E8400 or Q6600? new build considerations

[SteveBlack]

Hi

After months of reading around, I was all set to go with a Q6600. All of a sudden, E8400 is on the shelf and I am again undecided. Here is the rig:

Intel Q6600 G0 ($286) or E8400 ($220) where I live (In United Arab Emirates)
Gigabyte P35-DS3R ($166)
Memory Corsair XMS2 1 Gig x 2 (5-5-5-15)
Gigabyte 8800GT 512 MB (Cant find here card with Zalman fans) or Leadtek 8800Gt 512MB ($283)
Vista Home Premium or Xp pro??

Prices are all inclusive, off shelf and no shipping or tax required.
Prices are for comparison purpose, US Online prices are of no help to me, other than for comparison.

What I want to do:

1. Overclock the maximum on stock HSF. (Is it worth going for a third party HSF?)
2. Lots of Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator
3. Game - Fairly Frequently; eagerly waiting to play Crysis.
4. Watch DVDs - Frequently.
5. Encode music - Occasionally.
6. Video encoding - very rarely, may be in future when I get a handicam.
7. Multitask few of above.
8. Keep this rig for 2-3 years.

What are your suggestions especially on the processor choice.

All suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance.

 

[Zenoth]

Originally posted by: SteveBlack
Hi

After months of reading around, I was all set to go with a Q6600. All of a sudden, E8400 is on the shelf and I am again undecided. Here is the rig:

Intel Q6600 G0 ($286) or E8400 ($220) where I live (In United Arab Emirates)
Gigabyte P35-DS3R ($166)
Memory Corsair XMS2 1 Gig x 2 (5-5-5-15)
Gigabyte 8800GT 512 MB (Cant find here card with Zalman fans) or Leadtek 8800Gt 512MB ($283)
Vista Home Premium or Xp pro??

Prices are all inclusive, off shelf and no shipping or tax required.
Prices are for comparison purpose, US Online prices are of no help to me, other than for comparison.

What I want to do:

1. Overclock the maximum on stock HSF. (Is it worth going for a third party HSF?)
2. Lots of Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator
3. Game - Fairly Frequently; eagerly waiting to play Crysis.
4. Watch DVDs - Frequently.
5. Encode music - Occasionally.
6. Video encoding - very rarely, may be in future when I get a handicam.
7. Multitask few of above.
8. Keep this rig for 2-3 years.

What are your suggestions especially on the processor choice.

All suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance.

If you do lots of photoshop and play games "fairly" frequently you'll want a Quad Core.

If you'd play lots of games and do some photoshop fairly frequently I'd say go for a Duo.

 

[SteveBlack]

Thanks Zenoth

Is the Photoshop CS3 multithreaded?

Also I read E8400 will overclock better than Q6600, so will it make a difference?

 

[Cheex]

Photoshop CS3 is in fact multithreaded and will take advantage of a quad core.

If you intend to keep that rig for 3 years, I would suggest that you get quad core CPU.
On that note, if you can wait...
The Q9450 will be a bit more expensive but will be an overall better purchase than the Q6600
Reasons: 45nm vs 65nm, it will run cooler and also have more headroom to overclock further.
Also it has 12MB of L2 Cache as against 8MB on the Q6600.

The Dual Cores will always overclock better than the Quad Cores (at least until the native quads are released, we'll see how that goes).

Bottom Line:
If you can wait: Q9450
If you can't: Q6600

Just my 2 cents...:thumbsup:

 

[Griswold]

Originally posted by: Cheex
The Q9450 will be a bit more expensive but will be an overall better purchase than the Q6600
Reasons: 45nm vs 65nm, it will run cooler and also have more headroom to overclock further.

Have to mention though, you probably need a good mobo that can handle high FSBs (with a quad core, which is not the same as doing it with a dualie) to harvest these higher clock speeds from a Q9450, due to the highest multi being 8 compared to 9 of the Q6600. This could turn out to be an issue on certain boards.

Besides that, Q9459 is obviously the better choice.