E8500 or Q6600?

[dkkruse]

I know there are a million iterations of this question - but a lot seem to focus on the same base clock speed. Right now, the price for both of these is the same at the egg.

I have a C2D 6600 in now on the ASUS P5B-E - not overclocked though. My kids computer died and I figure I will give them the old processor and cheap MOBO and do an incremental upgrade for me. I will install vista 64 bit this time as well and up the ram to 6GB. I do Photoshop, some gaming and often multiple processes at the same time.

My question is 2 faster processors or 4 slower processors? WWYD?

Thanks in advance.....



Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E8500 - Retail

or

Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model HH80562PH0568M - OEM

 

[OCGuy]

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2242735&enterthread=y

 

[DSF]

What do you mean by multiple processes at the same time?

Two chat clients and an internet broswer, or folding @ home while working photoshop and encoding a video?

 

[dkkruse]

Originally posted by: DSF
What do you mean by multiple processes at the same time?

Two chat clients and an internet broswer, or folding @ home while working photoshop and encoding a video?

Photoshop (lots of filters on big files), several internet browsers, Antivirus, music, and I'm sure some spyware......

Plus gaming (but I close down everything else for that), plus I'd like to keep this rig going for a few more years... A new video card will eventually happen as well.

And yes, I did see the first sticky... I just wasn't sure whether two faster cores or four slower cores would work now and into the future. I will probably overclock when I get a little more time.

 

[DSF]

At the moment quad cores don't have much of an advantage in gaming, and other than Photoshop most of that other stuff isn't too CPU intensive. It's as much a question of hard drive response as anything else.

You're kind of on that borderline between the two. I wouldn't blame you for going quad core, especially if you see your multitasking increasing in the future. However, if you buy a slower clocked quad like a Q6600, you'll probably want to overclock to get the best performance in games down the road.

 

[dguy6789]

Unreal Tournament 3 already uses all four cores by itself. The performance improvement going from dual to quad in UT3 is pretty large. Most later Unreal Engine 3 games likely will utilize four cores as well.

 

[SolMiester]

Clocking the Q66 to 3ghz is so easy, its almost a crime NOT too.....I'd go for the Quad

 

[cmdrdredd]

There's no reason in my mind to not go for a quad if you can. 3.2Ghz on a Q6600 is simple, maybe 3.4 if you have good cooling. A Q9550 or such can get to 3.6 or 3.8 with good cooling. Not hard to get there either.