Core 2 Quad or Duo???

[Shaundale]

Hi,
Looking at these two CPU as there about the same price £120. BUT would it be better to go Quad core with 2.33Ghz or Duo with 3.0Ghz? would they run OK on a Gigabyte GA-P35-S3 till I geta new Mobo and what Mobo whould be best bang for Buck??? (Have lots of games that DON'T use the extra core's!!!)

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0Ghz

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33Ghz

Thanks,
Shaun.

 

[Yami]

I used to have a quad, but swapped for an E8400 and haven't looked back, everything's faster (then again I have it OC'd to 4GHz compared to a Q6600 @ ~2.7).

 

[hikaricloud]

First off, I would never buy a Q8*** series processor unless I had no choice.

The main thing you have to think about is what you're trying to do with your computer. For gaming purposes, the E8400 is great, since most games don't utilize quad cores yet. Since you can hugely overclock the E8400, that helps more in games than having a couple extra cores.

Now if you are looking to run multiple programs, or do encoding work, then a quad will suit you.

 

[Merkwürdigeliebe]

First off, I would never buy a Q8*** series processor unless I had no choice.

The main thing you have to think about is what you're trying to do with your computer. For gaming purposes, the E8400 is great, since most games don't utilize quad cores yet. Since you can hugely overclock the E8400, that helps more in games than having a couple extra cores.

Now if you are looking to run multiple programs, or do encoding work, then a quad will suit you.

I'll vouch for that. Comparable dual-cores can generally overclock higher, and at stock, they have higher frequencies. So for gaming alone, dual core is great.

However, multi-tasking on a quad is amazing. Somtimes I'll have a massive video project being rendered, I set the affinity accordingly, and I can have 2 or 3 cores working on the video rendering and I can leave 1 or 2 cores free for anything else, including games. Yes, you can do that with a dual core as well, but you'd be putting all the work on 1 core and it will not finish/run as quickly.

It also depends on how long you're looking to keep a build for. If you like upgrading frequently, wait out on the quads until games and software are more widely optimized for it.

One more point, quad-cores = bigger e-shlong Although, in most cases, dual-core = higher overclocks which also = bigger e-shlong.

 

[hikaricloud]

My recommendations for both would be:

Dual core: Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops
Quad core: Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz 12MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

 

[Yami]

My recommendations for both would be:

Dual core: Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops
Quad core: Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz 12MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

+1 to those, best choices possible.

 

[zmatt]

First off, I would never buy a Q8*** series processor unless I had no choice.

The main thing you have to think about is what you're trying to do with your computer. For gaming purposes, the E8400 is great, since most games don't utilize quad cores yet. Since you can hugely overclock the E8400, that helps more in games than having a couple extra cores.

Now if you are looking to run multiple programs, or do encoding work, then a quad will suit you.

Agreed, the Q8xxx are the cheapest quads Intel makes. They cut a lot of corners to be that way. The e8400 has more cache and because of that has more cache per core. That means you get more work done. The Quad advantage is canceled out by the lack of cache and clock speed. Get the e8400. It's practically guaranteed you can hit 4ghz with an aftermarket cooler.