So... core 2 quad q6600 or core 2 duo e6850?

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: Nightmare225
Hell, even SupCom gets amazing speed increases, and that's over half a year old. Prepare for Crysis, Alan Wake, etc, to stretch Quad cores to the limit...

Who told you that?

At any given time, not more than 1.5 cores were used, and that was only random peaks. I am not sure what it would take to have even more usage, but the fact is, if you have at least a dual core processor, you can expect good results.

Link to the article that paragraph was quoted from.

yeah, that whole "supcom rocks on quad cores but sux on all others" is bs. Supposedly alan wake and crysis will do a better job of using all 4 cores, but realistically it will be several years before mainstream games require more than 2 cores to run well on a c2d. I think that 3-5 years is reasonable, if you're going to just drop in a penryn in 12-18 mos go with a 6750/6850 for now.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

I'd go for the Q6600. The G0 stepping hit 3.2GHz under air pretty easily. Reasons I went with a Q6600 over E6850.

- More cores means if games do come out with multi-threaded support, I will not have background applications getting the way.
- At 1680x1050, there will be almost no difference between a 3.2GHz quad and 3.8GHz duo.
- Q6600 will have better resale value then the E6850.
- I have the luxury of not having to worry about loss of performance due to quad core support in the future. (Crysis for example)

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Lnsean
Thats why I said the E6850 is only good for 1-2 years. If you can't upgrade for 3-5 years, then you should go for the q6600. We're talking about buying a 200-300$ chip not a 30,000$ car. If resale value is what you're worried about, you shouldn't even be building a computer.

Nobody is talking resale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Forget about that. Nobody said a damn thing about that!

We are talking about usefulness of the CPU over time. :roll:

 

[sgrinavi]

$361 on ebay

They are all over the map. One went for $351 last night, but you still see them around $600. A little over $400 seems about normal for them.

I've never found a great computer part deal on pricewatch.

My only point is that a 6750 is on the sweet spot, I could not justify 1.5x the cost for 1.1 more clock. Down from there they seem to scale pretty well.

 

[Lnsean]

LOL...no one is talking about resale value? How about you try reading the comments ppl post before you reply...the post just above yours, njdevilsfan87 listed resale value as one of the reasons he bought the q6600. Please actually read before you comment.

If you go to tomshardware...you can get a direct comparison of the E6850 and the q6600. Games like supcom, quake IV, and Unreal make use of multicores I believe, and the E6850 still came out ahead. Actually, the E6850 comes out ahead in most of the applications and all of the games. Heres some proof to back up my statements unlike those that claim supcom runs better on a q6600 above. Read it and weep.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/...6&model2=882&chart=421

The only reason anyone should get a q6600 is if they don't plan on upgrading for 3-5 years. If you're gonna upgrade in 1-2 years, you're just ripping yourself off by buying a q6600.

 

[sgrinavi]

Originally posted by: Lnsean

The only reason anyone should get a q6600 is if they don't plan on upgrading for 3-5 years. If you're gonna upgrade in 1-2 years, you're just ripping yourself off by buying a q6600.

OR you want to use it for work... the q6600 beats out the 6850 by a long shot..

3dsMax renders; 32% faster
3dmark CPU, 26% faster
cinema 4d; 31% faster


etc...

 

[aken909]

Originally posted by: sgrinavi
$361 on ebay

They are all over the map. One went for $351 last night, but you still see them around $600. A little over $400 seems about normal for them.

I've never found a great computer part deal on pricewatch.

My only point is that a 6750 is on the sweet spot, I could not justify 1.5x the cost for 1.1 more clock. Down from there they seem to scale pretty well.

Uhm, i'm not buying any oem chips... I don't want someone's defunct chip they tried oc'ing and couldn't get it to work as well as they wanted it too, and are now selling on ebay. CPU's and ram and mb's I don't buy used or "oem" from ebay. But thanks for the info. I'm buying from newegg only on these parts in the box. With some kind of warranty

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Lnsean
LOL...no one is talking about resale value? How about you try reading the comments ppl post before you reply...the post just above yours, njdevilsfan87 listed resale value as one of the reasons he bought the q6600. Please actually read before you comment.

If you go to tomshardware...you can get a direct comparison of the E6850 and the q6600. Games like supcom, quake IV, and Unreal make use of multicores I believe, and the E6850 still came out ahead. Actually, the E6850 comes out ahead in most of the applications and all of the games. Heres some proof to back up my statements unlike those that claim supcom runs better on a q6600 above. Read it and weep.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/...6&model2=882&chart=421

The only reason anyone should get a q6600 is if they don't plan on upgrading for 3-5 years. If you're gonna upgrade in 1-2 years, you're just ripping yourself off by buying a q6600.

Again the Q6600 will be more useful over time. You're gonna buy a dual core, then later you will end up upgrading to a quad. Why do that when you can just buy a quad now?

Anyway the Q6600 is a better buy period. You will use 4 cores before 3 years time. If you deny this, you are blind.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: Nightmare225
Hell, even SupCom gets amazing speed increases, and that's over half a year old. Prepare for Crysis, Alan Wake, etc, to stretch Quad cores to the limit...

Who told you that?

At any given time, not more than 1.5 cores were used, and that was only random peaks. I am not sure what it would take to have even more usage, but the fact is, if you have at least a dual core processor, you can expect good results.

Link to the article that paragraph was quoted from.

yeah, that whole "supcom rocks on quad cores but sux on all others" is bs. Supposedly alan wake and crysis will do a better job of using all 4 cores, but realistically it will be several years before mainstream games require more than 2 cores to run well on a c2d. I think that 3-5 years is reasonable, if you're going to just drop in a penryn in 12-18 mos go with a 6750/6850 for now.

Theres a 3rd party quad core optimiser mod that increases the performance boos with Quad core substantially in supcom. It appears the devs sucked at load balancing.

 

[aken909]

Originally posted by: Lnsean
LOL...no one is talking about resale value? How about you try reading the comments ppl post before you reply...the post just above yours, njdevilsfan87 listed resale value as one of the reasons he bought the q6600. Please actually read before you comment.

If you go to tomshardware...you can get a direct comparison of the E6850 and the q6600. Games like supcom, quake IV, and Unreal make use of multicores I believe, and the E6850 still came out ahead. Actually, the E6850 comes out ahead in most of the applications and all of the games. Heres some proof to back up my statements unlike those that claim supcom runs better on a q6600 above. Read it and weep.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/...6&model2=882&chart=421

The only reason anyone should get a q6600 is if they don't plan on upgrading for 3-5 years. If you're gonna upgrade in 1-2 years, you're just ripping yourself off by buying a q6600.

While I agree with what your saying, and I know the 6850 is faster for gaming one thing to consider for me at least is I just "use" my computer a lot more than I game, ya know watching vid's while sufing the web while dl'ing a torrent while rendering a video and doing a bunch of other stuff all at the same time. My last decision was much the same, I could have gotten a faster single core cpu for gaming but I opted for the dual core and I am happy I did. This is a little different because the faster cpu is still dual core, but now its vs a quad. I fell like both will make me happy. Its just picking one...

I still haven't made up my mind at all, I got three weeks or so to stew about it, and I appreciate your and everyones opinions. Heh, unfortunately, it seems everyone has had a different opinion and both are really good choices.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: aken909

Originally posted by: Lnsean
LOL...no one is talking about resale value? How about you try reading the comments ppl post before you reply...the post just above yours, njdevilsfan87 listed resale value as one of the reasons he bought the q6600. Please actually read before you comment.

If you go to tomshardware...you can get a direct comparison of the E6850 and the q6600. Games like supcom, quake IV, and Unreal make use of multicores I believe, and the E6850 still came out ahead. Actually, the E6850 comes out ahead in most of the applications and all of the games. Heres some proof to back up my statements unlike those that claim supcom runs better on a q6600 above. Read it and weep.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/...6&model2=882&chart=421

The only reason anyone should get a q6600 is if they don't plan on upgrading for 3-5 years. If you're gonna upgrade in 1-2 years, you're just ripping yourself off by buying a q6600.

While I agree with what your saying, and I know the 6850 is faster for gaming one thing to consider for me at least is I just "use" my computer a lot more than I game, ya know watching vid's while sufing the web while dl'ing a torrent while rendering a video and doing a bunch of other stuff all at the same time. My last decision was much the same, I could have gotten a faster single core cpu for gaming but I opted for the dual core and I am happy I did. This is a little different because the faster cpu is still dual core, but now its vs a quad. I fell like both will make me happy. Its just picking one...

I still haven't made up my mind at all, I got three weeks or so to stew about it, and I appreciate your and everyones opinions. Heh, unfortunately, it seems everyone has had a different opinion and both are really good choices.

You could always overclock your Q6600 to 3.2Ghz or so and then you're set. Honestly, I don't see a huge difference between 3.4Ghz and 3.2Ghz. Obviously it depends on how you're measuring the speed. Synthetic benchmarks will always show improvement. Some games may show 1 or 2 fps increase or so. Like was said before, you can add more Mhz but you cannot add more cores.

 

[Lnsean]

Oh, don't get me wrong. If you use your computer for editing and stuff, then by all means go for the q6600. If you're already using applications and doing things that require multiple cores, then you will get your money's worth with the q6600. For others, they're just putting down 300$ and hope that the chip will be fully utilized at an undetermined date in the future.
When that time comes, there will be a better and cheaper quads available; I just think its unnecessary to short yourself on performance and speed now when you know that you'll probably upgrade to a penryn or something like that in 18 months.

Yes you can overclock your q6600 to 3.2 or 3.4 but then you can also overclock the e6850 to 3.8-4.0...so the gap will never be closed. There will always be that gap. Comparing an overclocked q6600 to a stock E6850? lol...be more real please.

 

[Aharami]

Im deciding between these two CPUs also. Im really split on these two - keep on going back and forth. Right now Im running an Athlon XP 2700+ (2.13 GHz). Old school, slow, and runs hot! I was pretty set on the Q6600 since it has 2 more cores for a little cheaper, albeit lower clock speeds. But I figured I can always OC it to 3.0 GHz. Until i read that the Q6600 runs hotter than E6850 and that it's easier to OC the E6850 than Q6600. One thing I hate about my Athlon is how hot it runs. Makes my room unbearable in the summer. So I want the coolest option possible. But then again, how much hotter does the C2Q run compared to the C2D? And how easy hard will it be to OC the Q6600? I dont want to deal with water cooling. I wanna be able to slap on a nice cooler (maybe a zalman 9700...I hear everyone raving about that cooler) and run decent temps while OCed.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Lnsean
so u think the E6850 will be worth 70-90 bucks in two years...and q6600 will be worth 120-130 bucks then? whoopi doo...40 bucks of savings...in 2 years. I think u can do better at burger king. ppl who use this logic to make their cpu decision are either really cheap or insane...how that is even logical is beyond my guess...lol

What NoSoup4You said is logical if you have good sales skills. When I was selling my E6400 @ 3.4ghz in June, I showed to the buyer that an equivalently priced C2D 2.93ghz cost $950 at the time. Not only did I sell the customer a processor far faster than any C2D, but he got it at way below the price it cost for a top-of-the-line C2D at the time. After the sale I was able to upgrade to Q6600 and 8800GTS for $185 in total. Considering QX6850 3.0ghz costs $1500 US today, and Intel's next step up is only going to take it to 3.33ghz, what do you think I can sell my Q6600 3.5ghz for next summer? A lot more than $130, unless you forsee 3.33ghz Quad to drop from $1500 to $130 in 12 months....So I definately considered resale value when I went with the quad.

Secondly, you can't make up for lack of two cores in any application where there would be a benefit and E6850 won't provide you with a tangible improvement even at 4.0ghz because it's not like Q6600 at 3.4-3.5ghz is a bottleneck. I'd like to see you do a thorough anti-virus scan, while running Folding@home or BOINC, ad-aware scan while playing Bioshock on E6850 and see what happens. Even WinRar is multithreaded and my quad is getting 1800KB/sec. A similarly clocked C2D I sold was getting 1250KB/sec (44% slower) in extracting files.

We have heard an advice similar to yours when it came to A64 4000+ 2.4ghz vs. X2 3800+ 2.0ghz (25% speed disadvantage as is the case with Q6600 2.4ghz vs. E6850 3.0ghz - same 25%). Those who purchased the faster single core back then are looking at a 39% performance disadvantage in Bioshock today. We'll most likely see better minimum framerates in Crysis this year already due to Quads. Also a $50 cooler like the Tuniq Tower is sufficient for Q6600 3.4ghz at the lowest fan speed setting and it will not sound like a vaccuum. Finally, considering Vista's sluggish interface, I'd want nothing less than a quad for seamless interaction.

I can definately see the argument of going with a slower clocked C2D processor like E4400/4500 or even E6750 which costs $100 less than E6850, and dumping the rest towards a graphics card. But spending the same $ on a dual core vs. quad doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Barrok]

I went single core 3500+ just after the X2's hit the market. All the benchmarks showed very little gains from dual core. Now everything is dual core and I was always regretting not getting the dual.
Now quad's don't show alot of gains on games, and the dual cores are amazing, but I didn't make the same mistake again. I got a Q6600 G0 Stepping. Tuniq Tower 120 and at 1.4 volts my CPU is at 3.4ghz. Pretty haul ass for only 289.

 

[wwswimming]

the Deion Sanders answer - Both !

the 6850 now, because they're cheap and you will then have
one of the fastest CPU's on earth.

the Q6600 in a few weeks or months.

 

[Aharami]

Originally posted by: Barrok
I went single core 3500+ just after the X2's hit the market. All the benchmarks showed very little gains from dual core. Now everything is dual core and I was always regretting not getting the dual.
Now quad's don't show alot of gains on games, and the dual cores are amazing, but I didn't make the same mistake again. I got a Q6600 G0 Stepping. Tuniq Tower 120 and at 1.4 volts my CPU is at 3.4ghz. Pretty haul ass for only 289.

what temps are you running? Ive yet to find sites that compare idle and load temps of both processors. I wanna know non-OC and OC temps

also, what cooler are you running? stock or something fancier?

 

[Aharami]

Originally posted by: wwswimming
the Deion Sanders answer - Both !

the 6850 now, because they're cheap and you will then have
one of the fastest CPU's on earth.

the Q6600 in a few weeks or months.

why wait for the Q6600 for a few weeks/months esp since those go for cheaper than the E6850 now.

 

[kokal]

I'd go for the Q6600 all the way. Dual core is popular now but above $266 I find it pointless. I like overclocking and buying best bang for the buck. With a decent P35 Board (My Favourite is P35-DS3P from Gigabyte - selling in my country for 161$ - should be cheaper for you) all the Core 2 Based chips hit 3000+ MHz with decent cooling (Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro being a cheap solution). The new G0 stepping that are selling now hit 3.6 with better air cooling (Scythe Inifinity/Ninja, Tuniq Tower, Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme - man I want a Thermalright but they are not sold in Bulgaria). Everything is going multithread - so go with the flow and buy that quad . The next upgrade that you may need will be around 2009-2010 when AMD and Intel introduce the new architectures - then 4 core will be minimum buy and 8 cores will be future oriented hopefully.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Aharami

Originally posted by: Barrok
Now quad's don't show alot of gains on games, and the dual cores are amazing, but I didn't make the same mistake again. I got a Q6600 G0 Stepping. Tuniq Tower 120 and at 1.4 volts my CPU is at 3.4ghz. Pretty haul ass for only 289.

what temps are you running? Ive yet to find sites that compare idle and load temps of both processors. I wanna know non-OC and OC temps

also, what cooler are you running? stock or something fancier?

You've got almost 13,000 posts on a computer support forum, and don't know what a Tuniq Tower 120 happens to be? That's sad.

 

[aken909]

Originally posted by: Aharami
Im deciding between these two CPUs also. Im really split on these two - keep on going back and forth. Right now Im running an Athlon XP 2700+ (2.13 GHz). Old school, slow, and runs hot! I was pretty set on the Q6600 since it has 2 more cores for a little cheaper, albeit lower clock speeds. But I figured I can always OC it to 3.0 GHz. Until i read that the Q6600 runs hotter than E6850 and that it's easier to OC the E6850 than Q6600. One thing I hate about my Athlon is how hot it runs. Makes my room unbearable in the summer. So I want the coolest option possible. But then again, how much hotter does the C2Q run compared to the C2D? And how easy hard will it be to OC the Q6600? I dont want to deal with water cooling. I wanna be able to slap on a nice cooler (maybe a zalman 9700...I hear everyone raving about that cooler) and run decent temps while OCed.

Wow, this is EXACTLY what I was thinking, I use the cpu in a lil room and my 4400x2 makes the room super hot when its at full laod aka Warcraft. Though its not even full load its about 40% on both cores. And the cpu only runs at about 46-51c And I keep hearing about ppls q6600's running at 60-70c and my room would be a sauna with that thing in here. And thats basically the only strike against the 6600. But its a big one.

 

[Barrok]

Tuniq Tower 120 is my cooler. I was able to jump straight to 3.0ghz on stock volts, which for my mobo (abit I35-e) was around 1.18. It was about 47 at full load, and 32-33 ish at idle.

At 1.4 Volts my cpu can hit 58-61 load and still idles around 34ish. Most games I play never hit full load, its usually just prime or OCCT or cinebench etc.

Great cooler for the price ($50 when it was onsale at newegg). Even comes with a fan.

 

[wwswimming]

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
Since I got my Quad I've been able to do renders in 3DStudio and Terragen on two cores while gaming on the other two.

Terragen looks interesting. any idea of the
names of the programmers who wrote it,
in addition to John McLusky ?