E6600 @ 2.8 to Q6600 @ 2.8

[clarkey01]

Hi All

Im playing with the Idea of swapping my E6600 for a Q6600, my specs are below or should I wait for the next gen of Intel quads? my board supports 1333 FSB.

Would I see an improvment going from a dual to a quad? I would try and get the quad at 2.8 Ghz. I game a lot of BF2 and i like to mutlitask.


Cheers

 

[Acanthus]

BF2 will not use the extra cores.

The main use of Quad core for home users right now is video editing and video encoding.

However some games, like Supreme Commander, Civilization 4, and some others coming out this year, make use of all 4 cores and do see an improvement.

The short answer is: Unless you multitask a ton, no.

 

[Blacklash]

It certainly does depend on the circumstance. If a game can make use of the additional cores oh yes-

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/9196/lp2hf0.png

Source-
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...uad-q6600_8.html#sect0

Also in that article you will often notice a Q6600 @ 3.6GHz beating an E6850 @ 3.85GHz for whatever the reason. I am speaking of some games that are not optimized for quad core.

 

[clarkey01]

Hmmm I may wait for the next gen quads then?

 

[1ManArmY]

yes, I'm also waiting for November to see what happens with the current prices and new products entering the market.

 

[AmberClad]

Is getting 100+ fps in BF2 right now not enough for you ? I'm pretty sure you're already close to the BF2 framerate cap even with everything maxed out (unless you run at higher than 1280x1024, which is what I use). I also don't recall much of an AI lag in Civ 4 even on my old P4. In short, I don't think the benefits outweigh the cost in your case.

Personally, I'm waiting until a die shrunk quad comes out before I would even consider it, judging from the fact that the Qs right now seem to generate considerably more heat than the Duos.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Most of the time, NO.

 

[aldamon]

Originally posted by: BlacklashAlso in that article you will often notice a Q6600 @ 3.6GHz beating an E6850 @ 3.85GHz for whatever the reason. I am speaking of some games that are not optimized for quad core.

8MB cache > 4MB cache

 

[secretanchitman]

wait for the next gen quad cores at the least.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Blacklash
It certainly does depend on the circumstance. If a game can make use of the additional cores oh yes-

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/9196/lp2hf0.png

Source-
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...uad-q6600_8.html#sect0

Also in that article you will often notice a Q6600 @ 3.6GHz beating an E6850 @ 3.85GHz for whatever the reason. I am speaking of some games that are not optimized for quad core.

The extra cache ?

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: AmberClad
Is getting 100+ fps in BF2 right now not enough for you ? I'm pretty sure you're already close to the BF2 framerate cap even with everything maxed out (unless you run at higher than 1280x1024, which is what I use). I also don't recall much of an AI lag in Civ 4 even on my old P4. In short, I don't think the benefits outweigh the cost in your case.

Personally, I'm waiting until a die shrunk quad comes out before I would even consider it, judging from the fact that the Qs right now seem to generate considerably more heat than the Duos.

are you using small maps in civ 4??? Try a huge map with 15 civs on marathon and check out the lag on a p4.

I agree with you on the heat issue of the Quads. I'm very much looking forward to a drop-in upgrade to penryn...

 

[cputeq]

I think it is. Games are only going to improve their core awareness, so a quad is nice. Of course, November is close, so if you're not dying to swap it out then I'd wait.

-------

As for citing larger L2-cache as the reason a non-multi CPU app would perform better with a Q6600 over aE6600...I'm not sure that's correct.

While yes, the Q6600 has 8MB cache, it's 4MB(shared) x 2. It's not a unified 8MB L2 cache, so I don't see how a non-aware app would take advantage of the other 4MB L2.

 

[dflynchimp]

IMO if you're already running a E6600 @2.8GHz you can forget about bang-for-the-buck if you jump to quad core. Wait half an year then the same dough you spend on a new proc will have much higher returns.

 

[darkfalz]

Originally posted by: aldamon

Originally posted by: BlacklashAlso in that article you will often notice a Q6600 @ 3.6GHz beating an E6850 @ 3.85GHz for whatever the reason. I am speaking of some games that are not optimized for quad core.

8MB cache > 4MB cache

Each CPU core still only has 4MB available to it, but if a game can use at least 2 threads, and one is running on each dual core of the quad core, then it does have an additional 2MB available that it wouldn't otherwise have - but I think this would be negated by data sharing across the FSB anyway.

 

[clarkey01]

Originally posted by: dflynchimp
IMO if you're already running a E6600 @2.8GHz you can forget about bang-for-the-buck if you jump to quad core. Wait half an year then the same dough you spend on a new proc will have much higher returns.

Yeah Im hearing you, think I'l do that, in the mean time I'l buy some more RAM.

 

[non duality]

It says in the above xbitlabs article that vista seems to help with apps that are not quad aware.