Q6600 or E8400?

[Kung Lau]

But, I've been out of the loop for a bit and somehow my hard drive died, so I'm making an excuse to build a new main system.

I may have to sell my S939 mb/cpu/ddr but I want to see if I can get into a C2D+ within "reasonable" costs $300-400, I'm hoping. I'm gonna keep my video card as I don't game currently but that'll be most likely upgraded later.

I don't mind O/Cing but want to keep things kinda quiet.

Main reason I ask is I see both the chips at nearly the same price, roughly $190-200 and wondering if O/Cing is the only way to notice a difference.

Looking for 775 MB, C2D+ CPU, and 4gig ram. Think I got the rest covered.


Thanks in advance.

 

[Tempered81]

One vote for a p35 & e8400 / e3110 xeon

 

[Winterpool]

Indeed, there are many threads discussing this comparison, on AnandTech and other forums.

But to sum up: it depends on your usage, dualcore v quadcore. Games and most other everyday apps don't gain any advantage from > 2 cores, so there one should go with the greater clockspeed of the E8400. Some fairly intense applications (eg many video encoding programs) do make use of more cores, so the advantage there goes to the Q6600. Look at any recent benchmark comparison to see how the two cpus stack up.

Some other considerations: how well your motherboard will work with 45nm Penryn chips. The greater heat output of four cores. Whether you desire the sex appeal of the latest greatest chip designs.