Deciding between Q6600 and Q9300

[bryanW1995]

ok, so I've decided to go ahead and ditch my e6750 altogether and replace it with a cheap-o quad. I run seti@home 24/7 on the e6750@3.4. I have a stick of kingston ddr2 667 that is rated for 800 at 2.0v so I'm pretty confident that I can get btwn 3.0 and 3.2 even out of the Q9300.

I know that thermals will be better with the Q9300, but my question is how much better, if any, will the Q9300 perform vs the Q6600 in DC projects?

edit: added poll

edit#2: updated poll

 

[Markfw]

Well, I don't have any experience with the 9300, but the 9450 (X3350 in my case) is a bear to OC due to the low multiplier. I say get a Q6600, get 3.4-3.5 and call it good. I saw a review where they had it OC'ed to 3500, but the fsb required would be 466. I can;t get that on my DS4 to even POST at that speed with all the voltages way up there, and active cooling ! 447 is my max, and that would give you 3350 (assuming the same fsb wall). The Q6600 has a GOOD chance of getting 3.5, and 3.4 is almost guaranteed.

 

[bryanW1995]

that was my original plan, but there are two issues:

1. I can't guarantee a G0 Q6600 unless I pick it up myself from fry's. The opportunity cost of that time to me would negate the $60-$70 cost savings of getting the Q6600 over the Q9300.
2. Due to thermal concerns I am unlikely to clock either cpu over 3.0-3.2, so overclocking is not nearly the issue that it normally would be for me.

What I'm really concerned with is the comparative DC computational ability of the 9300 vs the Q6600 irregardless of OC'ing.

 

[Markfw]

At the same OC, very little difference IMO. My X3350 is the same as my Q6600 at the same speed. But since you seem able to get a 9300, and 3.2 only requires 427 fsb, then it may be a way to go. The odds of getting a B3 nowadays are slim to none IMO.

You are in Texes, or from Clubit or tankguys and get the Q6600.

 

[bryanW1995]

yeah, I thought the b3 availability would be very small, but I saw a post in cpus/overclocking a few days ago from someone who got a new b3...scary...

 

[lopri]

Can't say much about performance because 1) I haven't touched these 45nm quads, 2) I am very ignorant when it comes to distributed computing.. but I can say with confidence that I hate low multipliers, and even more so the half multipliers.

 

[lopri]

How big of a deal is L2 for F@H?

 

[graysky]

I would personally stay away from the 9300 based on its 6 megs of cache and low multiplier (7.5), as Mark pointed out, even 8.0 limits you. In comparison the Q6600 as you know is 9.0 which can push you above the 3.4 GHz mark with a decent MB and cooling. Your whole issue is ensuring that you get a G0 and I dunno how you can do that honestly. Another point that mark made that I'd like to echo is that the 45 nm chips are in practice no faster than the 65 nm chips.

There is only a minor difference between the q9450 and q6600 @ a given clock rate. Using the data from my x264 HD benchmark, you can see between an increase of only 1-5 % - at least when comparing the systems doing an x264 video encode.

Here are the comparisons I'm referring to in my 1-5 % increase

Anyway, if 3.0-3.6 is your goal (3.6 being on the high side), I'd go for the Q6600, even my B3, is able to do 9x333 without breaking a sweat. Just know that cooling might be an issue and accept the fact that you might need to lap the HS and the CPU when running above vcores of say 1.2000 V w/ a q6600.

Lapping Q6600 IHS
Lapping the Ultra-120 Extreme

 

[GLeeM]

Originally posted by: lopri
How big of a deal is L2 for F@H?

For F@H, larger L2 is very big deal on lots of types of Work Units.
Is there an L2 difference on the discussed CPUs?

bryanW1995 is crunching Seti@Home though, and I don't know if large L2 helps Seti as much.

 

[biodoc]

What about electricity consumption? I thought I read that 45nm processors use 30% less power than the 65nm processors. I live in an area that has high electricity costs so if I replace my Q6600's with Q9450's and run them at about 3.2 GHz will I save 30% in energy costs?

 

[aigomorla]

This is a hard question.

Because the overclocking compoent can change everything.

My recomendation is to go the Q6600 because of the overclocking factor.

I havent seen many stable Q9450's higher then 3.6ghz so far. As mark said most of the mare crapping out at a higher fsb.

I also noticed this problem too on my yorkie, but i can adjust the multi as much as i see fit.

 

[bryanW1995]

On the AT review comparing Q9300 with Q6600, they showed a 70w delta in power consumption at load. I figured that at 10c/kw-hr that's about $5 a month if the cpu is loaded 24/7. That should eat up the cost diff in approximately 18 mos.

I'm going to use a zalman 9700 that has been on my opteron 180 for the past 9 mos. It's a decent cooler but woefully inadequate for hardcore quad overclocking, yet another reason why I'm keeping in conservative at 3.0-3.2.

I believe that the Q9450 is only about 40w less power consumption at load. 40x24x30=28.8 kw per month used. That would be 2.80 at .10 per kw/hr but obviously goes up as the marginal rate increases.

 

[biodoc]

Thanks guys. I am paying 17cents/kwh but it sounds like I need to think long and hard about "upgrading".

It's hard to beat the ole Q6600's!

cheers!:beer:

 

[Foxery]

Bryan, I'll actually have a Q9300 running Folding@Home some time in the next week, depending on how long Fedex takes. I'll let you know!

I thought long and hard about the L2 Cache difference. What I finally realized is that Q9300s still have more cache than E4000 chips, let alone E2000s. And people run DC projects on these just fine.

If you guess that each pair of cores roughly splits L2 usage in half, (for the sake of argument, I don't care to nitpick the accuracy for real apps,)
E2100 = 1MB/2 = 0.5MB
E4000 = 2MB/2 = 1MB
Q9300 = 6MB/4 = 1.5MB
E6000 = 4MB/2 = 2MB
Q6600 = 8MB/4 = 2MB (same as above)
Q9450 = 12MB/4 = 3MB (more than ever before, wonder if it has much effect?)

I bought mine for the low price and low power... but also for being a guinea pig for speed results

 

[bryanW1995]

the lower cache is a big concern for me, but based on the limited improvement that the 9450 gives it seems likely that cache is not overly important.

foxery, do you have a q6600 running f@h that you can compare?

 

[Foxery]

Nope, but the rest of my system is pretty common, generic components, so comparing to other people's Q6600s should be fine. ABit IP35, DDR2-800 RAM, Windows XP... world+dog has that

BTW, my eventual plan is to run 1xSMP and 1xGPU2.0 client. This will fill up my RAM ("only" 2 gigs, so 2xSMP is iffy) and should give me pretty efficient usage of the CPUs, since 1xSMP doesn't max them out.

O, the Glory! Tales of our victories shall be sung in the great halls of National Grid from 'ere to Olympus!

 

[Assimilator1]

v2.0 GPU?

I'm not familiar with that version ,but on the one that was out some months ago I found that because of the CPU power that the GPU client needs you end up with less ppd overall than just running an SMP client

 

[dajeepster]

Originally posted by: biodoc
What about electricity consumption? I thought I read that 45nm processors use 30% less power than the 65nm processors. I live in an area that has high electricity costs so if I replace my Q6600's with Q9450's and run them at about 3.2 GHz will I save 30% in energy costs?

that "30% in energy costs" savings is for normal people, under normal use...it's kind of misleading... like the MPG numbers on new cars... which reminds me, I need to go get a loan to put some gas in my jeep.

We DCers aren't normal since we try to run all cores at maximum capacity 24/7

 

[theAnimal]

Originally posted by: Assimilator1
v2.0 GPU?

I'm not familiar with that version ,but on the one that was out some months ago I found that because of the CPU power that the GPU client needs you end up with less ppd overall than just running an SMP client

There is a new GPU client coming which will be able to run on HD2xxx & 3xxx.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Foxery
Nope, but the rest of my system is pretty common, generic components, so comparing to other people's Q6600s should be fine. ABit IP35, DDR2-800 RAM, Windows XP... world+dog has that

BTW, my eventual plan is to run 1xSMP and 1xGPU2.0 client. This will fill up my RAM ("only" 2 gigs, so 2xSMP is iffy) and should give me pretty efficient usage of the CPUs, since 1xSMP doesn't max them out.

O, the Glory! Tales of our victories shall be sung in the great halls of National Grid from 'ere to Olympus!

I think that the ip35 has the same bios as the ip35-e. Please let me know how you do with that Q9300 on yours... one of my fears is that the version 16 bios won't work with the ip35e and 45nm quads...

http://www.uabit.com/index.php...&product_name=IP35+Pro

http://www.uabit.com/index.php...=382&product_name=IP35

notice how the ip35 (which is the same as ip35-e as I thought) has no comment about "improved 45nm compatibility"? scary...

 

[Foxery]

"# Update CPU Micro code.
# Enhanced 45nm CPU compatibility."

The primary purpose of BIOS 16 is Wolfdale+Yorkfield compatibility; that's what the "microcode" line refers to. I think the second line for the PRO model refers to issues with the thermal sensors bugging out, which are now resolved.

A bunch of people in the Abit forum have been running E8400s on the beta versions for both boards. I'm not worried.

Anyone want a slightly used E6750, retail boxed??

 

[bryanW1995]

good luck selling the e6750. I had mine at 155, then dropped it to 145, and haven't gotten a single hit in 3 days on fs/ft. I sold my opteron 180 for $110 in 5 minutes. Strange, especially when you look at the e6750 selling for $180 shipped new right now. Maybe I'll try ebay.

 

[Assimilator1]

Originally posted by: theAnimal

Originally posted by: Assimilator1
v2.0 GPU?

I'm not familiar with that version ,but on the one that was out some months ago I found that because of the CPU power that the GPU client needs you end up with less ppd overall than just running an SMP client

There is a new GPU client coming which will be able to run on HD2xxx & 3xxx.

Ah that one, now I remember, but does it use less CPU power?

 

[bryanW1995]

yeah, I tried the gpu client for a while with x1950xt and it completely hobbled my computer. I'm used to running seti@home on all cores 100% and still being able to at least surf the 'net at high speed. We're so spoiled these days

 

[Assimilator1]

I remember surfing the net & running SETI without probs on my old Celeron 366 @550