Quad or Dual Core...

[cmdrdredd]

Anyone else having trouble deciding between overclocking a E6750 to 3.6Ghz+ or getting a Q6600 and sticking to 3.2-3.4 (depending on luck as these don't usually go as high as dual cores)?

Just wondering if anyone was thinking this way too. Price aside I want a quad, but would it be better to have 2 cores running higher Mhz? I can see myself using 4 cores, but don't deem it necessary to my work or anything like that.

Kinda wanted to post a poll to see what the majority of AT readers thought.

 

[gplracer]

It depends on the applications that you run. For gaming 2 cores and a faster core are better now until games that take advantage of 4 cores come out. Video rendering and transcoding benefit from four cores....

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: gplracer
It depends on the applications that you run. For gaming 2 cores and a faster core are better now until games that take advantage of 4 cores come out. Video rendering and transcoding benefit from four cores....

I know all that...but I'm sure some ppl have been toying with the idea of upgrading and I'm just wondering what more ppl would go with.

 

[Dethfrumbelo]

It's a question of whether one needs those extra cores right now.

Are there any programs/games which are not performing to expectations as a result of your current CPU?

Personally, I'll probably go E4400/IP35-E (cheap as possible) for the next 12-18 months until the quads have matured (45nm - less heat dissipation hopefully) and prices have fallen.

And I do need to upgrade very soon as a leaky cap on my current mobo is giving me 10-15 BSOD daily along with numerous other crashes.

 

[gramboh]

I thought about grabbing a Q6600 and replacing my E6600 since I can only get it to 3.2GHz (I can do 3.4 but on 1.5V, too much for my taste) but then I realized I would see nearly zero benefit in my use other than video encoding which I do very rarely.

I mostly use this PC for gaming and so switching to a quad core would have no benefit. But for $300 Canadian it's damn tempting. I paid $375 Canadian for this E6600 back in March, ugh.

I'll probably just grab another 2GB of memory for when I upgrade to Vista64 after SP1.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: gramboh
I thought about grabbing a Q6600 and replacing my E6600 since I can only get it to 3.2GHz (I can do 3.4 but on 1.5V, too much for my taste) but then I realized I would see nearly zero benefit in my use other than video encoding which I do very rarely.

I mostly use this PC for gaming and so switching to a quad core would have no benefit. But for $300 Canadian it's damn tempting. I paid $375 Canadian for this E6600 back in March, ugh.

I'll probably just grab another 2GB of memory for when I upgrade to Vista64 after SP1.

That's pretty much my situation also.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I made the switch for two reasons, and it is not a permanent switch.

I had a mishap with a hasty BIOS flash that seemed (only seemed) to leave my motherboard dead in the water. I unseated and reseated the CPU after clearing the CMOS with "no luck -- 'no cigar.'" I ordered another motherboard in a panic, then after calm prevailed, got some new PLCC BIOS chips from BIOSman.com.

Not long after that, we had the July 22 price-drop. And -- A-a-annnD! I was curious.

My only ambivalence about the Q6600 hinges on the B3-stepping's temperatures, but I've got that licked pretty well. I'm not so sure I can currently use it to full potential, but (I fancy -- and I emphasize that I fancy) -- that at 3.0 Ghz 1,333 FSB it pleasantly, if only marginally, outperforms my E6600 @ 3.35 Ghz 1,480 FSB.

. . . . although I still liked the E6600. Per the mishap, it seems clear now that there was no damage to the mobo, for initially the symptoms (frozen at system post, unable to load BIOS setup) migrated with the processor to the second mobo. After a couple passes at the reset switch and some hiccuping by the system, everything was working fine again.

Make sure you clear your CMOS before and after flashing the BIOS -- or for that matter, before installing a new BIOS PLCC chip.

 

[bryanW1995]

ok, I tried to post earlier that I had to run 1.53 v to get to 3.6 ghz on my e6750, but, um, I failed orthos and computer rebooted. Now I'm at 1.54 v trying to pass orthos blend for more than 5 minutes...

 

[GFORCE100]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
Anyone else having trouble deciding between overclocking a E6750 to 3.6Ghz+ or getting a Q6600 and sticking to 3.2-3.4 (depending on luck as these don't usually go as high as dual cores)?

Just wondering if anyone was thinking this way too. Price aside I want a quad, but would it be better to have 2 cores running higher Mhz? I can see myself using 4 cores, but don't deem it necessary to my work or anything like that.

Kinda wanted to post a poll to see what the majority of AT readers thought.

Right now there's no better deal or put differently, value for money than a Q6600 so let this be your guide.

With a G0 Q6600 you'll be in heaven given the right cooling which you already seem to have given air cooling.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: gplracer
It depends on the applications that you run. For gaming 2 cores and a faster core are better now until games that take advantage of 4 cores come out. Video rendering and transcoding benefit from four cores....

I know all that...but I'm sure some ppl have been toying with the idea of upgrading and I'm just wondering what more ppl would go with.

If history is of any indication with higher clocked single core A64 vs. X2, if you intend to keep the processor for longer than 2 years, a Quad will be more futureproof. Furthermore, Q6600 at 2.4ghz stock is MORE than fast enough for 8800GTX - Benches in a variety of games

Therefore, there will be no difference in performance between Q6600 3.2ghz and E6750 @ 4.0ghz today. In the future, as games become more and more shader intensive and graphics realism evolves, the load will only continue to be distributed more onto the graphics card. However, with that, more objects will be present in the game, more AI calculations and threads to perform different tasks. I can only see Q6600 @ 3.2ghz pulling away from C2D in the future while I dont see any advantage of a higher clocked C2D today.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

:thumbsup:

Good post, RussianSensation.

Originally posted by: gramboh
I realized I would see nearly zero benefit in my use other than video encoding which I do very rarely... I mostly use this PC for gaming

While there may not be many apps or games that take advantage of all 4 cores at one time, there are many apps and games that will put heavy weight on a dual core. Any chance you'll want to run both at the same time ever? You rarely encode, but if you ever do need to encode while playing a game, a quad will ensure that you're encoding time isn't hindered, nor is your gameplay.

RussianSensation summed it up well. A C2D at 4ghz isn't showing much more benefit in a game over a 3ghz C2D. Games *will* come out that will take advantage of more cores. To me, the only other option I would consider other than getting a Q6600 right now would be getting a very cheap C2D and running with that until my computing habits would benefit greatly from quad. But spending $250+ on a dual-core chip right now when you can get a quad instead doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I've been wondering what more ppl would go with and you all answered it for me.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
ok, I tried to post earlier that I had to run 1.53 v to get to 3.6 ghz on my e6750, but, um, I failed orthos and computer rebooted. Now I'm at 1.54 v trying to pass orthos blend for more than 5 minutes...

You're sure it's not memory related? It can be the memory controller or your memory not liking certain settings or both.


FYI: on the IP35 the 1:1 and 1:1.20 memory ratios are on the 1333 strap which is more stable. The other 2 options are on the 1066 strap which is a little unstable at certain clocks.

More info here http://ocxtreme.org/forumenus/...p?p=12794&postcount=18

and here http://www.xtremesystems.org/f...=2344891&postcount=986