What CPU to get?

[Csst]

A Buddy of mine can get either the X6800 or the QX6600. price is not the issue. He wants to know what one he should go with. The price is not the factor he just wants to know what one he should get. hes on water cooling also and will be OC it?

 

[hennessy1]

since price is no issue I would go with the qx6600. I know that you can oc the x6800 but you can't add more cores. If he can he should wait till they drop the prices again or even till penryn comes out with quad. but if not then yeah go with the qx6600.

 

[MarcVenice]

arent the lower TDP qauds coming out rly rly soon ? Those should be easier to OC. July 22nd is when the pricecuts will happen, by 50%, thats 250 bucks he could save on his cpu and spend on something else instead.

 

[stevty2889]

It would help just a little if we actualy knew what he planned to use the system for..that makes a rather huge differance in which processor to choose..however there isn't much out there that takes advantage of the quad core, so in most cases, the higher speed dual core will be the better choice.

 

[PCTC2]

BTW, it's just a Q6600. It's not a Core2Extreme. It's just a Core2Quad. It's not unlocked like an Extreme. And If he really wants to go quad, and price is no issue, I would recommend the Q6600.
With water, he should be able to get a decent OC with a few boards (eVGA 680i (A1 revision) comes to mind). eVGA is basically the only company to knock the kinks out of quad-core overclocking in their 680i chipset (A1 revision). The AR and TR revisions have the same problems that other boards have with quad-core overclocking, hitting the top around 370 FSB.

The X6800 will be able to clock a lot higher on water, but if he's going to do a lot of multi-threaded or multi-tasking with intensive programs, then the Q6600 is probably the way to go.

 

[J3ph42]

I would say get the X6800 unless those extra cores are needed for something. If they aren't I would imagine dual core will be quite sufficient for most applications for quite some time. Especially with the overclocks he can get from the X6800. Then again, If he renders homemade CG movies while ripping DVD's a lot, then the Q6600 may be the one for him.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Csst
A Buddy of mine can get either the X6800 or the QX6600. price is not the issue. He wants to know what one he should go with. The price is not the factor he just wants to know what one he should get. hes on water cooling also and will be OC it?

uhh...thats a big differenec there.

And i think you mean Q6600, and not QX6600.

If it is the QX6600, id grab it, but look at getting exotic cooling if you want to pull decient overclocks on that girl.

Remember quads are 2 C2D's stamped together on 1 pcb.

 

[Csst]

I should have added this this chip will be used 95% of the time for gaming. Do you think he should go with the QX6600 or the X6800 ?

 

[J3ph42]

Originally posted by: Csst
I should have added this this chip will be used 95% of the time for gaming. Do you think he should go with the QX6600 or the X6800 ?

The X6800. Undeniably the better (at the moment, the BEST) gaming chip.

 

[hennessy1]

then the x6800 is better but theres no hurt in getting a quad bc to be honest its not like games are going to go back to single core optimazation. So if anything go quad. If anything wait till penryn if you don't want to go now. I have the qx6700 and I have alot of increased productivity. Games run perfect even if you are running multiple games. Audio and video encoding goes extremely fast.