Q6600 or E6700

[raymondng]

HI computer specialist,

i got 2 cpu intel q6600 and e6700, anyone can tell me which processor will be the best for overclocking and please advice me on what mother board, memory and graphic card for it, i just want the best, doenst matter the price,

thanks

 

[myocardia]

Welcome to anandtech. The E6700 will overclock far higher than the Q6600, at least on air. The quad cores are limited in their overclocking by heat, not by how fast it's possible for them to run. Now, whether or not you actually need a quad core is another story.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: myocardia
Welcome to anandtech. The E6700 will overclock far higher than the Q6600, at least on air. The quad cores are limited in their overclocking by heat, not by how fast it's possible for them to run. Now, whether or not you actually need a quad core is another story.

Well, you know the Quad CPUs have a higher threshold. So you can run a 3.2Ghz Q6600 easy and it will be hot, but very much under the limits and not have any stability issues. They require more voltage so heat is higher anyway.

If it were me I'd get the quad because I know it can hit 3.2Ghz no trouble and that's a pretty good number. Not to mention I see a true benefit in multi-core for many tasks. I still don't think everyone needs it, but given the option I'd recommend anyone to do quad if they can.

Now to put a spin on things, in July the Q6600 is supposed to go down to $266 so do you think you can get away with spending about $114 on an E4300 for now and then in july grabbing a Q6600 when they drop? You'd save some cash that way too.

As for motherboard I'd grab Either the Asus Commando P965 board or wait for the P5K (based on the P35 chipset). Memory is really another matter. To be honest I don't find that memory type/brand is all that relevant. Most decent memory will do DDR2-900+ just at varying timings and voltages. The best deal right now is the G.Skill HZ DDR2-800 kit you can find it for $120 at newegg. It comes rated for 2.1v 4-4-4-12 and can do 3-3-3-8 at 2.2v or clock up to DDR2-1000 speeds at 4-4-4-12 and even higher with loosened timings of 5-5-5-15. You could buy faster memory, but generally the difference in performance between DDR2-800 and DDR2-1000 is not very large in most real world applications and even most benchmarks. It will just cost you more money to go with higher performance memory. I think DDR2-1000 is on average $80 more than the equiveland DDR2-800 kit if you're looking at the 2GB range. Saving a few dollars on memory can allow you to get 4GB instead of just 2GB which is a tremendous difference for Vista among other things (Photoshop etc).

 

[raymondng]

should I can get p5k with wifi or p5k3 if i want go with q6600

 

[stevty2889]

First you have to figure out if you will even be running anything that will take advantage of a quad core, and since you didn't list anything at all that you will be using the system for it's not really possible for us to give you good advice. For most people, getting the dual core will be the better choice. It will generaly overclock better, and run cooler(due to having 2 cores vs. 4). Gaming is just starting to take advantage of dual cores, let alone quad cores. There are probably some rendering/cad type programs that would benifit from a quad core, and maybe some video encoding.

EDIT: If you go quad core, the EVGA 680i A1 motherboard is supposed to be the best for overclocking quad cores. There is a lot of good boards for overclocking dual cores, so it comes down to a preferance on features and what not. Video card either way, 8800GTS or GTX is the way to go, the new ATI offerings aren't looking good right now, possibly better with newer drivers, but I wouldn't count on it.

 

[gobucks]

if you're planning on overclocking, your CPU choices are a bit expensive. The e6600 and e6420 are much cheaper and will probably hit the same speeds. If you can wait till the price drops in june, the q6600 will be a good value at $266, but that obviously requires you to wait a month.

 

[raymondng]

Originally posted by: gobucks
if you're planning on overclocking, your CPU choices are a bit expensive. The e6600 and e6420 are much cheaper and will probably hit the same speeds. If you can wait till the price drops in june, the q6600 will be a good value at $266, but that obviously requires you to wait a month.

thanks, you mean e6420 is more than enough right, would you like to recommend me motherboard, ram and graphic card, thanks

 

[MarcVenice]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=28&threadid=1947261&enterthread=y

go there please ...

 

[tallman45]

If you are getting something now, go no higher than an E6600. A nice MB is the DFI Infinity P965-S

If you are going to wait then get one of the 1333fsb procs such as the E6650 or E6750, they will OC better than the Q6600 (1066fsb), run a lot cooler, use less electricity and will be able to run memory faster, plus be be at least $50 cheaper.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: tallman45
If you are getting something now, go no higher than an E6600. A nice MB is the DFI Infinity P965-S

If you are going to wait then get one of the 1333fsb procs such as the E6650 or E6750, they will OC better than the Q6600 (1066fsb), run a lot cooler, use less electricity and will be able to run memory faster, plus be be at least $50 cheaper.

I don't see how you can say that more than 3Ghz is such a huge difference. When you start nit picking over 400Mhz that translates to how much performance gain. I don't mean synthetic benchmarks. I mean if you play a game how much fps do you gain? 5fps? 10fps?

Plus the benefit of a quad core CPU goes beynd the Mhz. You can run more apps at once and generally get certain tasts done more quickly since they do not have to wait for the CPU to free up, there's another core you can offload it to while you do whatever. Not to mention some applications that you might use for video editing, photoshop and the like will start and already do take advantage of more than 2 cores.

I stand by my recommendation. Buy a quad if you can, but like I said...if you want you can buy cheap now and wait for price drops.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
You could buy faster memory, but generally the difference in performance between DDR2-800 and DDR2-1000 is not very large in most real world applications and even most benchmarks. It will just cost you more money to go with higher performance memory. I think DDR2-1000 is on average $80 more than the equiveland DDR2-800 kit if you're looking at the 2GB range. Saving a few dollars on memory can allow you to get 4GB instead of just 2GB which is a tremendous difference for Vista among other things (Photoshop etc).

Agreed. It's just too funny to me that these memory manufacturers producing higher frequency sticks with same ICs. If you pay attention to the specified voltages under the rated specs, you can easily tell that they are all the same things. From my experience, whether it's DDR2-667, DDR2-800, DDR2-1066 they were all the same as long as they are D9GMH. I know there are a couple of SKUs that are specially binned, but they will require quite a bit of premium. If you're interested in overclocking, search for the sticks that use D9GMH and go with the lowest prices with decent warranty. No reason to pay extra $$ for the stupid ratings. (Unless you're considering re-sale value)

On a side note, there was a recent report that Micron 'officially' started producing DDR2-1066 ICs/sticks. Means these sticks will do 1066MHz/5-5-5 @ 1.80V. We will start seeing DDR2-1333 and beyond shortly. (with 2.0V+ specs)

 

[mgutz]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: tallman45
...

Plus the benefit of a quad core CPU goes beynd the Mhz. You can run more apps at once and generally get certain tasts done more quickly since they do not have to wait for the CPU to free up, there's another core you can offload it to while you do whatever. Not to mention some applications that you might use for video editing, photoshop and the like will start and already do take advantage of more than 2 cores.
...

VMWare takes advantage of multiple cores. That's reason enough for me. If you do software development and testing having multiple virutal machines is a godsend. I can emulate most of our backend servers in 2-3 VMWare machines. In the old days, that meant having multiple physical machines. Can't wait for the quads to drop in price. What is this refrence to June price drops? I thought it was July? June would be nice

 

[Zardnok]

If you want the best, get one of the new P35 Bearlake boards. They are supposed to be 2-5% increased performance simply because of the far superior memory controller.

 

[The-Noid]

Originally posted by: lopri

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
You could buy faster memory, but generally the difference in performance between DDR2-800 and DDR2-1000 is not very large in most real world applications and even most benchmarks. It will just cost you more money to go with higher performance memory. I think DDR2-1000 is on average $80 more than the equiveland DDR2-800 kit if you're looking at the 2GB range. Saving a few dollars on memory can allow you to get 4GB instead of just 2GB which is a tremendous difference for Vista among other things (Photoshop etc).

Agreed. It's just too funny to me that these memory manufacturers producing higher frequency sticks with same ICs. If you pay attention to the specified voltages under the rated specs, you can easily tell that they are all the same things. From my experience, whether it's DDR2-667, DDR2-800, DDR2-1066 they were all the same as long as they are D9GMH. I know there are a couple of SKUs that are specially binned, but they will require quite a bit of premium. If you're interested in overclocking, search for the sticks that use D9GMH and go with the lowest prices with decent warranty. No reason to pay extra $$ for the stupid ratings. (Unless you're considering re-sale value)

On a side note, there was a recent report that Micron 'officially' started producing DDR2-1066 ICs/sticks. Means these sticks will do 1066MHz/5-5-5 @ 1.80V. We will start seeing DDR2-1333 and beyond shortly. (with 2.0V+ specs)

These sticks are 1066mhz at 7-7-7-21

http://www.micron.com/products/partdetail?part=MT4HTF6464AY-1GA

They are also not much better than any D9GKX or D9GMH binned materials from other companies.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Yoxxy

Originally posted by: lopri

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
You could buy faster memory, but generally the difference in performance between DDR2-800 and DDR2-1000 is not very large in most real world applications and even most benchmarks. It will just cost you more money to go with higher performance memory. I think DDR2-1000 is on average $80 more than the equiveland DDR2-800 kit if you're looking at the 2GB range. Saving a few dollars on memory can allow you to get 4GB instead of just 2GB which is a tremendous difference for Vista among other things (Photoshop etc).

Agreed. It's just too funny to me that these memory manufacturers producing higher frequency sticks with same ICs. If you pay attention to the specified voltages under the rated specs, you can easily tell that they are all the same things. From my experience, whether it's DDR2-667, DDR2-800, DDR2-1066 they were all the same as long as they are D9GMH. I know there are a couple of SKUs that are specially binned, but they will require quite a bit of premium. If you're interested in overclocking, search for the sticks that use D9GMH and go with the lowest prices with decent warranty. No reason to pay extra $$ for the stupid ratings. (Unless you're considering re-sale value)

On a side note, there was a recent report that Micron 'officially' started producing DDR2-1066 ICs/sticks. Means these sticks will do 1066MHz/5-5-5 @ 1.80V. We will start seeing DDR2-1333 and beyond shortly. (with 2.0V+ specs)

These sticks are 1066mhz at 7-7-7-21

http://www.micron.com/products/partdetail?part=MT4HTF6464AY-1GA

They are also not much better than any D9GKX or D9GMH binned materials from other companies.

Best deal right now is G.Skill 2GB HZ series for $120 no rebates at newegg right now. D9GMH graranteed. I've ran DDR2-1200 in an Asus Commando at 5-5-5-15 with 2.3v and They will do DDR2-800 at 3-3-3-8 with just 2.2v if you care for timings over bandwidth.

 

[The-Noid]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148069 <-- Best deal.

Runs 1066 C4 @ 2.15v

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Yoxxy
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148069 <-- Best deal.

Runs 1066 C4 @ 2.15v

:roll: :thumbsdown:

After a mail in rebate it's still more expensive the 2GB of G.Skill which can overclock to these levels. Remember what I said before about memory speed.

P.S. I hate waiting 6-8 months to receive a rebate check. You're still paying more out the door with this kit.

You're paying too much for memory that gives NO noticable gain in anything outside synthetic bandwidth benchmarks and other tests outside actual usage. Games won't be faster by more than a couple fps...I'd rather save the cash and buy cheap bargain DDR2-800 and get 4GB of it for Vista etc.