Well it's been ages since I've posted.. let alone been on this site..
Missed it actually.. anyways, I'm trying to come up with a new project.
And this is where I'm coming up empty. Just need some help with the cpu.

My choices are sitting between the Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition.. or the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600.

Unless someone can suggest something better. Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Wow.. ok guess I'm a little tired or something, re-read this and it just seemed so.. short and almost pointless.. so going to add a bit to it.

I'm looking at building a new rig, upgrading from an Athlon 3000+ to something newer. Dual core or Quad, either or. Shooting for around $250ish, give or take. So that's pretty much what I'm looking at.

All the reviews I've been going through, keep tossing me between AMD and Intel.

Ok that sounds a little better.

This float your boat? The Q6600 is a better choice.

Newegg.com - DFI BloodIron P35-T2RL LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

Newegg.com - Open Box: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor

Newegg.com - SUPER TALENT 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

You will need a cooler as well. Does that $250 budget cover just the CPU or everything?

All the OG's are coming back.

I agree Intel is the smart choice right now.

But I disagree on the cpu choice. E8400 ($200) or E8500 ($300) Wolfdale is also an option. If you don't plan on overclocking, it's a much better option. The Wolfdale's clock faster and have a native 1300 fsb. If you do plan on overclocking, it's still a great option. Right now almost nothing takes advantage of 4 cores, and what does shows little to no improvement on 4 cores.

In essence, for the same money, you get a faster chip when buying the latest dual core. And being a 45nm chip the Wolfdale runs cooler and requires less juice.

If I did go quad right now, I'd opt for the Yorkfield rather than the Kentsfield cpu's and pay the modest premium for doing so.

E8400 is a solid choice, ive had great success overclocking a mate of mines chip. Quad cores still arn't worth the extra heat and expense in my opinion. The jump from single core to dual core gives a decent increase in performance accross the board, but its not the same going from 2 cores to 4.

Quote: Originally Posted by AnandTech When going from one to two cores, overall system performance increases a decent amount. SYSMark encapsulates a wide variety of applications and usage models and overall performance increases by close to 40%. Obviously areas like video encoding (represented in the Video Creation tests) see the biggest gain, but all aspects of performance increase tremendously. Making the argument for two cores these days isn't a difficult one, most desktop applications can at least take some advantage of two cores. Looking at the move from two to four cores however reveals much worse scaling. In our 1-to-2 core comparison cache size didn't increase, so the theoretical scaling could actually be even higher but in the 2-to-4 core comparison the total L2 doubles since Intel's quad-core processors are simply two dual-core die on a single package. Despite the increase in cache size however, scaling is quite poor. Overall performance goes up 8.7% percent and the E-Learning/Productivity tests see no gains at all. Once again the biggest gains come from the Video Creation tests, followed by the 3D suite.

AnandTech: AMD's Phenom X3 8000 Series: Fighting Two Cores with Three?

Basically, E8400 is bang for buck king right now and runs very cool thanks to Intels new 45nm fab process.

I've got to say I love my E8400, I've gotten her up to 4.2 ghz stable. just one thing to keep in mind with overclocking though, Its been said that the silicon degrades when too much voltage is pumped into them, resulting in more voltage to maintain the overclock. As long as you're not pumping 1.6v into it constantly, you'll be fine.

Au contraire to all the quad haterz....everyone who says an extra 20-30 fps in Unreal engine games isn't worth it, put your hands up now:

AnandTech: Unreal Tournament 3 CPU & High End GPU Analysis: Next-Gen Gaming Explored

IMO, dual core is really yesterday's news. The E8400 might be a very decent CPU that overclocks to the moon and back, but games tend to be GPU-limited rather than CPU-limited, so what do you gain for that? And if your game can can take advantage of multiple cores (which 95% of modern titles can now), you're going to lose out with a dual core.

Take a look at this chart...

AnandTech: AMD's Phenom X3 8000 Series: Fighting Two Cores with Three?

the Q6600 gets beaten by a small margin each time, but then consider that the competing CPUs are usually running at considerably higher frequencies. In fact, the whole article shows the Q6600 beating the E8400 in at least half of the benchmarks. Clock that Q6600 up and watch it fly!

Any encoding or rendering apps will love two extra cores. And Windows can take full advantage of practically as many cores you can throw at it...not to mention that Q6600s are the same price as E8400s at the moment.....seems a good option, no?

As for the new Wolfdale Q9xxx series quad cores, they're a bit of a waste of time and effort at the moment. Not only are they very difficult to track down, you'll be paying a price premium if you do, and due to the low multiplier they are difficult to overclock...I don't think I've seen one past 3.6ghz. The Q9450 and upwards might have larger caches than the Q6600 but the increased latency hampers things somewhat.

It's a bit of a tough choice at the moment...personally, I'd go quad...I did last summer and haven't regretted it. But whether you go for an E8400 or a Q6600, you're going to have a very fast, modern CPU that will eat up practically anything you can throw at it.

It's basically horses for courses.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sk8ForMaple I've got to say I love my E8400, I've gotten her up to 4.2 ghz stable. just one thing to keep in mind with overclocking though, Its been said that the silicon degrades when too much voltage is pumped into them, resulting in more voltage to maintain the overclock. As long as you're not pumping 1.6v into it constantly, you'll be fine.

Sk8...I heard the safe voltage limit on the E8xxx series is 1.4v. Don't know where you got 1.6v from, that's way higher than the 1.5v limit for Kentsfield/Conroe chips.

Not hating on quad cores, just exploring the facts

Looking at those charts would suggest the best CPU for gaming between the E8400 and Q6600 is the E8400... unless you're playing UT3 (crap game...). Considering the E8400 will overclock much higher than the Q6600 keeping within good temps, id still have it over the quad.

I still agree with the closing statements of this now quite old, but still relevant, article on the subject of 2 Vs 4 cores.

Quote: Typical users will be better off with the fastest possible dual-core CPU they can afford.

Quote: performance will actually suffer for most general purpose software if you choose a slower quad-core over a faster dual-core.

So, unless you're planning on lots of video encoding and rendering... the quad is redundant.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dex Not hating on quad cores, just exploring the facts Looking at those charts would suggest the best CPU for gaming between the E8400 and Q6600 is the E8400... unless you're playing UT3 (crap game...). Considering the E8400 will overclock much higher than the Q6600 keeping within good temps, id still have it over the quad. I still agree with the closing statements of this now quite old, but still relevant, article on the subject of 2 Vs 4 cores. So, unless you're planning on lots of video encoding and rendering... the quad is redundant.

For everday overclocks, you're looking at getting 4-4.2ghz out of the E8400, and 3.6-3.8ghz out of the Q6600 (I got a duff chip ). So the E8400 doesn't yield much extra performance. Some people are even lucky enough to have their Q6600s running at 4ghz. Considering the Q6600 performs similarly or better than the 600mhz faster E8400 in Anandtech's tests, it hardly seems 'redundant'.

And it's not just UT3 that benefits from multithreading...it's any game that uses the U3 engine. And that's a long list.

Let's also not forget that if Windows has two more CPUs available to it, it's going to be able to handle a large number of intensive apps better.

IMO, it's better to have a 600mhz slower CPU that has the capability to nail arse in multithreaded applications, when you use them than having to rely on pure brute force. I use Photoshop and Illustrator a lot, and it's good to know that they benefit from more than two cores.

It's basically horses for courses as I said, but choosing a Q6600 allows you to have a good spread of performance, not just limiting yourself to poorly threaded applications.

If you feel like saving some money Cis, any Core 2 would be a large improvement over your current setup. Check out Daves New Build thread for a run down.

Well, if you're getting back to folding the Q6600 can average 2200ppd, and that would help our team immensely


Edit: Sorry, didn't see your reply RBIEZE

Intel will still cost you more (mobo+cpu & Ram) then AMD system but the differences is not all that much & intel will overclock higher that said the new Phenom B3 are not bad at overclocking to

Could B3 Phenom be the rebirth of AMD....+1000MHZ OC done! - XtremeSystems Forums

but today cpu's are fast enough to handle anything AMD or Intel just spend more money on a video card & ram

Thanks for all the advice.

The $250 covers the processor only, I've got about $1500 for the full rig.

As usual, it's mostly a gaming rig.. unfortunately it's for Warcrack.. but also TF2/CoD4 etc..

I did a lot of research last night on things, and seems the like E8400 may best suit my needs.
As for a mobo, unfortunately it's near impossible to find DFI here, so I'm thinking the Asus Rampage Formula.. unless there's anything else (Gigabyte/Asus/MSI).

And wow.. there's a few old school names I remember.. j-dogg & AntiM.. things sure did change around here, but looks like for the good.

Anyways, I'll keep you all updated as this project goes through.

$1500 sounds like a sexy budget

That Asus Rampage is a damn fine board, I've got an Asus Formula Blitz and an Asus Formula Maximus in the house and they're both solid and very good overclockers.

I wouldn't bother looking at anything from Gigabyte or MSI, especially if you can afford the Rampage.

I called my supplier and found they started carrying DFI boards, so now it's either the Rampage or the DFI LANParty UT P35-T2R.

Looking about $100 difference, so may end up with the DFI, so I can drop the extra into video cards.

That DFI is a good choice too, it has some sweet looking heatpipes and DFIs classic UV stylings, and being DFI id expect great overclocking capabilities.

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Quote: Originally Posted by reflux Sk8...I heard the safe voltage limit on the E8xxx series is 1.4v. Don't know where you got 1.6v from, that's way higher than the 1.5v limit for Kentsfield/Conroe chips.

I was sort of meaning don't pump extreme voltages into this then trying to say 1.6v is the limit. But i can see how its a bit misleading. I have been running mine at 1.488v and haven't come across any problems. I'm hoping that I can get some better memory so I can tone that voltage down a bit.

Going back to the quad-core debate, no games really do utilize 4 cores. Even if they do, it's not s HUGE difference. However, if you ever run anything in the background while you are gaming, the quad core will save your life. I have the Q6600 and it runs like a tank. And for the money, I personally don't think you can beat it. You can recode a DVD and play Crysis at the same time without a hiccup ( assuming your video card can hold up :-P). IMO, the Q6600 is one of the best CPU's on the market for the price.

Thanks everyone, for the advice and information.

I've gone and purchased all the components.
I'll be starting a real thread on the project within in the next few days.
I'm excited and can't wait to get to work.