better CPU to last me 2 to 3 years

[Markfw]

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.

Well, I agree on cheaper, cooler, uses less power, but faster ? You mean stock ? overclocks higher ? Maybe the E8400, but what about the 9450 ? Faster for gaming ? most current games yes, but there are some out that can use 4 cores.

What if the only game I cared about was Supreme Commander ? I think that's too much of a blanket statement. You really need to qualify your advice, everything is not so simple in the world of computers.....

Edit:

The reality is its probably less then 20 dollar difference

I don;t think so. I run 6 quads 24/7 and one dual-core for $100, and I bet the difference is like $5 a month is less based on that, and thats 24/7 !

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Markfw900

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.

Well, I agree on cheaper, cooler, uses less power, but faster ? You mean stock ? overclocks higher ? Maybe the E8400, but what about the 9450 ? Faster for gaming ? most current games yes, but there are some out that can use 4 cores.

What if the only game I cared about was Supreme Commander ? I think that's too much of a blanket statement. You really need to qualify your advice, everything is not so simple in the world of computers.....

Edit:

The reality is its probably less then 20 dollar difference

I don;t think so. I run 6 quads 24/7 and one dual-core for $100, and I bet the difference is like $5 a month is less based on that, and thats 24/7 !

Yeah all of the above

cheaper? 189 vs. 199. or generally speaking 224 vs. 259
cooler - ask anyone who runs a 45nm dual or 65nm quad which is cooler
uses less power - thats obvious right? If not mark and aigomorla are talking about it in the two previous posts
faster - 3.5 ghz q6600s on air and 4.3ghz e8400's on air
stock - 2.6ghz q6600 vs. 3.0ghz e8400
overclocks higher? yes.
what about q9450... wait and see. it should be good, but is more than 200 bucks.

Is that qualitative enough?

it outperforms the q6600 stock or overclocked in games. check any benchmarks around for that.

Which is better in 3 years? Probably the q6600, because like aigomorla is saying, there will be mostly multithreaded apps 3 years from now when everyones running quads.

The scenario for gaming comparisons currently? e8400 wins.

When is that going to change? Within 2-3 years when games are multi-threaded.

 

[Markfw]

Well here supreme commander really needs a quad
This is the exact point I am trying to make. Quads in games CAN be used today, and DO win some benchmarks.

Quote from the article:

In our test conditions, it is of course the quad core that is best for play even if the multi-threading of Supreme Commander is quite simple and the 4 cores are only partially used. In fact, 3 are enough.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Markfw900

The reality is its probably less then 20 dollar difference

I don;t think so. I run 6 quads 24/7 and one dual-core for $100, and I bet the difference is like $5 a month is less based on that, and thats 24/7 !

In Dec I bought/assembled 5 Q6600 systems, identically configured in every way. All overclocked to 3.3GHz with ~1.38V Vcore. All 5 systems run 24x7 fully loaded.

My electricity provider (PPL, in Pennsylvania) tracks power consumption on a daily basis, you can login to their website and your online account and see the daily consumption numbers graphed by week or by month.

So after letting my 5 quad's run 24x7 for all of Jan, I compared the power consumption (and my power bill) for Jan versus Nov. For these two months my electricity habits in my house were pretty consistent, as evidenced by the near consistent day-to-day electricity consumption.

The end result - my 5 quads, fully loaded at 3.3GHz, add $75/month to my electric power bill. That's $15/month per quad-core.

I'll update this post later with the jpg's of the graphs for proof. The graphs aren't on this computer that I'm posting from.

(PS - I'm anal about documenting this not for enthusiast reasons but because I run my business from home and I must document all expensible items...my computers make me money so the $15/month is absolutely nothing...but I like to pass along my data and experience to computer enthusiasts who are budget wary or environmentally concerned.)

 

[Markfw]

Idontcare, that would mean for me with 6 quads, at your rate, $90, and $10 for the duo, my estimate, was right on !

Edit: My quads don't make me any money, but they make 23k ppd for Team Ananadtech on F@H !

 

[Ogewo]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

That's $15/month per quad-core.

How much are you charged for electricity usage per dual-core system? Can you account for the differences in power draw of the various other components of that dual-core system which may be more or less efficient than those in the quad-core systems?

 

[The J]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

In Dec I bought/assembled 5 Q6600 systems, identically configured in every way. All overclocked to 3.3GHz with ~1.38V Vcore. All 5 systems run 24x7 fully loaded.
...
So after letting my 5 quad's run 24x7 for all of Jan, I compared the power consumption (and my power bill) for Jan versus Nov. For these two months my electricity habits in my house were pretty consistent, as evidenced by the near consistent day-to-day electricity consumption.

The end result - my 5 quads, fully loaded at 3.3GHz, add $75/month to my electric power bill. That's $15/month per quad-core.

Just out of curiosity, are these brand new systems or are they upgrades to older ones? I ask because if you have 5 brand new systems, that would mean that the $15/month difference is caused by the whole system's power draw and not just that of the quad core processors, right? Though I assume the the quad cores are taking up the vast majority of power (unless you're running beefy video cards as well).

So then your calculation would be the worst case scenario in every sense of the word, it seems (24x7, heavy load, whole system consumption)? This sounds like good news to me, since I'm looking to finally upgrade from my broken single core A64, AGP system. Also, it seems like the OP's electricity bill would have a rather small increase should he go with the Q6600 over the E8400.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Idontcare, that would mean for me with 6 quads, at your rate, $90, and $10 for the duo, my estimate, was right on !

Right on!

Originally posted by: Ogewo

Originally posted by: Idontcare
That's $15/month per quad-core.

How much are you charged for electricity usage per dual-core system? Can you account for the differences in power draw of the various other components of that dual-core system which may be more or less efficient than those in the quad-core systems?

You quoted me (IDC) but I think you meant to address Markfw900. Is this correct?

Originally posted by: The J

Originally posted by: Idontcare
In Dec I bought/assembled 5 Q6600 systems, identically configured in every way. All overclocked to 3.3GHz with ~1.38V Vcore. All 5 systems run 24x7 fully loaded.
...
The end result - my 5 quads, fully loaded at 3.3GHz, add $75/month to my electric power bill. That's $15/month per quad-core.

Just out of curiosity, are these brand new systems or are they upgrades to older ones? I ask because if you have 5 brand new systems, that would mean that the $15/month difference is caused by the whole system's power draw and not just that of the quad core processors, right? Though I assume the the quad cores are taking up the vast majority of power (unless you're running beefy video cards as well).

So then your calculation would be the worst case scenario in every sense of the word, it seems (24x7, heavy load, whole system consumption)? This sounds like good news to me, since I'm looking to finally upgrade from my broken single core A64, AGP system. Also, it seems like the OP's electricity bill would have a rather small increase should he go with the Q6600 over the E8400.

My systems were 100% brand new, from the wall to the keyboard. So I am talking, of course, about system power consumption. My estimation is 2/3 of my system power consumption is from the quadcore CPU (in my case). I have wimpy GPU in these boxes as they are not for gaming, they are number crunchers thru-and-thru.

My estimation (based on the numbers) is that two identically equipped computers but one with E8400 and the other is Q6600 (both overclocked to their typical levels) will differ in power consumption at the wall (what you pay for) by about 33% (in favor of the overclocked E8400).

The delta would be higher if your system has less of GPU power hogs (the F@H number cruncher types, not the gaming types).

 

[Markfw]

And as IDC, I have nothing but wimpy (6200LE) video cards on my quads. Two still have 1 meg PCI cards ! They are crunchers.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
faster - 3.5 ghz q6600s on air and 4.3ghz e8400's on air

excuse me.. do you HAVE a E8400 thats prime stable @ 4.3 on air?

Also you havent shown me a prime stable picture of your 4.2ghz on air.

Lastly, i do have a 4.3ghz stable E8400, but its not on air, more like mid upper, to lower upper tier h2o. Also its on a mean board, not a cheapo budget one, DFI X38-T2R.

And lastly, its taking me 1.57Vcore to hold it stable. You know how unsafe that votlage is?


4.0ghz is where most people are hitting, but it takes some luck with hardware to get there.

4.1-4.2 YMMV is where i would call max safe air not primable, 4ghz would be max primable safe for air.

Dont get your heart set on any number above 4.0ghz tho. The voltage scales rediculously high once you tip 4.1ghz to get prime stable.


Oh Jared i remember you said you wanted to have a 3DMark contest with me:
http://i125.photobucket.com/al...aigomorla/IMG_0882.jpg

Hopefully my friend will have picked out the QX by next month, and i can start build on it next middle of april.

You ready?


Oh i'll have a E8400, if this one doesnt die, on a 780i too with tri sli 9800GTX if the price isnt too killer.


OP, im a gamer... but like mark says, "hiding in my corner" im kinda hooked on supreme commander, and the quadcore does help heaps. My single 8800GT is very limited on a 24inch, so i need to step up to xfire on a X38. Replacing what i have in sig.

Im doing all this so i can pray i get good frame rates when i play an 81km x 81km Map, with 8 different AI's and set units to 500 each. I hope i dont LAG the hell when i nuke someone, or someone nukes me.

:]

 

[Tempered81]

@aigomorla: considering you have an e8400 and q6600 both on watercooling, 1 at 4300mhz and one at 3700mhz, lets just say it clocks 600mhz better than a q6600

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
@aigomorla: considering you have an e8400 and q6600 both on watercooling, 1 at 4300mhz and one at 3700mhz, lets just say it clocks 600mhz better than a q6600

And does that help in supreme commander ? no.....We are trying to make a valid point that quad cores have a valid use TODAY, and will continue to be more valuable in the future, every day they will be of more value.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Markfw900

Originally posted by: jaredpace
@aigomorla: considering you have an e8400 and q6600 both on watercooling, 1 at 4300mhz and one at 3700mhz, lets just say it clocks 600mhz better than a q6600

And does that help in supreme commander ? no.....We are trying to make a valid point that quad cores have a valid use TODAY, and will continue to be more valuable in the future, every day they will be of more value.

QFT!!!

However i think you'll be GPU limited b4 you can get cpu limited on a single card solution. LOL. Hence why Xfire.

And if that doesnt work, then tri-sli.

and if worse comes to worse, i goto rubycon and ask for I/O options.... *sigh*

Originally posted by: jaredpace
@aigomorla: considering you have an e8400 and q6600 both on watercooling, 1 at 4300mhz and one at 3700mhz, lets just say it clocks 600mhz better than a q6600

awwww no contest then? :[




OP, general rule of buying a computer, you only get what you need or what you think you'll need. If you think your never going to render anything, play only games, and some chatting, and webbing.... then yeah a dualcore might be a sensable idea. Depending on monitor you'll quickly run into gpu limitations faster then cpu limitations

However if you think your going to do some editting, rendering, encoding, or you want to try this craze known as "Distributing Computing" and see why mark has so many rigs, then a quadcore is the more sensible idea.

If you look at the finner points, as i stated above, you'll be faster gpu limited, then cpu limited. And you wouldnt have much to lose besides a little more extra dollars on power, if you went the quad option and route.

X3210 is very competitive against the E8400 if you can find one in stock. 3.2ghz would definitely hold you very nicely 2-3yrs from now if you had a decient gpu in there.

And i really dont think theres much of a difference in games between 3.2 vs 4.0. Honestly.

 

[hennethannun]

Well, supreme commander is exactly the sort of game that would benefit most from multi-core, since RTS games with huge numbers of units are CPU intensive. BUT that review doesn't seem to dsicuss the resolutions used for their CPU tests. So it's great that quad-core was 12% better, but was that at 1280*1024 or 1900*1200. I suspect that 80% of gamers will be GPU bound even with RTS games before they are significantly CPU bound.

As for power costs, I have no specific numbers, but from looking at some other similar threads on this board it looks like people are suggesting a modest savings of something like $10-30 per year (depending on usage patterns) by going with a 45nm dual core over a 65nm quad. Of course, those exact numbers are pretty arbitrary, but i don't think they are wildly unreasonable. In fact I'd say that's rather conservative. Sure, it's not that significant a difference, but over a 2-3 year lifespan, that's the current price of 2GB of DDR2-1066 ram...

I'm not saying that quad core is useless, nor that it doesn't offer performance advantages in certain circumstances. I'm just saying that all other things being equal, with a computer intended primarily for mid-high end gaming I think the 8400 is currently the best choice available. that may well change when Q9xx0 line starts to fill out. but compared to the Q6600 i think that wolfdale is a more attractive option.

 

[Dadofamunky]

I think neither. I like the e8400/e8500, but just for my purposes they don't give me enough of a delta to upgrade from what I have at the moment, which is more than fine for now. I'm holding out for a 45nm quad-core with the 1333 FSB. (I forget what their part #s are.) buying new I'd get a 45nm quad when they come out, because they're imminent and then the Q6600 will be relatively obsolete (just like the e8400/e8500 obsolesced the e6750/e6850). Just my 2 kopeks

 

[Borealis7]

Take the E, man. come on, take it. once you put it in, things will start to go crazy! just one E will get you going for a loooong time. come on, dont be such a square. what is the worst that could happen? its only one little E.




oh look! pretty lights.....

 

[lopri]

I would check out Intel's projected ratio of quad vs dual in 2008~2009. I know it's around 10% for quads in 2008 but not sure about 2009. Although for the same price (MicroCenter Q6600 deal) you can't really lose by going with a quad AS LONG AS YOUR MOBO CAN COOPERATE.

 

[hennethannun]

i think you're wrong there lopri. If you aren't going to do anything that will actually take advantage of the quad-core, then you are just throwing performance away by buying the slower quad over the faster dual. But the truth right now is that relatively few people actually do quad-core type activities enough to justify the single-thread performance hit.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: hennethannun
i think you're wrong there lopri. If you aren't going to do anything that will actually take advantage of the quad-core, then you are just throwing performance away by buying the slower quad over the faster dual. But the truth right now is that relatively few people actually do quad-core type activities enough to justify the single-thread performance hit.

Would you agree that people who do quad-core type activities (even if just single-threaded but >2 single threads @ 100% CPU utilization per thread) would benefit from a lower clocked quad versus a slightly higher clocked (<33% higher clock) dual-core?

The way you wrote your post, it kinda reads like you are making a sweeping generalization that EVERYONE would be better off with a faster dual-core just because there are so "few people" who do quad-core type work.

I don't think you meant to write that, but if you did in fact intend to make such sweeping generalization then I'd like to discuss further.

 

[hennethannun]

Sorry, I tried to make it pretty clear. "If you aren't going to do anything that will actually take advantage of the quad-core, then you are just throwing performance away by buying the slower quad over the faster dual."

therefore, if you are going to do those things that benefit from quad-core you should consider quad-core processors when you upgrade.

I just think that people on this forum tend to be overly enthusiastic about suggesting quad-cores to everyone. there are definitely people who will take advantage of quad-core. those people should definitely go with quads if the q6600 is in their price range. but most people (including your average gamer) do not fall into that category. They will be better served by maximizing their single-threaded performance over the next few years. That fact will almost certainly change by 2010. In fact, on the very high end quad core is already the way to go, and the 'quad-core' price threshhold will probably come down later this year when the Core 2 Quad penryns become available, but the subject is what currently available ~$200 processor is the best option for someone who intends to do primarily gaming over the next 2-3 years. and the answer IMO is the E8400. the whole Q6600 v. E8400 is a close argument overall (if you can find them both at that price), but in the end most users would be better served with faster, dual-core performance. And unfortunately a lot people here and on other boards to be advising those users to go with quad-core simply because it is quad-core, rather than because quad-core is right for that specific user.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: hennethannun
And unfortunately a lot people here and on other boards to be advising those users to go with quad-core simply because it is quad-core, rather than because quad-core is right for that specific user.

Ah, I'm with you now.

I am a strong advocate of "wear the shoe that fits today, not the shoe you might grow into tomorrow".

Naturally this assumes one in fact knows for sure they even need a shoe, which is not always the case.

 

[Germonicus]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: hennethannun
And unfortunately a lot people here and on other boards to be advising those users to go with quad-core simply because it is quad-core, rather than because quad-core is right for that specific user.

Ah, I'm with you now.

I am a strong advocate of "wear the shoe that fits today, not the shoe you might grow into tomorrow".

Naturally this assumes one in fact knows for sure they even need a shoe, which is not always the case.

Come on,Everyone needs shoes,just ask my Fiancee

I may have got a quad if the new 45nm quads were out when I was upgrading and had the cash for it.

BUT,on the other hand, I much prefer to stay a step or 2 behind the bleeding cutting edge as it's usually cheaper and also tends to have had more bugs/wrinkles ironed out and also the games/utils programmers have had a chance to work on the new technology and begin to exploit some of the advantages.

It'd be cool to be able to say "Oh yes,I'm running a quad" but I'd rather keep my E8400 and get the gaming benefits now rather than have a quad that "may" wipe the floor with it in 2 years time (by which time I'll be looking to my next upgrade anyway).

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: hennethannun
And unfortunately a lot people here and on other boards to be advising those users to go with quad-core simply because it is quad-core, rather than because quad-core is right for that specific user.

Ah, I'm with you now.

I am a strong advocate of "wear the shoe that fits today, not the shoe you might grow into tomorrow".

Naturally this assumes one in fact knows for sure they even need a shoe, which is not always the case.

exactly.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: hennethannun
And unfortunately a lot people here and on other boards to be advising those users to go with quad-core simply because it is quad-core, rather than because quad-core is right for that specific user.

Ah, I'm with you now.

I am a strong advocate of "wear the shoe that fits today, not the shoe you might grow into tomorrow".

Naturally this assumes one in fact knows for sure they even need a shoe, which is not always the case.

ROFL IDC your a walking oxymoron.

If you say this, you didnt need the QX6700, nor the vapo.

Those i would say is something no one ever really needs.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
ROFL IDC your a walking oxymoron.

If you say this, you didnt need the QX6700, nor the vapo.

Those i would say is something no one ever really needs.

There's no question that I didn't need it, but I sure the hell wanted it and I put that thing to work, hard labor too!