e8400 to q6600 quad

[SolMiester]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: SolMiester

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: dguy6789

Originally posted by: Denithor
But why would you take a step backwards like that?

Quads are superior to duals.

Q6600 is a step back MOST of the time from a E8400.

For gaming, a E8600 @ 4.3 smokes the chip in your sig.


Also, it seems like you are just flame-baiting, because you dont really have any facts, yet you make absolute statements.

You can have 1,000 cores, but if the software doesnt exist to support it, it doesnt really matter.

9 pregnant women dont make a baby in 1 month.

eh?....AFAIK, FPS difference between the 2 chips @ stock would not be that noticeable, as cpu is secondary to GPU UNLESS we have a cpu bottleneck, even if we clock both chips, and what is 5-10 FPS when you are getting 80+, however quad core is much better with everything else than the dual core. We now also have MORE quad aware games coming out (FC2...), yet YOU spout on to others they are flame baiting?......is that because you ONLY have a dual core yourself....get a grip....Quads are obviously better than Duals......

I have had a Q9450 @ 3.6. I'm not talking out of my ass. Quads are only better than duals at things that actually take advantage of 4 cores. Otherwise, two faster cores are better.

I went E8400 @ 3.8 ---> Q9450 @ 3.6-----> E8600 @ 4.3. I have the resources to go either way. Guess what I am sticking with until 32nm?

*Edit* : I am a gamer, so that is the slant I am coming from. I am well aware of the benefits of 4 cores for applications other than games.

What is the FPS difference between your 2 chips, do you notice them above 80+ FPS

When is 32nm coming...? With games such as FC2, dual core higher clock benefits over quads are decreasing....

 

[Sparky6string]

You can't make a bad choice here as both chips are great. There just isn't enough of a performance difference to worry about it too much IMO. The dual will outperform the quad in most circumstances, and when the quad beats the dual it will blow it away. It equals out in the end. Mostly depends on your application, and just what kind of chip you want working for you. I own a Q6600, I've never regretted buying that chip, but I think I'd feel similarly if I had an E8400. Since you have the 8400 already I guess I would suggest you keep it. That's a very good chip that should work well for you for years.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: nerp

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Comparing a dual to a quad is really simple. A quad is superior to a dual, nobody debates this except fanboys or jealous people.(Does anybody debate that a single is better than a dual?) The only argument that exists is if someone needs the extra performance or not. Wasn't speaking about specific models, this is in general.

Jealousy? I could buy 10 quads and put them in my wood burning stove if I wanted.

The point is that if you're a gamer and swap an E8400 out for a Q6600, you're going to get lower FPS in all but a small group of games, and I mean very small. This is a fact.

Owning a quad doesn't make you "cool" or anything. I chose an E8400 for my build because I wanted the extra speed per core rather than more cores because it will give me better performance for what I do. Simple as that.

I bolded the relevant part of my quote here for you.

 

[faxon]

you buy the highest performance you can UTILIZE that is within your budget range, simple as that.


ooh hey, you have 600 to build a brand new gaming rig? e5200 + Xig-S1283 + P35 mobo + 4gb DDR2 800+ HD4670 + CM 590 + 150GB Vraptor comes out to about that. if you are on a budget you probably dont have a very high resolution monitor anyway (assuming of course). will game just fine, and the CPU can OC to 3.4-6 GHz with some tweaking. didnt include PSU because i always have tons lying around

okay now you have $2500 to build a new rig that you are going to play some games on, but also do a lot of digital media encoding. you want to be able to game while your latest project is encoding in the backround! hrm, Q9550 + Tuniq + X38 mobo + 8GB DDR2 1100 + 4x 150GB Vraptor + 2x1TB ES.2+ 4870X2 2x1GB + CM HAF932 + 1000Watt PSU. 9550 will OC to 4GHz np and if your other APP can utilize the GPU for whatever it is doing your card has 2 so its good to go.

both systems clock in before the price of OS since we usually also have plenty of those lying around, or can get them from work/school/wherever


see what i mean? you can do just about anything with any parts these days, the secret isnt which performs better bar none, its which one you really NEED. if you were trying to future proof the first rig a tad, spend the extra $100 for a Q6600 and a tuniq tower. if your system is running great but your scratch disk/OS disk (4x150gb Vraptor in RAID1+0) is getting thrashed, get another 8gb of ram and turn it into a RAMdisk, you still have the budget for it anyway.


its all about what you need + what you can afford within that price range. if you had a lesser budget i might actually recommend building 2 rigs instead of the beast i built for the HPC rig, since the end performance might be better.

with that said and done i have only ever bought 1 dual core (the e5200 in my gaming rig at friends house), and my next at home will be a quad. by the time i replace that dual core i might actually be considering an 8core just because they will have come down in price so much by then

PERSPECTIVE, IS IT IN YOU?

 

[rudder]

Originally posted by: DSF

Originally posted by: dguy6789

Originally posted by: Denithor
But why would you take a step backwards like that?

Quads are superior to duals.

Yes and no.

Exactly. Depends on the app. Many times clock speed trumps the number of cores. Just go check the benchmarks on tomshardware in their cpu comparison charts.

 

[gramboh]

What's with people blindly saying quad core is always faster than dual core? This only applies to situations with multiple threads. For general desktop use (e.g. not development) the only places you will see a benefit in are video encoding, or multi tasking such as encoding in the background and gaming in the foreground. For pure gaming, dual core clocks higher and performs noticibly better. Q6600 is not guaranteed 3.6GHz either. I have a G0 Q6700 that can only hit 3.4GHz (on 1.5V as well) this is with an Ultra 120 with Scythe fans. Previously I had an E6600 at 3.3GHz. Gaming performance is nearly identical between the two CPUs, so I would choose a 4+ GHz clocked dual core over a quad core unless you are doing lots of encoding.

Another consideration is heat generation and power usage.

 

[jeffw2767602]

I thought that Vista would spread single threaded operations amongst the 4 cores, correct or no?

 

[amenx]

Originally posted by: SolMiester
eh?....AFAIK, FPS difference between the 2 chips @ stock would not be that noticeable, as cpu is secondary to GPU UNLESS we have a cpu bottleneck, even if we clock both chips, and what is 5-10 FPS when you are getting 80+

5-10 FPS is not noticeable at 80+, but is noticeable at 25-30 FPS (ie, Crysis and other demanding games). I had en e6400 at 3ghz and gained around 10% FPS in that game when I moved to an e8400 at 3.8 ghz.

The benefits of a quad *at this point in time* are not compelling enough for me and hence my sticking with high speed duals. I dont care if I shave off 30 secs of vid encoding or whatever other time measured benefits a quad affords. FPS in games are my main criteria in CPU selection, for other people it may be different and if their nirvana is time saved in specific tasks or folding while watching a movie and decompressing archives at the same time, so be it, each to his own.

 

[Ichigo]

Assume I'm gaming at 1920x1200, will an e8400 make the difference in a game being unplayable or playable between it and a q6600?

If the framerate was solid, it'll be solid with either CPU.

If the framerate is too slow, no CPU upgrade can make up for it, you need a new GPU.

 

[amenx]

At 1920x1200 I doubt it will make a difference. At 1680x1050 it did make a difference for me in 2 games (Crysis and FSX), in most other games it was negligible. If you game at 1920x1200, a quad would then seem like a good choice over a dual.

 

[poohbear]

does the OS (Xp & vista) even support quad cores or is that irrelevant? i.e if i'm downloading using a download manager, listening to music, converting a video file in the background, have MS word running, and have bitttorrent running, and on/off playing a video game (crazy scenerio but lets just say i do that) would a quad core handle that better or is a dual core just as good?

if the OS doesnt have multiple threads support, then a quad wouldnt make a difference right? or does the quad handle all that better regardless of the OS?

 

[gramboh]

Originally posted by: poohbear
does the OS (Xp & vista) even support quad cores or is that irrelevant? i.e if i'm downloading using a download manager, listening to music, converting a video file in the background, have MS word running, and have bitttorrent running, and on/off playing a video game (crazy scenerio but lets just say i do that) would a quad core handle that better or is a dual core just as good?

if the OS doesnt have multiple threads support, then a quad wouldnt make a difference right? or does the quad handle all that better regardless of the OS?

To a degree yes but it isn't perfect, but download manager, bit torrent, decoding mp3, ms word use basically no CPU resources compared to playing a game/decoding a video. So you have to do a realisitic assessment of scenarios you will use the resources in. Decoding video and playing a 3D game will definitely be faster on a Quad. The other tasks it won't make a difference (this is from my own experience going dual to quad at the same MHz/arcitecture).

Like another poster above, my prime concern is FPS in games. If I were getting a new CPU today I'd get an E8x00 and go for 4+GHz because of less heat/power consumption. I only got this Quad because it cost me $70 after selling my E6600 and I wanted to try it out.

 

[Griswold]

So much fuzz over nothing.

He said:

Originally posted by: magnumty
I do alot of video encoding, so I'm sure it would be faster for that. Maybe I will wait for a quad til I build a new rig..

Yes, of course you will benefit greatly from a quad if you do alot of video encoding, given your codec of choice can utilize more than 2 cores.

 

[Griswold]

Originally posted by: jeffw2767602
I thought that Vista would spread single threaded operations amongst the 4 cores, correct or no?

Windows will shuffle single threads between the 4 cores but does not split them up. If you want a single threaded program to only run on a single core instead of on all available cores, you'll have to set its affinity to one of the cores. With that said, a single thread will never directly benefit from multiple cores. It does so indirectly because other threads (programs, windows itself) will not (greatly) interfere with each other.

But in general, the windows task scheduler isnt really a clever piece of code to begin with...

 

[Feldenak]

In a similar vein, I'm building a new rig and am torn between the E8400 and the Q9450. Primary use is gaming but I do some minor PP in PS on my personal photos. I keep my rigs for quite awhile until it's nearly impossible to upgrade (my previous build was done in '03), so I'm looking for longevity.

I know I want to go the 45nm process but I don't bother with OC'ing because I don't like to bother with aftermarket cooling (HSF and thermal compound). The mobo this will be sitting on is the GA-EP45-DS3L w 4GB RAM & Vista 64

 

[taltamir]

i have a Q6600 @3ghz and an E8400 @3.6ghz... no overvolting. I generally prefer the quad, much faster in some things, especially when restoring a google chrome or firefox session (opening as many as hundreds of websites simultaneously).
In games, most games are faster on a higher clocked dual... but there are some games that are faster on quads... I prefer the quad though because the games that are faster on the dual are usually "fast enough" already. Games that are CPU hogs tend to be well optimized for quads and get real world benefit (20 to 30 fps is a real world benefit... 80 to 100 fps is not).
All the unreal enginer 3 games can utilize a quad very well, and will be faster then a dual core.

I loathe buying for future capability, the quad will last longer, but you should really buy based on what it gives you today... and today the quad gives you much faster day to day operation, and higher FPS in some of the FEW games that are CPU limited (most are GPU limited anyways).

oh, the E8400 also have SSE4, better OC due to 45nm, and architectural improvements increasing speed per clock... but it was taken into account since I Was comparing a Q6600 to an E8400... if i could compare to the 45nm quads then it would shift even more towards the quad.

 

[scrubman]

This is funny, sorta, since the OP just asked about having to reinstall the OS. Of course it turns into a quad versus dual argument.

My opinion would be that if you made the change you are talking about there probably would be no need to reinstall the os. Of course that is always a good thing to do for improved performance if it hasnt been done in a while.

On the quad vs. dual - well i think it is hands down the Quad! And if for nothing else, since i am primarily a gamer, the fact that the newsest 3D FPS game Far Cry 2 was just realeased and supposedly will use all 4 cores that pumps me up! If you are one who upgrades every year maybe you are still good with the higher clocked dually but if you know you are keeping your rig for at least 2 years or longer the Quad will be the way!!

just my $.02

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: scrubman
since i am primarily a gamer, the fact that the newsest 3D FPS game Far Cry 2 was just realeased and supposedly will use all 4 cores that pumps me up!

dualcore vs. quadcore in Far Cry 2:

http://www.pcgameshardware.com...y_2_benchmark_test.png

 

[jeffw2767602]

4 > 2

 

[T101]

I went from en E6600 to a Q6600 recenty as the price/performance ratio was too good to pass up. Running at stock speeds. Even in games that can only use 2 cores I get higher framerates. Simply because there are enough cores to take care of other tasks in the background (like running windows with all its services, antivirus, etc.). Video encoding performance doubled.
Further, when I went from a single to dual core I was very happy because no longer did the system feel sluggish because of the CPU being 100% loaded. Did not expect to have such an experience again. But I got one when I went from dual to quad at the same clock frequency. Currenlty what is most limiting to my system performance is the harddrives (using raid 0). But as long as I run applications of different physical harddrives (and not just partitions) I can multitask like never before.
So the whole faster-duals-better-than-quads is something that depends on your needs. It is also something that is very much similar to how the situation was with single vs dual cores in the beginning. Same arguments were made then. Now I think no-one would really want to use a single core CPU after having experienced a dual core system.
It is all a matter of needs, and if the performance/price ratio is worth it, which of course is just a matter if timing. Surprisingly many games I did not think would use a quad core actually proved to be able to use the extra cores (S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky, World in Conflict, FarCry 2, Supreme Commander - Forged Alliance, and strangely enough even the by now old Oblivion seems to benefit from having 4 instead of 2 cores).