Somnambul33t
L33t.
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join:2002-12-05
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| reply to Mchart
Re: Core 2 Duo E8400 vs. Core 2 Quad Q6600
said by Mchart  :said by A4L :
Interesting. I actually find it weird since that's got 4 cores and this has got 2 but you still say this is better. Why?
Because it has a higher clock-speed, a faster front side bus, and more L2 Cache. There are currently no games that utilize more then two cores, otherwise, the quad-core would technically be better for gaming. Currently however, it is not. somewhat correct. if he games at 1680x1050 or higher, however, CPU means jack shit. higher clock speed does nothing as almost all current games are GPU-limited at this rez and higher.
all the CPU comparisons ive seen show games getting within 1-2 FPS at 16x10 and higher resolutions as long as they have a Phenom X4 or C2D E6300 or C2Q Q6600 and higher. basically if you have ANY decent CPU you wont notice better FPS in games!
that being the case, go quad core because it definitely has better multi-tasking!
both CPUs are great and this is a case of no wrong choice, but dont believe that any of the CPUs will get you better FPS because thats completely untrue if you play modern games. |
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Mchart
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| said by Somnambul33t :said by Mchart :said by A4L :
Interesting. I actually find it weird since that's got 4 cores and this has got 2 but you still say this is better. Why?
Because it has a higher clock-speed, a faster front side bus, and more L2 Cache. There are currently no games that utilize more then two cores, otherwise, the quad-core would technically be better for gaming. Currently however, it is not. somewhat correct. if he games at 1680x1050 or higher, however, CPU means jack shit. higher clock speed does nothing as almost all current games are GPU-limited at this rez and higher. all the CPU comparisons ive seen show games getting within 1-2 FPS at 16x10 and higher resolutions as long as they have a Phenom X4 or C2D E6300 or C2Q Q6600 and higher. basically if you have ANY decent CPU you wont notice better FPS in games! that being the case, go quad core because it definitely has better multi-tasking! both CPUs are great and this is a case of no wrong choice, but dont believe that any of the CPUs will get you better FPS because thats completely untrue if you play modern games. It is a correct statement. The E8400, even at high resolutions in a game like crysis, shows around a 15% lead over the Q6600.
As for 'quad core is better because it is better at multi-tasking'. That means little right now. For most users a dual-core is just fine. Not to mention there are very little apps that can even take advantadge of quad-core. |
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Somnambul33t
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| reply to A4L
»www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scali···essors/9
E8400 vs Q6600 in Crysis
16x12 = E8400 wins by 3 fps or ~6.5%
19x12 = tie
25x16 = E8400 wins by 1 fps or ~3.5%.
look at all the games they tested, these results are across the board. All the games are modern, all the CPUs are 1 previous or current generation. For reference they used an 8800 Ultra (their AMD motherboard had issues disabling one of the 9800GX2's cores during some games)
i didnt pull my previous statement out of my ass and i didnt read that article and join some bandwagon of anti-CPU gaming. [H]ardOCP's been saying this for a year and the article i linked i actually found to back up my points.
if you game at a medium or higher resolution, your GFX card matters much much much more than your CPU. if you game at a low res like 1280x1024, then you'll be getting more than playable FPS regardless of the E8400 or Q6600 so the added FPS from a high clocked dual core is moot.
the Q6600 is the better buy hands down.
-just as fast in games as the E8400
-better multi-tasking
-many video and audio creation programs fully support 4+ cores (hell the xvid codec itself is very multi-threaded meaning ANY program encoding with the latest xvid codec is now encoding across all 4 cores)
-priced the same
no reason not to get it
when the E6700 was $220 and the Q6600 was still 280, i told people to buy the E6700. it's all relative to price. for the same price, quad is a huge no brainer over dual, even a previous gen vs current.
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The Flash
You don't win friends with salad
Premium
join:2002-10-17
Toronto, ON | reply to A4L
I would just get the E8400 and OC it to 4 ghz and call it a day. |
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MchartAnon
@af.mil
| reply to Somnambul33t
I just can't agree with that statement. The Q6600 is not as good in games as the E8400. This will be even more noticeable as more next-gen games in 2009 come out. Not to mention current benchmarks show that the E8400 is at least slightly faster in current games.
The Q6600 is nice - But for gaming and most daily tasks the extra cores aren't needed. |
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Vathral
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Kreplachista
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| 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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Ender3rd
join:2001-07-15
East Granby, CT
·Cox HSI
| 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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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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psitool
Beware ManBearPig
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join:2002-11-28
Albany, Ga
| 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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A4L
@co.th | reply to A4L
I get the point, mate. Thanks. |
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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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Mchart
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| 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
4 edits | 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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psitool
Beware ManBearPig
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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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Mchart
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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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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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jouno53
Palin 2012
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| 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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Vathral
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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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The Flash
You don't win friends with salad
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Toronto, ON
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| 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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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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