My primary workstation is starting to show it's age - no surprise really being it's a socket 939 single core A64 4000+. The RAM is giving up the ghost (I managed to get the system to FINALLY boot into win and lin by dropping the timings WELL below what they are rated), I've got two of the four hard drives in the system 'going' - it's parts time so I might as well go high hog. I'm probably keeping PSU/CASE/Video (640 meg Ge8800GTS) the same. I've got about 300 budgeted for a CPU - and I'm having a bitch of a time deciding between the 3ghz dual core E6850 and the 2.4ghz quad core Q6600. They're both the EXACT same price from most vendors.... The E6850 seems to have the edge in the current crop of games - and being I'm also a gamer (as if the Ge8800 didn't give that away) that has a certain appeal. The Q6600 runs about 10% slower on games by virtue of it's lower clock speed - and more importantly the lower bus speed, but on applications like 3ds Max and Cinema 4d (which I also use) it's twice as fast on the rendering - indicitive that said programs make use of the extra two cores better... Moving forward more applications and games will be multithreaded, meaning eventually the Q6600 is the long term better bargain... but in the here and now the E6850 pulls ahead in existing games - the place where REAL cpu power is used - the E6850 is a clear winner. I'm leaning towards the Q6600 right now, but want to hear other people's thoughts on the subject... in any case either CPU delivers almost triple the punch of what I'm running right now. Though I'm also tempted to save myself eighty bucks and just settle for a E6750.
Don't get a dual core, better get a quad core penryn processor. If you are willing to overclock then these 45nm chips clock really well. Some reviews have shown that they can hit 4 Ghz on the stock cooler. Your preference should be in the order of Q9450 > Q9300 > Q6600 Forget about dual cores. Games like Crysis will definitely benefit from two extra cores.
Hmm, I've never heard of those other two - and none of my usual vendors seem to carry them... Which means ... ah, they aren't even hitting vendor channels until nov 12, which means highway robbery the first six months... Though I'm looking at the Q6700 and going WTF? Double the price for a 10% clock boost? Pulleeze. At least it's not as bad as the 'extreme' versions - nothing like doubling the price for... uhm... uhm... bragging rights on having more money than brains?
even E4600 overcloked is more than enough for playing most of the games. You need a better GPU Preferably with SLI technology.
It seems to me that the extra speed in games offered by the E6850 is minimal; games will still run smoothly on a Q6600, and really fly with video encoding/3D rendering. That said, after seeing a lot of benchmarks, an overclocked Q6600 usually matches or beats out the E6850 at gaming (of course, that depends on how far you manage to overclock it). With newer games actually taking advantage of quad-core CPUs (i.e. Lost Planet, Supreme Commander), I'd be leaning towards the Q6600. That's my opinion, but here are a couple of sites that may aid you in your decision. h--p://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2quad-q6600_8.html h--p://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3038&p=8
I got the Q6600 a couple of weeks ago and I should say I am impressed. Its performance is impressive even at stock settings.
I was mulling the same decision a month ago... I got the e6850 and I am very pleased. Do you do anything that actually requires quad core? If you don't know, the answer is probably no. Dual core is more than enough for most, despite the marketing hype, and the extra CPU speed and bus speed are very nice! I still use the stock cooler and some 1600MHz DDR3 and it runs great at stock speeds and well overclocked. For me, this was actually an upgrade for a 4 core AMD system at 2.0GHz each... Wow, what a boost.
Wait a few months for phenryn, Initial reviews Have simply called it "all kindsa good" Its 45-nm so its ice cool and they can shove more transistors on it so its up to 40% faster. Im sure that ol 939'er has some life left in it.
Get the quad, you wont regret it. I was in a similar situation around 2 years ago between Athlon 64 3200+ and Pentium D 805. I got the Athlon which tore apart the Pentium D in everything except multitasking. Two years down the road, I think i made the wrong choice considering the fact that I dont really play alot of games and the fact that AMD dropped the 939 socket while the Pentium D boards had the scalability to go to Core 2 Duos. Get the Quad.
Supposed I should have mentioned I ordered the Q6600... ended up getting a combo deal ($100 off the total) with a 950 Watt Antec power supply too - so it's all good. So, my current stats after the upgrade read: Q6600 2.4ghz Quad Core 2, 4 gigs A-Data DDR2-800 (which is one of the FEW DDR2-800 that WORKS at 800 without overvolting - WTF? Highest rated RAM on New Egg, so what the heck...), EVGA nForce680i chipset mainboard - three x16 slots for under $200 is what sold me, Ge8800 GTS 640 meg, factory OC to 575mhz driving center 22" IBM CRT (1600x1200), ge8400GS 128 meg driving left 22" Eizo CRT (1600x1200) and crappy 17" Samtron CRT, 320 gig SATA Samsung Boot/Games, 160 gig SATA Samsung Work, 160gig SATA WD Work mirror, 500 gig SATA Samsung Mass storage, Audigy 2 ZS, Samsung 18X DVD+/-RW w/Lightscribe, IBM Model M keyboard, Logitech trackman Marble No stinking mice allowed. xClio PS36 case with 250mm side fan (that's right, 10 inches) Items in italic were retained from my previous machine - those not in italics are new Leaving me with the following stack of parts from the old box - Going to build a cheap gaming rig for a lady friend who wants to play WoW and Oblivion. A64 4000+ CPU EVGA nForce4 Chipset Mainboard (also 3 x16 slots, but not placed as useful) 1 gig Corsair PC3200 (2x512) XFX ge7600GT 256meg video card Antec Basiq 500 watt power supply WD 80 gig ATA-100 drive After some testing I found I was correct, half the memory (patriot) had gone bad. What I get for mixing manufacturers. I've got an old Antec case in the corner that should do the job quite nicely for building said machine from my scraps...