E6850 or Q6600. Which is quieter?

[bexarif]

Hi. This is obviously choosing between thies chips is hot topic on the forum so I don't want to go over old ground. However one aspect which is the deal breaker for me is *noise* and I would appreciate thoughts.

I am unlikely to want to do much overclocking or modding. So which is quieter with stock coolers? I am assuming its the dual core because it gets less hot - if so, how much quieter is it?

*If* I were to go down a 3rd party HSF route - ie Tuniq, scythe etc - would the resulting Q6600 be as quiet as the same cooler on a E6850? Would it be quieter than the stock HSF on a E6850? Finally. I am planning to run my system with a couple of quiet 92mm and 1 120mm fan. Will this be enough to displace the heat generated by the Q6600 with a Tuniq or does my fan set up suggest I should go with the dual core

I will be using the PC for the usual mix of games and apps - i'm not hardcore either way. The CPU is going to be coupled with a P35 board and a 640mb 8800GTS ina an antec solo case.

I *think* i Will be upgrading the CPU when nm45 penryn 6600+ quad cores are around the $300 mark - maybe in 18months?

My current thinking is to go with the quieter(?) E6850 - not least because I feel I am less likely to go quad on my next upgrade if I already have one - and therefore I may end up hanging on to my Q6600 for too long...

One other question. At the moment I am looking at a P35 board - but I quite fancy the SLI capable nforce 680i if it really will be able to handle the penryn chip with a bios update as promised. Do people think that it will, or could there be unforeseen compatabilty problems.

I am planning my build end mid august so I don't think the SLI enabled X38 will be out in time for me.

Thanks for your help

 

[GuitarDaddy]

There will be a difference only if you allow a utility to control the fan speed on the HSF. In that case the Q6600 may cause the fan to ramp up more often. If you force the fan to run at a fixed speed there will be absolutely no difference.

 

[Cogman]

The question is what Heatsink is quieter. Both could be cooled passively (not recommended) and would be equally quiet. I believe the E6850 puts out less heat though, so it would be the easiest to keep quiet.

 

[George Powell]

Have a look at the heatsink reviews on Anandtech. They should give you a really good idea as to what you should expect noise wise.

 

[bexarif]

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm assuming that at a fixed fan speed as sgguested by guitardaddy - for arguments sake - lets assume at set at its lowest rpm)- the quad core will get much hotter than the dual core - therefore heating up the case and requiring more (and potentially noisier) case cooling. .

Sorry to sound such a noob - I'm not sure I want to get involved in a huge amount of case modding and fan fitting...

As I'm keen to keep my decibel levels down and would just like to maybe go with stock solutions, As cogman suggests, the eg6850 might be the easiest route for me - but only if the heat/noise diffence between it and the Q6600 is significant/audible.

 

[bryanW1995]

there's only one way to find out: buy 2 complete systems, measure the sound of each. Ship the louder one to me!

 

[JAG87]

im taking bets on which will be the next E6850 or Q6600 thread

you can bet on:

E6850 or Q6600, which one tastes better?
E6850 or Q6600, which one makes me breakfast?
E6850 or Q6600, which one is better for watching porn?

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: JAG87
im taking bets on which will be the next E6850 or Q6600 thread

you can bet on:

E6850 or Q6600, which one tastes better?
E6850 or Q6600, which one makes me breakfast?
E6850 or Q6600, which one is better for watching porn?

You forgot to add"

Which one will help me watch youtube better.
Which one is myspace optimised

 

[amenx]

Intel C2D stock fans are so quiet I dont think I've seen anyone complain about it anywhere, if noise is an issue then you better look at your GPU fan before the CPU.