Q9450 or E8400?

[nyker96]

Considering Q9450 has 8x, E8400 9x, if one buys the Q then he's probably not breaking 4Ghz while E8400 will easily go over 4 or even 4.5 range. So what do you guys think? which is better choice? price could be close when introed.

 

[darkenedsoul]

Well, depends a LOT on what you are going to use it for. Most apps nowadays do not support multicore (which is VERY unfortunate seeing how long they've been out).....gaming, a LOT of games do not support it either. Newer games are slowly doing it. Adobe CS2/3 I believe will support it. My Digital Audio Workstation software I am using does (Ableton Live) as folks are running on the Q6600 and it is using all cores. Eventually the software will finally catch up (same with regards to 64-bit apps.....why we are so far behind with regards to it on the desktop is beyond me...). I went with the E8400 due to it being available (not now....as of tonight) at compusa.com which I ordered over the weekend. As of tonight it is not showing up in the listing on the website. Guess folks saw my post at eggxpert.com forums and went and ordered them..... The Q9xx0 CPU's aren't in newegg's listing. PCMall had them BUT 2-3 wk backorder for them (450/550 models). And I can't see why the 9550 is >$200 more than the 450 seeing such a small speed increase and maybe a 9x multiplier vs 8. STUPID if you ask me...but hey, it's capitalism at its best eh?

 

[djplayer]

I personally thought the Q9450 was to overpriced to purchase currently. Instead I bought the e8400 until prices on the quads come down a little (if ever). I have mine clocked to 3.6 using stock voltage and running as cool as it did at 3.0. But if someone had the q9450 in one hand and the e8400. I'd take the Q w/o even thinking twice. (I personally am not a gamer, just many many intensive programs for programming, design, networking etc.. )

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Yeah, my E8400 didn't easily go over 4GHz. And it is 4.2GHz that seems to be the average practical upper limit. Only the best chips can do ~4.5GHz and that's usually with volts many here wouldn't be comfortable with for 24/7 use..

Of course with the Q9450 not even out yet and the E8400 pretty much completely sold out, you can't have either at the moment .

And pricing should be VERY different. I don't know where you get the idea that it could be close

 

[darkenedsoul]

Well, I may bump it up to 3.6Ghz, but first let me get things put together, OS installed and driver/OS updates out of the way. Then I will look at the OC side of things...which means not till probably sunday/early next week if I am done with my installs of software and their updates.

 

[Tempered81]

check out the price gouging on e8400's. 1 month ago you could find them at < $200.

this is showing etailers pricing them $280+

http://www.google.com/products...t=any&show=dd&safe=off

Ebay has been showing them selling for $310 plus shipping lately. Jesus.

 

[hennethannun]

wow, I got my E8400 at the beginning of february for $209 shipped. i think $183 is Intel bulk price, right? so i think ~$200 is what they should be selling for now, assuming you can find one.

but supply/demand and all seems to be making the etailers a bit greedy.

as for the original debate, my gut feeling is that quad core still isn't worth the price/energy/heat premium for the majority of computer users. those who do serious amount of multi-threaded programming should probably consider quad if the price is competitive. but most users, gamers and even power users are just as well served by a faster dual-core that runs cooler, uses less energy and will match the performance of any quad in most programs.

 

[SonicIce]

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[v8envy]

Originally posted by: SonicIce
stuff

Dude. Crack kills.

 

[nyker96]

actually after some research I think Q93xx is at about E8400's pricing. SO it's actually Q93xx vs E8400. One quad probably not too OCable, other highly OCable dual core. Which one will win? If I were to choose myself I'd probably go quad just to be ready for the future.

 

[darkenedsoul]

Cost was $242.xx at compusa.com over the weekend but guess what, it's out of stock! Wonder If I got the last one! Glad I did if so! It's $229.99 + shipping (which for the size of the item (you should have seen how big the box was...ridiculous) and shipping was $12.xx which is stupid for weight of item...crazy. But I got it and that's all that matters. Now to start putting it together maybe tomorrow night or saturday morning project! Should be up and installed later saturday afternoon if all goes well.

 

[dajeepster]

Originally posted by: v8envy

Originally posted by: SonicIce
stuff

Dude. Crack kills.

Dude. I think it's already too late for him.

 

[lopri]

Q9450 @3.2GHz will be equivalent of Q6600 @3.5~3.6GHz, which in turn should be roughly equivalent to an E6600 @3.5~3.6GHz. So even with x8 multi, I'd say Q9450 is better than Q6600 if they're priced the same. Same goes for E8400 vs Q9450. Q9450 will likely command initial price premium of ~$150 extra over E8400, putting them in different price baskets. What's the Q9300/9350's multi? x7.5?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: nyker96
actually after some research I think Q93xx is at about E8400's pricing. SO it's actually Q93xx vs E8400. One quad probably not too OCable, other highly OCable dual core. Which one will win? If I were to choose myself I'd probably go quad just to be ready for the future.

No...Q9300 is listed to start at $266 for bulk, so we're going to see it actually sold for higher (closer to $300, and this is BEFORE any price gouging). The E8400 is supposed to be ~$200 @ retail, so a good $100 cheaper.

And when we consider that the Q9300 has half the cache of other Yorkfields, who knows, it might end up running cooler and thus clocking higher than it otherwise would.

However I generally think the same way you do. Squeezing out a couple hundred extra MHz really won't do you too much good in the longer run, you can't overclock the number of cores you have. Of course this obviously isn't that big of a deal if you upgrade often. For example, I have an E8400 and I plan to upgrade to a Q9450