Phenom 9500 vs Q6600

[Gerr]

At stock clocks, the AMD is the better bang for the buck. But if you do plan on overclocking, the the Intel solution becomes more attractive as most Q6600's can easilly hit 3.0Ghz.

As for future upgrades, the AMD would probably be better as the AM2+ is a newer chipset, where as the Intel 775 is starting to age. However, like one person mentioned, the new AMD CPU's were supposed to work in the older AM2 mobo's, but we now know they don't.

Just check out TomsHardware for their CPU charts and find an app that takes advantage of the 4 cores and see how the two CPU's compare. But also don't rule out the E6x50 series as they can be overclocked nicely and have a high stock speed out of the box. While only 2 cores, might still be as fast if not faster than the quad AMD.

 

[Schugy]

And now lets cheat the other way round. Instead of lame windows software makers who don't want to optimize their software for units of the 2nd largest CPU manufacturer (and lame review sites that don't update their faulty SiSoft-Numbers) we have deliberately elected open source benchmarks that are already tuned a little by hand (Praise OSS!).
AMD will resolve performance bugs and the binaries will be optimized for even more benchmark points and $$$.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom
One nice thing is that next generation AM3 processors should work in an AM2+ board with your DDR2. Intel's next processor Nehalem is going to need a new board. I think it might need new memory also.

VRZone quote:

"Intel is going to implement 2 new sockets for the next generation Nehalem architecture in 2008 and they are Socket B and Socket H. As we know, Nehalem is 45nm based and we are going to see some exciting changes such as IMC (Integrated Memory Controller) and CSI. Socket B will be LGA1366 and Socket H will be LGA715. The reason why Socket B has so many more contact pads is pretty obvious. It is due to the IMC on the Nehalem CPU. Since there is a Socket H version as well, we can expect there will be another Nehalem based CPUs without IMC."

775 has been around for a while now. But it's not the Sockets that should matter, but the compatibility of the chipsets.
You could have socket AAA for six generations of CPU's, and every socket AAA CPU would fit in any of those socket AAA mobos. Will they work in every board? Of course not. With new CPU's, sometimes it is required to have a newer chipset that supports it.

I can understand it being costly and annoying to change mobos almost every time you want to upgrade to the latest CPU's/RAM, but it would seem some here would like nothing better to use the same mobo for ten years and just upgrade the CPU. Hey we all would, but that is not a reality. You want the latest/greatest, you pay for it. So my advice. Don't upgrade so damn often. LOL.

 

[Roy2001]

One vote for Q6600.

 

[bfdd]

Didn't one reviewer of the Phenom crash everytime he tried to run Photoshop? That TLB bug is more than a problem for me to stay away even if the majority of the stuff I do is game, but I also video encode. It seems like to much of a gamble, not to mention the patch reduces performance so much it's not even a viable solution. Maybe in a couple months when it's proven to be fixed I will consider building one cause they're probably going to be cheaper but we'll see. I say spend the extra get the q6600 and just bump the fsb to 1333 with the stock cooler you'll be fine.

 

[Amaroque]

Originally posted by: Roy2001
One vote for Q6600.

I'd have to say Q6600 also. As much as I love my X2 machines, I can't say any AMD at this time.