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CPU and RAM advice (Q6600 vs E8400)

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Hazza, 6 May 2008.

  1. Hazza

    Hazza What's a Dremel?

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    Hi,

    I'm looking at buying a new system pretty soon, but I'm fairly torn about choice of processor. I've already decided on an Asus P5E motherboard, 8800GT (probably BFG) and a Seasonic M12 600W Modular PSU.

    I'm trying to decide between a Q6600 and E8400 cpu. I was leaning towards the quad, but I think the higher clock and larger cache of the E8400 will come out ahead in games, which will be the main use. I won't be able to upgrade again for quite a while so future proofing is a concern. I don't think many games currently use 4 cores, but I'm not sure if this is something that is going to change. I'm also unsure about how much I can expect to get out of the E8400 in overclocking. Whilst they seem to be well clockable chips, I'm slightly concerned about whether the motherboard will be able to reach a decently high fsb to get some good speeds.

    The next thing is memory. I had initially planned to get 4GB of 1066MHz+ ram, but I wondered if this will really bring much benefit over some 800MHz ram. The slower ram is a tempting option to save some money, but then if faster ram will give reasonable improvements, I'd gladly pay an extra £20 or so.

    Finally, whilst I'm fairly sure on an 8800GT, I had wondered if an 8800GTS would be much better at 1440x900? I don't expect there to be much difference, but if anyone thinks there's enough to warrant an extra £40 then let me know!

    ANY help would be greatly appreciated!
    Cheers, Hazza.
     
  2. heir flick

    heir flick Minimodder

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    both great cpu's and its pretty hard to go wrong with which ever one you choose, i have the asus p5e myself and went with the q6600 and overclocking to 3ghz was simple and theres plenty left in it if choose, i also use 1066 ram and to be honest i cant tell the difference between 1066 or 800
     
  3. atanum141

    atanum141 I fapped to your post!

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    I'd go with the 8400 with DDR800, these combos help the cpu hit 4Ghz easy peasy.
     
  4. crazybob

    crazybob Voice of Reason

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    Get the dual-core. The only tasks which make good use of more than two cores are number crunching and video encoding, and those take a long time anyway - another few minutes won't hurt. For general use and gaming, a higher-clocked dual core will be faster than a slower quad at the same price, and the extra cache on the E8000 series makes that even more true.
     
  5. wyx087

    wyx087 Homeworld 3 is happening!!

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    gamer: dual core
    all others: quad core.
    it's simple as that.

    i got quad core because at that time, i don't have e8400 to buy, q6600 vs e6850 was an easy choice.

    i would say get the 800Mhz RAM, because 8400 have x9 multiplyer, so you can reach 4Ghz with a little overclock on the RAM.

    for GT vs GTS, it's up to you. IMHO GTS is worth it. GTS would give you more stream processors, a lot better cooler and exactly same GPU as the 9800GTX
     
  6. graysky

    graysky What's a Dremel?

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    Dunno about that... most new games will take advantage of 4 cores over 2 cores. If you're buying the machine now and wanting to keep it for say 2-3 years before you upgrade again, you gotta start to think about where stuff will be in that time period in my opinion.

    A quad @ 9x333=3.0 GHz is plenty fast. I just upgraded my Q6600 to a X3360 and it's clocked @ 8.5x400=3.4 GHz and I honestly can't tell a difference.. except when doing x264 encoding.

    Get the 8800GTS. As others have pointed out, it's faster and runs cooler. As to crazybob's comments about quads being faster for video encoding.. they are about 2x as fast as duals. See my x264 benchmark HD for more.
     
  7. jbloggs

    jbloggs What's a Dremel?

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    I have both the Q6600 (@3.6GHz -> 3.8GHZ) and E8400 (@4.2GHz->4.5GHz), if you are going to be doing music/video encoding on a regular basis, I would suggest the Q6600 would best suit you, however, if you will be doing a lot of gaming, I would go for the E8400.

    I am using my Q6600 with Crucial Ballistix PC6400, and with the E8400, Crucial Ballistix PC5300.
    ________
    Live Sex
     
    Last edited: 20 Aug 2011
  8. Hazza

    Hazza What's a Dremel?

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    Thanks for all the replies so far!

    I think I probably will go for the GTS, just for a bit more power at silly-high detail.

    The general consensus about RAM seems to be that I may as well go for the 800MHz. I rekon that's gonna be my choice, helps recoup a bit of the cost of the GTS too.

    A bit more divided opinions about processor though. I do a fair bit of DVD transcoding and video encoding so a quad would be nice for that, but I could easily live with a dual. Whilst the dual is good for games now, what about some upcoming games that are rumoured to really use the extra cores? Alan Wake for example? Worth going for the quad to prepare for things like that? Or is it probably just rumours and marketing? (As it turned out to be with Crysis. Claimed it would use 4, ended up using 2.)
    I would almost certainly go for the quad if there is a high chance that upcoming games will use it, even if it is a little slower than the dual in some games now. If there's little chance, I'd happily go for a dual and just see how things go.
     
  9. wyx087

    wyx087 Homeworld 3 is happening!!

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    dual core is only SLIGHTLY better for games NOW because it can be overclocked slightly faster.

    IMHO, if you are going to do anything apart from gaming, a quad core q6600 is the way forward. gaming is also very good on q6600, you'll probably a few FPS less than E8400 though, but why would you care about a few FPS when your encoding is almost double its speed?
     
  10. graysky

    graysky What's a Dremel?

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    The question you need to answer is: when will your next upgrade occur? If you're buying a new PC every few years, it's probably not a big deal, but if you wanna wait 3+ years, you need to 'future proof' yourself and get the quad now in my opinion given what you said you do with your PC.

    BTW, crysis does use all 4 of my cores, just now @ 100 % each.
     
    Last edited: 8 May 2008
  11. badders

    badders Neuken in de Keuken

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    If it's your sort of thing, Assassin's creed is also a 4-core game, for definite.
     
  12. Hazza

    Hazza What's a Dremel?

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    Right, I'm decided then, Q6600 it is. Thanks very much for the help guys, helped me clear things up :)
     
  13. LoopyJuice

    LoopyJuice Astronomical

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    Psst.. get a Samsung F1, they come highly recommended ;)
     
  14. lamboman

    lamboman What's a Dremel?

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    I agree. I would say that quad core now (or bottom end duallie which is what I am doing for one of my friends, and upgrade to quad later). I would also quad for gaming, anything else, dual, unless you are doing something really intensive. Either way you go, you will be happy. I have a 'lowly' E4300 at 3ghz, smoking fast and cheap. Let alone your chips.

    LoopyJuice recommended a hard drive, but I did a quick scan of the thread and didn't see anything being mentioned. Either way, the new 640GB WDs are great.

    I would not really recommend an 8800GTS, I don't think it warrants the extra £30, considering it is maybe 3-4 fps faster on average, and, in situations where it would be higher than that, at like 150fps, your display wouldn't cope anyway. The GTS does run cooler though...
     
  15. graysky

    graysky What's a Dremel?

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    The GTS not only runs cooler, but doesn't heat up your case since it has a dual-slot HSF that exhausts out rather than inside the case. This is a major plus in my book.
     
  16. Hazza

    Hazza What's a Dremel?

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    Much though I would like an F1, I've spent far too many squids already :sigh: However, at some point...

    With what I got, the results have been great. It's a massive contrast to what I had before so the BIOS is taking a bit of getting used to. DVD recoding simply flies which I am really pleased with. I can hit 3GHz by just upping the fsb, easy as hell and a great speed boost. Not tried any further yet, but would probably need better cooling; the stock hsf is nothing more than adaquate. The GTS has been truly fantastic. Admittedly any new graphics card would have seemed worlds better that what I had, but I'm also impressed with the noise levels - it's hardly sped up much, definitely nowhere near 100%, and I've not seen over 65deg so far. All in all, I wouldn't have made any different choices.
     

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