Intel E8400 vs. Q6600

[skele89]

Im building a new PC and both of these processors are in my price range. Im not likely to be running more than 2 demanding programs at once at present, but times change...

Which will be faster for running a single demanding program?

Which will be faster for running 2?

And which will be faster for running 3?

 

[Poizen22]

the q6600 will be fastest for 2 or more, anything other the e8400 with a good overclock will do well. there preaty impressive chips, but i love my q6600.

 

[Akubane]

I just downgraded from a QX9650 to an e8400 and I like it more :/
Haven't noticed any difference in running programs, and my gaming FPS has jumped by 10-15fps.
Only things i do as far as programs go is video encoding and running winrar and burning junk though.

if you plan on running a bunch of demanding programs at a time then i say go with a quad. The q6600 is cheap and performs good.

Since all I do is video encoding and running winrar there was no use for me to run a quad.

 

[Poizen22]

dam i was looking at goin with a q9550 this xmass but b ythe looks of it id be better with an e8600 or e8500.

 

[Akubane]

I dunno it all depends on what you do I guess.

People can go on about how all new games and stuff are goign to be multithreaded for quad core compatability, but fully quad compatible games are probably still a ways off.

As much as i like the idea of a quad core, I spend most of my time either playing games or watching media. both of which seem to be better suited for dual cores at the moment.

Funny thing above is the QX9650 I had was clocked at 4.2ghz daily use, and this e8400 is only at 3.79ish :/ Why performance increased with the e8400 completely baffles me.

oh well it was cheap as heck so im happy.

 

[Poizen22]

what did you do qith your qx? also there not tht=at far off warhammer online uses 4 cores and cod4 uses 3. so smp games are on there way.

 

[Prototype]

Brand New QX9650 are at $600

E8400 = Gaming Most Of The Time
Q6600 = Lots Of Programs/Applications Opened At The Same Time

Or whichever is the cheapest becuase you wont see much difference from both of them

 

[Akubane]

Yeah price sure has dropped on em :/ Hate to think what I paid for mine haha.

What did i do with it? Nearly exclusive gaming, with small amounts of video encoding here and there. Cod4, crysis, supcom, crysis: warhead, oblivion, frontlines, nwn2, wic, wow, rsv2, ut3, overlord, c&c3 and spore. That's about the extent of the games I play atm. have like gamer ADD or something lol

I know smp games are on the way. Slowly. and it probably won't matter all that much when they do get here. It's still gonna take a while for them to get it right. Half the companies still aren't even bothering with it, and quad cores have been out for a while.

it doesn't matter which you get, they'll both perform pretty much the same in most things. The e8400 will still take the cake in games though :/

Just flip a coin.

 

[Poizen22]

Yeah price sure has dropped on em :/ Hate to think what I paid for mine haha.

What did i do with it? Nearly exclusive gaming, with small amounts of video encoding here and there. Cod4, crysis, supcom, crysis: warhead, oblivion, frontlines, nwn2, wic, wow, rsv2, ut3, overlord, c&c3 and spore. That's about the extent of the games I play atm. have like gamer ADD or something lol

I know smp games are on the way. Slowly. and it probably won't matter all that much when they do get here. It's still gonna take a while for them to get it right. Half the companies still aren't even bothering with it, and quad cores have been out for a while.

it doesn't matter which you get, they'll both perform pretty much the same in most things. The e8400 will still take the cake in games though :/

Just flip a coin.

when i meant what did u do with it like where is it now that you have an e8400.

 

[veedubfreak]

I have to think either you had something wrong with your qx if your dual core running slower is better than a quad core running faster.

You can have my q6600 when you pry it from my cold dead hands. Or when i upgrade to i7.