Somnambul33t
L33t.
Premium
join:2002-12-05
Mullica Hill, NJ
clubs:
 ·Comcast
| reply to A4L
Re: Core 2 Duo E8400 vs. Core 2 Quad Q6600
i7 requires 3-4x more expensive memory, a 2-4x more expensive motherboard, and the chepaest CPU is still $300.
still more posts of people claiming CPU speed increases game FPS. do your own research and you'll find this to be very false for most games when played at or above 1680x1050 resolution.
you can get a Q6600 or dual-core penryn system for $385. includes $200 CPU, 4GB ram, and adequate motherboard. you cant get the RAM and CPU alone for an i7 system at that price and gain close to 0 FPS in games.
buy what you want but games these days don't care about CPU once you have a core2duo E6000 or higher or faster AMD phenom. GFX card does much much much more work the higher the resolution, which is why sites wanting to benchmark a CPU by itself will run game benchmarks at 640x480 to eliminate as much of the gfx card as possible.
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Mchart
Super Joe
join:2004-01-21
Gurnee, IL
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| reply to BlackXTalon
said by BlackXTalon  :How about the core I7? In terms of quad core procs, didn't or isn't microsoft releasing a service pack for Microsoft Flight Sim X that will utilize all the cores? I am like the person who started this thread. I will be building a gaming box from scratch, and there is a lot of conflicting information out there. I am leaning towards the I7 core but it is getting some bad reviews on anandtech, tomshardware etc etc. Nehalem is quite fast, and if you have the money I reccomend it over any LGA775 right now. You are paying more money for stuff that will last much longer. |
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BlackXTalon
join:2008-11-19
| reply to Margolis
How about the core I7?
In terms of quad core procs, didn't or isn't microsoft releasing a service pack for Microsoft Flight Sim X that will utilize all the cores?
I am like the person who started this thread. I will be building a gaming box from scratch, and there is a lot of conflicting information out there. I am leaning towards the I7 core but it is getting some bad reviews on anandtech, tomshardware etc etc. |
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Margolis
Premium
join:2003-11-24
Saint Louis, MO
·Charter Pipeline
| reply to A4L
said by A4L :
That's some interesting information there. I'm starting to be confused to be honest. 60% of the people say to me that go for the E8400, 40% tell me to go for the Q6600. I really don't know what to go for. I'm looking at both perspectives and I feel I should go for the E8400 but then I see the Q6600 being more useful in the future. I really don't know what to do.
get the 8400, then in the far future when game will actually make use of more cores just buy a cheap quad core and plop into your motherboard. |
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Mchart
Super Joe
join:2004-01-21
Gurnee, IL
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4 edits | reply to longstreet
You don't have to do anything. Look at any number of reviews at sites like guru3d, hardocp, or anandtech. All show the E8400 outperforms the Q6600 in every single gaming benchmark. This should be a no-brainer. The fairly large increase in FSB alone allows it to do this. Not to mention the fact that it's 600mhz faster on each core, and each core has a much larger L2 cache to work with.
We aren't comparing E6600 to Q6600. We are comparing a newer technology, to a quite old quad-core CPU. Now, if you can afford the E8400 quad-core equivelant - Go for it. However, considering it's $530 - It isn't.
You say that WoW supports quad-core. I beg to differ. If you look at your task-manager while running WoW on a quad-core CPU, only two out of four of the cores are being touched. (All four are being touched because Windows shuffles around the threads, you only see 50% usage total on all 4 cores. Which means only 2 cores would be working just as good alone.) Even a game like Supreme Commander, which we know for a fact uses all four cores, shows higher benchmarks on the E8400 then on the Q6600. Just because an app can use all four cores, doesn't mean it's literally offloading all 100% of the workload to each core. Not to mention we have games like STALKER, which claim to support multi-core, but still only show to be using 1 at most if you look at the task manager. The bottom line is that we aren't there yet. Nor will we be at least until Alan Wake comes out.
The OP asked what CPU was better for gaming. This thread was started in gaming tech. The undeniably correct answer is the E8400. There is absolutely no room for debate. So unless you can pickup the Q9550 for $180 - You are absolutely wrong in suggesting any quad core is better for a gaming rig. (Unless you have a very large budget.) |
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longstreet
join:2004-11-14
Plano, TX
4 edits | reply to Vathral
quote:
Multi-core support for WoW was built in with the release of the Burning crusade in the beginning of 2007 so it wasn't capable of it when it was released back in 2004.
That wasn't my point. My point was it supports multiple cores and it's an older game
If developers are updating older games to take advantage of multiple cores and proper use of threading, it doesn't seem so apparent to me that games aren't coded for it. Some idiot editor of a web-zine says 'games aren't threaded' and the whole lot of people lap it up. Simply not true.
WoW is a huge game. Most gamers have played it at one point or another. It's a great example because it's a popular game that many people play.
It goes directly against Mchart's argument, this is why I mentioned it. I suppose this wasn't as obvious as I had hoped, so i've cleared this up for those that missed it.
One could sit here and have a back and forth about what is faster versus what is threaded correctly, I'm not so interested in that, but I'll entertain it. It depends if you multitask or not.
Load up the e8400 with other tasks and the quad beats it soundly, so the e8400 is preferable to a person who performs only a single gaming task on their computer and does nothing else. (i'll mention that the e8400 has very few other advantages outside single process gaming, just in case their might be a gamer here that does other things besides gaming  )
Just because a forum is about games, doesn't mean that all gaming forum visitors are only running a single task and all posts are constrained by that.
What I am interested in is comparable comparisions and the debunking of rumors and buzz word hearsay, which happens alot here.
When you have someone saying that threaded games are dual core limited, it simply sets off my BS meter. I have to call those out spreading false information.
I mean, I could write a column, do some reviewing, pick of bunch of properly threaded games, show the performance increases of a quad over the dual core and declare that all gamers should buy quads because most games benefit from it.
Not hard to do, however oh so easy to dis-prove. |
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The Flash
You don't win friends with salad
Premium
join:2002-10-17
Toronto, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Execulink
| reply to jouno53
said by jouno53 :It's probably already been said, but unless you'll be doing heavy, heavy multi-tasking, number crunching, and say... a TON of video compression than I'd go for the Core 2 Duo. By then, you'll be looking at octo-core...lol |
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Vathral
Premium
join:2002-08-26
Kreplachista
clubs:
1 edit | reply to longstreet
Multi-core support for WoW was built in with the release of the Burning crusade in the beginning of 2007 so it wasn't capable of it when it was released back in 2004. |
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jouno53
Palin 2012
join:2006-03-04
United State
·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to A4L
It's probably already been said, but unless you'll be doing heavy, heavy multi-tasking, number crunching, and say... a TON of video compression than I'd go for the Core 2 Duo.
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A4L
@co.th
| reply to A4L
That's some interesting information there. I'm starting to be confused to be honest. 60% of the people say to me that go for the E8400, 40% tell me to go for the Q6600. I really don't know what to go for. I'm looking at both perspectives and I feel I should go for the E8400 but then I see the Q6600 being more useful in the future. I really don't know what to do. |
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Mchart
Super Joe
join:2004-01-21
Gurnee, IL
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2 edits | reply to longstreet
I'm well aware what a thread is. The fact of the matter is that currently, most software is not designed for anything more then a single processor to begin with. Some software works better with a dual-core. Little to nothing is designed to even benefit from a quad core.
However, even the Q9300 is still slower then the E8400. So unless you can afford the QX9650, the E8400 is the best choice as of right now. Then a year down the road when the equivelant QX9650 product becomes dirt cheap - Pick it up.
The 'More cores = faster' mantra only works for maybe 5% of the applications out there. Obviously, it will help in situations of extreme multi-tasking. However, your average user isn't running a million things at once. Nor are they doing number crunching. Since this thread was started in the PC GAMING TECH forum, lets keep focus on PC Gaming - Not SETI@Home number crunching or processing large photoshop batches. For a gaming system the E8400 is the best choice as of right now. There isn't any debate on this. |
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psitool
Beware ManBearPig
Premium
join:2002-11-28
Albany, Ga
| reply to longstreet
said by longstreet :I'm in the more cores is better squad. Course, I had the quad extreme, so i've been quite tainted by it. I agree with you that it wouldn't hurt to go with a "Q9" series quad (faster, more cache, newer technology, etc.). This would be much better than the q6600.
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longstreet
join:2004-11-14
Plano, TX
4 edits | reply to Mchart
WoW takes advantage of multiple cores, and when was that game developed?
If you are running windows (at least back to windows 95) then you are running a multi-threaded operating system.
I'd say it's more common for any application today to be threaded, than not threaded, especially any commercial, off-the-shelf product.
Unfortunatly, there's alot of misconception that games and applications are not threaded. They are, the question is whether it was threaded correctly.
quote:
stuff that is multi-threaded tends to be dual-core only
Do you even know what a thread is?
Threading has been around in software for decades . .where are you getting your information? Multi-threading has no tendancy to dual core, single core, quad-core or otherwise. It's like asking the marital status of the number 5, it doesn't make sense.
Adding cores gives the CPU the ability to complete more instructions quicker when executing some code that's been threaded correctly. Simply having hardware doesn't enable threading. Threading still occurs on single core CPU's.
Secondly, the Q6600 has been around longer.
The Q6600 in fact came out an entire year before the E8400, that's light years in terms of microarchitecture and technology.
Compare apples to apples!
Try the Q9300 to the E8400 for a more realistic comparison.
The E8400 wins alot of real world tests and it's a great CPU to pick, it just depends how you compute!
People who multitask while gaming are better with the quad . . .if you're not really keen on doing more at once, then the dual is better. |
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Mchart
Super Joe
join:2004-01-21
Gurnee, IL
·AT&T Yahoo
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| reply to longstreet
said by longstreet :I'm in the more cores is better squad. Course, I had the quad extreme, so i've been quite tainted by it. That would be true if we actually had, on average, software that was multi-threaded by nature. Unfortunatly, most stuff still is designed for a single-processor enviroment; stuff that is multi-threaded tends to be dual-core only anyways. We just aren't there yet. So, IMO, it's best to buy something like the E8400. Then a year from now get the E8400 quad-core equivelant for dirt cheap. |
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longstreet
join:2004-11-14
Plano, TX | reply to A4L
I'm in the more cores is better squad. Course, I had the quad extreme, so i've been quite tainted by it. |
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A4L
@co.th | reply to A4L
I get the point, mate. Thanks. |
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psitool
Beware ManBearPig
Premium
join:2002-11-28
Albany, Ga
| reply to A4L
Have you even looked at the specs of the two processors? The Q6600 is slower and has less cache. It is inferior unless you do video editing for a living or something. The extra 2 cores of the Q6600 don't add any extra value at this point in time unless you actually use programs that take advantage of the extra cores. You might see some benefit in the next couple of years or so, but by then 2.4ghz will be slow compared to everything else available.
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The cake is a lie. |
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A4L
@co.th | reply to A4L
I've noticed that most people who recommend the E8400 are extreme overclockers and that let me get this straight: I'm not going to overclock any part of my PC at all. So without overclocking anything, is the Q6600 still inferior to the E8400 or not? |
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Ender3rd
join:2001-07-15
East Granby, CT
·Cox HSI
| reply to Vathral
Heh, you are correct. It will do 3.6 GHz without breaking a sweat simply by bumping it to the 9x multiplier. No problem with the memory, it runs right at spec (1066) with the 400 MHz FSB. To be honest, I don't have any software (errr... games) that require me to OC at all! Everything I play runs beautifully at max settings even when it's set completely stock. I do like the feeling of getting something for nothing though! I'm sure I will move to 3.6 GHz for 24/7 use at some point.
Getting something for nothing is rare these days! 
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Vathral
Premium
join:2002-08-26
Kreplachista
clubs:
·Earthlink Cable Mo..
| reply to Ender3rd
said by Ender3rd :I pondered the same question and then went with the E8400 (C0 stepping) and don't regret it. I run it @ 3.4 GHz (8.5 x 400 MHz) with air cooling 24/7 with no issues at all. That's all? 
You can easily do 3.6 GHz with not a single voltage change unless it's memory settings you touched as well. |
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