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better CPU to last me 2 to 3 years

The gaming would have been nice to know....however in 2-3 years I think quads will only start showing more prowess with quads....If you said 1-1.5 years and gaming I would have likely said E8400.

 
It will also depend on the game. Supreme Commander seems to benefit the most from quad core, while most games seem to favor 2 faster cores.
 
I voted for E8400 for the power savings over 2-3 years.

Sure games will evvvveeeerrrr so sloooowwwwwly become multi-threaded but even as they do you will surely find dual-core to handle them just fine.

Then in 2-3 years get yourself the next quad or octo core chip of the day, partially paid for by all the coin you'll save by not borking up your power bill for so many years.
 
Originally posted by: Cheex
Past 1.5 - 2 years...a quad will usually win in a decision battle such as this.
Click to expand...

Ah but that was 65nm quad versus 65nm dual...now we got an OP asking about 65nm quad versus 45nm dual.

The power delta was always there, but now it is appreciable and relevant to make distinctions regarding this.
 
its a 65nm quad vs a 45nm dual with optimizations and new features, like SSE4...
h264 video codecs are unsuitable to see any benefits from SSE4, divx on the other hand sees over 130% benefit (meanint its 2.3x faster then without it).
Games? well, no way to tell how they will work with SSE4, you will have to wait at least a year for that to come into play. So its a tough prediction to make.

There is also a 10-20% speed benefit simply due to core optimization... so this isn't a pure quad vs dual, its a higher speed, lower electricity, cooler running, newer process dual... vs an older quad.

I would vote the E8400 in this question... also why 2-3 years? I honestly recommend upgrading every year. Just buy a 100$ now and upgrade for 100$ in 1-1.5 years. In the long run you will get much much more for your money that way. Both the Q6600 and the E8400 will be really slow in late 2010 early 2011... Not so much so a 100$ nehalem from late 09.

what is better for todays gaming, a smithfield pentium D from late 05, or a higher clocked Pentium 4? On may 25th of this year the pentium D will be 3 years old...
 
I had the same decision to make as the OP just a couple of week ago. I REALLY wanted a quad core just because I am a multi thread fanboy. I decided to go for an E8400 to tie me over until I can see how well the new quads overclock and how the prices end up. I am VERY pleased with my E8400 because I upgraded from a single core and got it to 3.6 Ghz with 8 gigs of ram with only some very minor voltage bumps to CPU and Ram. Not going to push for more because I need my system to last a while and 3.6 seems to be plenty enough. This gives me time to see if I can get a quad core that will overclock to 4 Ghz ( my goal ) before the end of this year. Next year the rules will change so if I can get one upgrade to my current system before then I will be very pleased. Depending on pricing I may even buy an extreme quad for that magical 4 Ghz.

A lot can happen in a very short time, and in this time period its especially true. I picked up a very nice motherboard (Abit P35-E) with some GSkill ram and put together a GREAT budget system. My advice is buy what is affordable and pray for affordable upgrades later on. With the great prices on hardware, especially DDR2 ram, there is no better time than now to build.

Peace
 
I get the feeling Nehalem is going to change the game in about a years time since it is moving away from FSB and will boost memory bandwidth quite a bit, on paper. Question is do you want in on the ground floor with Nehalem or do you want to ride out the next 3 years in comfort without upgrades. Nehalem will certainly require a completely new motherboard.

I just answered this question myself by getting a quad penryn, because they have lower power requirements and four cores, so I am hoping that this will last because it will be clockable. I expect the same will be true of the much cheaper Q9450 which (has a locked multiplier and) is due in about two weeks though for a little bit more than the Q6600. That should clock well too.

I chose that because I am upgrading from single core and AGP and DDR1, which means a complete rebuild. I cant wait a year for that nor will I want to rebuild in a year having built now, so I decided to get the best available now for the long term which means IMHO penryn quad. I play sup com which is not a good reason on its own but did show me that programs are going that way and I also considered how I was not even worried about dual core last year and now all of a sudden you really need one, if only to run the Vista OS (which I dont yet but might be 'forced' to do oneday)! I am guessing quads will suddenly become indispensable in about a year. Nehalem will be going up to eight cores !!!

FYI around here the price equivalent of a Q6600 is currently an E8500 but I would suggest a Q9450.
 
Idontcare is right, Buying quad core NOW so that you might get a small advantage in games in 2010 is silly. Buy the better gaming processor now (E8400) that will ALSO save you money by using up significantly less power over the next several years. And then, in 2010 or 2011 look at quad or octo solutions. Remember that gaming development cycles are relatively long (3 years or so), so it will take a LONG time for games to truly take advantage of quad-core because developers have to wait for quads to become common in the gaming PC install base before it makes financial sense to begin developing a truly quad-core game.

If gaming is your primary use, then E8400 is the way to go.
 
if they were both available id prolly just go with the E8400 just because you guys are right. quad cores wont be utilized for at least 3 years and by then ill be due for an upgrade. my only reason for getting the Q6600 now is that it is in stock almost everywhere(and costs only 250). i found a few E8400's but the cheapest i found in stock is about 280 dollars. do u think i should wait it out until egg restocks and get it for 240 or should i just get the 6600 for 250?
 
actually, you'll be amazed at how fast things are getting optimized.

If you just look back since the beginning of quadcores, there has been a lot of games poping up which are quad optimized.

Now if you also look at quadcore sales, and how they have been increasing, you'll see a general shift to quad platform.

Also neha was suposed to be the end of dualcores, but i hear dualcores will be available on a lower platform, unfortunately, and the higher gaming platform will be quads.

So if you look at intel's shift next year in neha, if they go with it, a quad will be designated the higher end gaming cpu, so therefore we should see software advancing faster to meet up with them.

OR am i just completely wrong in my thinking?

Because thats how the dualcore went against single core. As more of them came out, more games were getting optimized for dualcore, and now you'd have to be desperate when buying a single core CPU. (timeframe was probably 2-3 yrs AT MOST) And since things are progressing A LOT faster, id expect that time frame to be shorter as well.
 
aigomoria. I just have to disagree with you. what you say about the speed of adoption is more or less correct (though I don't see any reason to think that the rate of progress is increasing), BUT only at the truly high end. Obviously Quad-Core is the way to go at the top of the market right now. and in two years time quad-core will probably be the basic desktop processor in the way that dual core is now. but by then, Octo cores will be out and people will be wondering when games will be optimized for 8 cores instead of 2 or 4. But the devlopment cycle for games is quite long, and it takes longer to change the way games are programmed that it does to slap another core on a cpu die. Also, even in 2010/2011, when quad-core is 'common' there will still be LOTS of dual-core processors out there, so games that are optimized for 4+ cores will still be designed to run on no more than 2 threads. Beyond that it's pretty hard to guess what will happen because that's about as far as the intel/amd roadmaps go.

All of which means that even though it is likely, even probable, that quad-core will have a slight gaming advantage over dual-core in 2-3 years time (likely to be comprised of a very large edge in one or two titles and a dead heat in the majority), that advantage is likely to be vastly overshadowed by other problems/requirements (ie the limitations of current GPUs). And in the intervening time that dual-core has offered slightly better performance in 95% of current games AND used up less power (costing significantly less money to run). for a 2-3 year lifespan I just don't see how quad core offers more than the E8400 (and that's before you consider the SSE4 improvements) UNLESS you do an awful lot of video encoding or other activities that heavily favour the extra 2 cores.
 
Originally posted by: hennethannun
aigomoria. I just have to disagree with you. what you say about the speed of adoption is more or less correct (though I don't see any reason to think that the rate of progress is increasing), BUT only at the truly high end. Obviously Quad-Core is the way to go at the top of the market right now. and in two years time quad-core will probably be the basic desktop processor in the way that dual core is now. but by then, Octo cores will be out and people will be wondering when games will be optimized for 8 cores instead of 2 or 4. But the devlopment cycle for games is quite long, and it takes longer to change the way games are programmed that it does to slap another core on a cpu die. Also, even in 2010/2011, when quad-core is 'common' there will still be LOTS of dual-core processors out there, so games that are optimized for 4+ cores will still be designed to run on no more than 2 threads. Beyond that it's pretty hard to guess what will happen because that's about as far as the intel/amd roadmaps go.

All of which means that even though it is likely, even probable, that quad-core will have a slight gaming advantage over dual-core in 2-3 years time (likely to be comprised of a very large edge in one or two titles and a dead heat in the majority), that advantage is likely to be vastly overshadowed by other problems/requirements (ie the limitations of current GPUs). And in the intervening time that dual-core has offered slightly better performance in 95% of current games AND used up less power (costing significantly less money to run). for a 2-3 year lifespan I just don't see how quad core offers more than the E8400 (and that's before you consider the SSE4 improvements) UNLESS you do an awful lot of video encoding or other activities that heavily favour the extra 2 cores.
Click to expand...



Yup, and the dual core is cheaper, faster, cooler, smaller, uses less power, overclocks higher, and runs games faster. For gaming, it's a no brainer.
 
I decided to go the E8400 route and buy a Mobo that can handle quads and DDR2/DDR3 as well.Hopefully I'll be able to upgrade both CPU and RAM as and when the prices make it more attractive.
 
how much are the 45nm quad core processors supposed to be? If its worth it to wait and get the benefits of 45nm technology on a quad core i might just do that. how much bottlenecking can i expect from using a pentium 4 550 (3.4 Ghz Prescott) with my new setup and then just upgrading the CPU when its becomes available/decent price?

i will be using it with a P35 chipset, 8800GT vid card, and 4 GB of DDR2-800 ram.

im sure i can probably overclock it to maybe 4GHz.

also the pentium 4 550 (3.4 Ghz Prescott) will work with gigabyte DS3L right?
 
Originally posted by: Nvidiaguy07
how much are the 45nm quad core processors supposed to be? If its worth it to wait and get the benefits of 45nm technology on a quad core i might just do that. how much bottlenecking can i expect from using a pentium 4 550 (3.4 Ghz Prescott) with my new setup and then just upgrading the CPU when its becomes available/decent price?

i will be using it with a P35 chipset, 8800GT vid card, and 4 GB of DDR2-800 ram.

:laugh:im sure i can probably overclock it to maybe 4GHz:laugh:.

also the pentium 4 550 (3.4 Ghz Prescott) will work with gigabyte DS3L right?
Click to expand...

:camera:

Not to be rude, it's going to be hard with 7,7.5, and 8x multies and a Quad FSB/power draw to do that.

I was sure i could probably maybe get 4.5 on my dual, but it was a no-go.
 
Originally posted by: jaredpace
Originally posted by: Nvidiaguy07
how much are the 45nm quad core processors supposed to be? If its worth it to wait and get the benefits of 45nm technology on a quad core i might just do that. how much bottlenecking can i expect from using a pentium 4 550 (3.4 Ghz Prescott) with my new setup and then just upgrading the CPU when its becomes available/decent price?

i will be using it with a P35 chipset, 8800GT vid card, and 4 GB of DDR2-800 ram.

:laugh:im sure i can probably overclock it to maybe 4GHz:laugh:.

also the pentium 4 550 (3.4 Ghz Prescott) will work with gigabyte DS3L right?
Click to expand...

:camera:

Not to be rude, it's going to be hard with 7,7.5, and 8x multies and a Quad FSB/power draw to do that.

I was sure i could probably maybe get 4.5 on my dual, but it was a no-go.
Click to expand...

I think he was saying he intends to overclock his 3.4GHz P4 to 4.0GHz on the DS3L until such time that he upgrades the CPU to a 45nm quad.
 
haha yea sorry i was referring to my old P4 which i believe has a 16x multiplier or something. ive never overclocked it because the only way i can do it on my board is by using NOS. but if i put it in my new rig how much do u think it would bottleneck my performance?
 
Originally posted by: jaredpace
Originally posted by: hennethannun
aigomoria. I just have to disagree with you. what you say about the speed of adoption is more or less correct (though I don't see any reason to think that the rate of progress is increasing), BUT only at the truly high end. Obviously Quad-Core is the way to go at the top of the market right now. and in two years time quad-core will probably be the basic desktop processor in the way that dual core is now. but by then, Octo cores will be out and people will be wondering when games will be optimized for 8 cores instead of 2 or 4. But the devlopment cycle for games is quite long, and it takes longer to change the way games are programmed that it does to slap another core on a cpu die. Also, even in 2010/2011, when quad-core is 'common' there will still be LOTS of dual-core processors out there, so games that are optimized for 4+ cores will still be designed to run on no more than 2 threads. Beyond that it's pretty hard to guess what will happen because that's about as far as the intel/amd roadmaps go.

All of which means that even though it is likely, even probable, that quad-core will have a slight gaming advantage over dual-core in 2-3 years time (likely to be comprised of a very large edge in one or two titles and a dead heat in the majority), that advantage is likely to be vastly overshadowed by other problems/requirements (ie the limitations of current GPUs). And in the intervening time that dual-core has offered slightly better performance in 95% of current games AND used up less power (costing significantly less money to run). for a 2-3 year lifespan I just don't see how quad core offers more than the E8400 (and that's before you consider the SSE4 improvements) UNLESS you do an awful lot of video encoding or other activities that heavily favour the extra 2 cores.
Click to expand...



Yup, and the dual core is , faster, overclocks higher, and runs games faster. For gaming, it's a no brainer.
Click to expand...


Say that to my QX9650, oh its handpicked by an XS member also 😀.
You'll get a different story.


@ Henneth, while i would normally agree with you, the fact remains that there are things getting more quadcore optimized. This migration from dualcore -> quadcore will i feel be a lot faster then dualcore -> single core.

At this point when you can pick up a X3210 @ 200 dollars, or even Q6600 which are dropping to 200 dollars Microcenter BM deal, also frys black friday deal, people will always think more is better. This is human nature in greed.

Programers will also know by using more cores and having games run smoother = better profit and more sales. Imagine crysis if it was programed correctly, and did make use of all 4 cores.

The fact remains is there is a shift. Without a doubt dualcore's wont last, neither will quadcores. But if i had to pick something to last me the 2-3 yrs, a quadcore would be my choice.

Also you guys talk about electricity this and that... Well, what is the honest difference in cost between a quad and dualcore? i bet you most people's GPU's are pushed harder and use more electricty when idled and loaded.

Dont add the cost of energy into the eq. Its not very big. You guys make it sound like its 100 of dollars per month extra for a quad. The reality is its probably less then 20 dollar difference, only being seen when the quad is loaded all the time and pushed at a high overclock.
 
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