent overclocking chips and should easily break the 4GHz figure.

The reason that I mentioned the "Q9550S" in my earlier post above is that this is also new, with 65W TDP and 76.3 degree Thermal Spec, which is 5 degrees more than the regular Q9550. Therefore, it would have a higher OC limit and becomes an excellent upgrade option down the line for the LGA 775 mobo owners (of which I am one) that are looking to move to quad core but without changing mobo. This type of processor introduction would be indicative of the future, which means that LGA 775 still represents a good value today.

 

[Vos17]

so a e8400 overclocked to 3.5-4.0ghz would very easily (in terms of gaming, going into the oncoming years) would beat out a q6600?

I understand what you mean, people who already own a lga 775 mobo are looking to upgrade to a quad, but i am just startin to build a computer.

If i can get the most performance out of a dual core, vs a quad core, and according to most post. A computer for gaming is only as good as its video card, the processor just allows the video card to perform better.

Is that true? So in essence a highly overclocked dual core, would out perform a q6600 which can't nearly reach the same clock. right?

 

[Akebono 98]

IMO, yes. If you are running a game with nothing else in the background, and that game is not optimized for more than 2 cores, then the higher clock speed of the Duo is the way to go. And the budget saved is diverted to the video card.

The reason that the Q6600 factors into the equation is because you were wanting to cover off games becoming more multithreaded, going forward.

Just a note about video card here. You should look at it in terms of how many pixels you want to push. So if Crossfire 4870 1GB is more than you really need for a 24" today, then perhaps (and this is only a guess) by the time that Elder Scrolls V comes out, the level of graphics then makes Crossfire 4870 1GB just right for a 24" monitor. So you've got that covered off too by starting with one of these cards today.

So if you're trying to keep the budget down on a gaming rig and work to a 3 year timeframe, then LGA 775 is the better route, IMHO.

No one can predict the future, but we all have to make educated guesses and work from them.

 

[Vos17]

I don't think its fair to be comparing the E8400, and Q6600.
even tho they are the same price range, they are vastly different, even more than just 4 cores.

A better comparison would be a Q9550, because they have the same operating frequency, FSB, alot of things in common besides how many cores it has.

If we compare those 2, then thats a 100$ difference.

The problem here, is that i know that no one can predict the future, and we have no idea if games will be coded for that many cores. Most developers blogs like bethesda replied to these questions saying that it's extremely hard to code a game for more cores cuz they have to make multiple threads running on the game. besides the fact that having multiple threads operating simultaneously might not even give a performance boost from 1 thread if not coded correctly.

See the dillemna? Theres a chance that games that are opted for 4 cores won't even start to reguarly appear for a few more years. Dual core is just starting to be supported by games now a days.

I work at gamestop, i can think of Call of duty world at war, Fall out 3, and some other games that are just starting to say on the back in the requirements (Optimized for multicore)

But according to all benchmarks, the E8400 overclocked, for lack of a better term, craps on the quad cores XD (except for extreme editions)

 

[Stupido]

Without claiming to know the details - on game programming the main problem comes from DX9/10 are basically single threaded, thus the bottleneck. But things supposed to be changed with DX11 so most probably only then we will see real boost in performance on multicore systems...
For example some of the games that are more CPU bound than GPU, we already see beter performance on quads than on duos...

 

[f111]

Bad choice of cooler, go for the Xigmatek HDT-S1283 instead, check out this review: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article818-page1.html

A fast o/c dual core will be better bang for the buck for most games, for a while still. q6600 otherwise since the i7 does not offer enough improvement for the price. I'd save money, go e7300, and go for a gtx285 video card or a gtx280 if the deal is a bunch better. That will give you the best gaming for your buck. You'll thank us later

 

[f111]

Oh, and I suggest the gigabyte udr3 p45 board, or for $99, there's a nice ASRock board that will give you the fsb you need if you're sticking dual core. A 3.9 Ghz e7300 will seriously give you what you need to support the graphics card--which is the most important part no question.

 

[68vistacruiser]

I actually have both. One system my 6 year old son uses has a Q6600, 4gig memory, and the 8800GTX from my system that I just upgraded to a I7 920, 6 gigs memory, and a XFX black edition 260. I did have a E6750 dual core before the upgrade. We both play Oblivion, I'm at 1920x1200 and he's at 1600x1200. Both computers play the game smooth, with everything turned up pretty far. For video encoding, the I7 is about 30% faster. I honestly feel I would have saved money and got the same game-playing results by going to a Q9550, so I recommend you do the same. By the time the next Elder Scrolls comes out, Intel will have better processors out, and I know they won't work with my motherboard even if they have the same socket. Kind of like trying to put that Q9550 into my son's computer. Won't work, motherboards too old, but the socket is the same. BTW, I got my 920 from Fry's for $229 and memory prices dropped, so that's why I did it. I had the extra change to spend. Don't go ATI for your video card. It doesn't have built-in PhysX, which may matter more in the future.

 

[Ken168]

The discussion has gone this far, yet we have no clue what the OP current system is?

@Vos17,

If you already have a mobo that support C2Q, it so much easy to decide (which I guess you have not). If you already have an AMD mobo that support Phenom II, it is an even better choice in term of the saving... and performance wise are pretty similar to Q9xx.

Like many has said, the i7 is not worth the $$$ at the moment. Tell us your current system will be a good start for better advice.