Hello, It was suggested to me by some friends that I fish around the net looking for information on pc construction as I'm creating my first custom build for my 18th birthday, one headache later and still my main question is about LGA775 dual and quad core processors, I don't really understand what i would be best with for a fairly good gaming pc with a budget of around £250 (for the processor alone). For example, is a Dual core clocked at 3.2ghz (mbs1333hz) better or worse than a Quad core clocked at 2.6ghz (mbs1333hz)? I understand that supposably quad woud have a higher combined power but do pc games really use quad core technology? I'm planning on buying an Asus P5K DDR2 LGA775 socket mobo (mbs1333hz) and about 4GB of Nvidia DDR2 RAM (1060mhz) to go with it, I allready have a fairly new ATI Sapphire HD3870 512mb GDDR4 Graphics card to go with the setup and a case for it all to go in HDD, DVD RW Drive and a few other bits and pieces will be taken from my current PC. My PSU will be whatver I deem suitable for the job however i do already have a thermal take 500W PSU which i purchased at the same time as my graphics card when upgrading my current PC. Clearly this setup will be no super computer but I'm only after something able to run games like FSX, Crysis, Fallout 3 at fairly high specs and high frames. Any help and advise would be appreaciated, also if you feel any of my current choices in hardware are unnessesary/ you know where i could geta better product for less or an equal amount, that help would also be very valuable to me. I know a little bit about how PCs work and I've been inside my current one plenty of times and know where everything goes, but other than that I'm what you would call a 'noob' so please be patient if my ignorance gets the better of me
If you're going to get a quad, then get a Q6600 and overclock it like mad. A bad one will go to 3GHz, and most will go well beyond that (3.4 - 3.6GHz). Most games at the moment won't take advantage of all the cores on a quad, but they /will/ soon, as games now are being written to take advantage of all cores. In all honesty, you won't notice much difference between a Q6600 at 3.4GHz and a E8400 at 4GHz, both are *very* fast. For futureproofing, I'd go with a quad.
Thank you for insulting my writing skills, now do you have anything useful to contribute other than to point out that i was too busy worrying about writing a decent question that gave enough detail to be answered than whether i had broken my text into paragraphs. next time i'll get my parents to come spell and grammar check my posts just for you Please do that. And thanks for having no consideration for the people you're asking to help you.
Go with a quad. Newer games (Far Cry 2 is an excellent example) are starting to take advantage of multiple cores, and they're much more futureproof than dual-cores are. In a year, a year and a half when games consistently take advantage of four cores, you'll be glad you got it. Just be sure to get a decent heatsink/fan to go along with it (most things made by Thermalright, Noctua, and Xigmatek are exellent, especially when you hit the 120mm fan range, but Cooler Master, Scythe, and Zalman are fine choices as well) and some Arctic Silver or OCZ Freeze thermal paste. Oh, and your PSU will be fine for the time being. If you plan on upgrading some other parts in the future, you should probably upgrade your PSU to something a little higher wattage (maybe 650W) and a little more efficient (something 80+ certified), but for the build you're putting together it'll serve just fine. - Diosjenin -
thanks that was just the advise i needed guys, i'll get myself a quad q6600 however not being a big fan of extreme overclocking, i'll only over clocked if a and when I need, and only if i have the correct equipment to keep the heat down
If you are not overclocking you may be better off looking at a Yorkfield Quad (Q9xxx) or a Phenom II. The Q6600 is quite an old processor and probably the only thing saving it from have been withdrawn previously is its popularity for overclocking.
It's only one button on the keyboard, not hard to use it to make your question more readable. I'd go for the Q9550 it's prob the best value processor around at the moment.
It might not have been done in the best manner, but he has a point. It's nice to see paragraphs in a post, especially a complex one.
people must have missed that point amongst that flab of text. get the quad core even if only for gaming, UT3 and GTA4 have proven that multicore games are coming, slowly but will net you great increase in FPS if you just spend at little bit more. Q9550 if you can afford it, q6600 if you want something cheap. edit: what TimS said.
and it might be even better value if AMD come up with the goods when Phenom II is released on Thursday. I am not expecting a Phenom II 940 to out perform a Q9550 but if it is close and AMD price it aggressively it will put pressure on Intel to reduce the prices on the Q9550 and the Yorkfield quads below it. It might be a bit ambitious to expect all that to happen on Thursday.
i'd say go for the Q6600 and overclock the snot out of it. you might see slightly higher framerates in some old games with a dual core price-equivalent to the q6600, but the advantage there is nothing compared to the disadvantage in newer games optimized for quad-core, like GTA IV. but first wait for the phenom II review. (if bindi manages to finish it on time )
Seen your talking about the Q9550 and the Q6600. Im trying to work out what to get. Is there much differants in the 2 apart from Q6600 CPU speed: 2.40GHZ Bus speed: 1066MHz mfg tech: 65nm cache speed: 8MB Q9550 CPU speed: 2.83GHz Bus speed: 1333MHZ mfg tech: 45nm cache speed: 12MB What one would be best to get for doing grahic design work and encoding video. And gaming. Not to worryed about cost differants i already no there is.
