Q9450, Q6700, or E8500 fastest when OC'ed?

[EEsRULE]

It seems to me that the highest performing CPUs that are less than $350 (Newegg prices except Q9450) are the following three candidates: Q9450 ($340), Q6700 ($280), E8500 ($280).

I already know that the Q6600 ($220) and E8400 ($190) are considered best bang for the buck.

I plan on buying the EVGA 750i FTW (For The Win) motherboard so I can do SLI and use less expensive DDR2. I'll air cool with a Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme.

The CPU charts on Tom's HW show the E8500 second only to the QX9770 for UT2004 at 1280x1024. However, the Q9450 and Q6700 are not listed, and none of them are OC'ed.

Also, I plan on gaming at 1920x1200, and from past memory (i.e., can't remember where) it seems like some of the benchmarks that I've seen for this resolution show the quad cores performing better.

Is the consensus of this forum that the E8500 is probably the fastest for now because most games aren't designed to take advantage of four cores yet?

 

[BoboKatt]

I use my Q6600 and love it. OC'ed to 3.3... but I do not game much. I do lots of video editing, audio work, and dealing with massive files. Even with a quad, I can bring that to its knees and it generally not the fault of the CPU, but rather my storage system -- I need to have more, faster and better set up hardrives.

Anyhow for gaming... and if that's all you do... then I would not bother. I would jump all over an e8500 or e8400, heck even an e6850 if it were cheap enough. Quads, use more power, produce more heat, require generally more voltage and tweaking to get higher OC (if that matters) and if you plan on filling up your RAM slots, a quad with say 8 GB of RAM is a large strain on that mobo so you have to factor in a really good mobo.

Honestly.... CPU's are so cheap (I bought my Q6600 the day they were released and I still think it was a great deal)... that since I could not decide on a quad or dual core... I just bought both (e6850) as well.

If I had to upgrade... I would now get an e8500 and see how that works... like for you on your board. See how cool it runs... see how high I can get the OC at, see how my games run etc etc. If I hate it... I would order a Q6700 or Q9300 and sell the e8500. But then again I have a huge family that always buys my "last years" computer on in most cases; get them for free

I cant imagine you going wrong with a e8400 or e8500 if that extra .5x is worth it. The only time you will ever use the 4 cores is if you actually run aps that were made for it.. like x264 encoding etc. I don?t know what the future will bring in gaming and which will be threaded to take advantage of all these cores, but if that happens in say what? 2 years.. heck I will have upgraded again by then.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

E8500 is probably your best bet, the list of games that can really use a quad is still small

Supreme Commander
Flight Sim X

Are the two that really seem to shine with a quad, a handful of others (Crysis, etc...) show a small improvement from 2 to 4 cores.

 

[bryanW1995]

q9450 probably won't clock as high as q6700 but it will have a clock/clock advantage; ie, they should end up with about the same performance. q9450 will run cooler/quieter, however, and probably save you a small amount (1-2$ per month probably) on your power bill. e8500 will clock better than either of the quads by 400-600 mhz on average, you'll have better short-term performance in most systems with that. However, dualies in 2-3 years will probably be like single cores are now: dirt cheap/nearly worthless. You'll probably get your extra cost back on the Q9450 in fact when you sell it.

 

[EEsRULE]

I had a chance to buy the Q9450 online from Microcenter at $299 (after $50 instant coupon), but I didn't pull the trigger quick enough. Now, they are nowhere to be found and prices are going up as a result.

 

[five4o]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
E8500 is probably your best bet, the list of games that can really use a quad is still small

Supreme Commander
Flight Sim X

Are the two that really seem to shine with a quad, a handful of others (Crysis, etc...) show a small improvement from 2 to 4 cores.

Yeah what he said.
Most benchmarks show that 99% of Applications/Games aren't optimized to realize the full potential of a quad, so a higher clocked dual will outperform a quad which normally do not OC quite as well as most duallies.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: five4o

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
E8500 is probably your best bet, the list of games that can really use a quad is still small

Supreme Commander
Flight Sim X

Are the two that really seem to shine with a quad, a handful of others (Crysis, etc...) show a small improvement from 2 to 4 cores.

Yeah what he said.
Most benchmarks show that 99% of Applications/Games aren't optimized to realize the full potential of a quad, so a higher clocked dual will outperform a quad which normally do not OC quite as well as most duallies.

only the quads listed.

My QX would spank a wolfdale clock/clock thanks to the 12meg cache. :T

Oh thats because it can catch a wolfdale clock to clock.

 

[bryanW1995]

Yes, but even a used QX9650 is 3-4 times the cost of a wolfdale. Also, aigo, if you put an e8500 in the same rig that you have the 9650 in, you'd almost definitely get a few hundred mhz higher out of it.