Q6600 or E6850 ....?

[SwedBear]

Finally the pricecuts have come. They were quite large. Here in Sweden the Q6600 dropped $270. Now the Q6600 and the E6850 is priced the same.

The question now is: get the Q6600 or the E6850? The E6850 is faster (3 GHz) but the Q6600 is quad-core and maybe will "last" longer? Some games do already support more Cores ...

What do you guys think? This actually is for my review system ...

/B

[Victor]

Scott is getting the E6850. I think the quad core is slightly pre-mature since not many software can really take the advantage of it. As for it lasting longer, well, I don't think you keep your cpu for longer than 1 year do you Bjorn:).

the E6850 would probalby give a better performance overall given to the software limitation but for review, I think Q6600 would probably be the choice.

[SwedBear]

Actually CPU's are the components I change the least :). Mainly because I have to buy them all. I also want to keep a consistent spec as long as possible since it then makes it easier to compare old results with newer results.

The main reason I want to upgrade is for a specific article as well as for the fact that those prices really rock :).

Q6600 or E6850 .... good question.

/B

['Amp!']

I have seen this same point debated over many other forums.

To summarize here is the point most people make.
E6850 will hit higher speed and thus is better for gaming.
Q6600 is better if you do video rendering of any sort.

If you are using water cooling a Q6600 will reach some high clocks but ONLY if you can find a G0 stepping. The B3 stepping will do well but not as good as the G0.

At this point I would not be so sure that the quad core provides any "future-proofing" as it will be some time before games can utilize four cores efficiently. By that time the Q6600 will probably be phased out and we will be playing with Penryn's

[Miles]

I will be ordering an E6850 as well.

Reasons:

I want the 1333 MHz FSB
It runs much cooler than the B3 stepping Q6600 currently available
All 6850's are GO stepping, you will probably have to wait until mid or even late August for G0 stepping to get to the Q6600
Quad core is supposed to truly be quad core with the Penryn, not two duo cores duct taped:ahhhhh: together

[SwedBear]

Yeah, good point there Miles. I know the Q6600 really is just two Dual Core 6600 put together. Still, there's been a lot of debate over the net. I usually do not overclock much so I have no real need for the CPU to o/c well.

But I think I'll take the E6850 also. I can add a Q6600 later to compare with. Maybe an article of it.

/B

[Bio-Hazard]

From what I've been reading, the C2D are the best for the average user right now. Yes some games do support multi cores to a small extent, but they still don't take full advantage of them yet and it will be a while longer before they do.

I just ordered a new 6750 for myself this weekend, I OC alot so I opted for the mid range of the new CPU's...............;)

[zachig]

I would personally get the Q6600, as it's Quad-Core of course, and you can easily overclock it to have the same speed as the E6850...:grin:

The only problem is that the Q6600 uses an older architecture than the E6850 and might also have some incompatibility issues on certain boards, though the odds for that are quite low.

But if you DO decide on going for the Q6600, I would verify anyway, that your current mobo can run the Q6600 without any stability problems, especially if you're planning on overclocking, as I've heard about a few people who couldn't overclock even 1Mhz than the stock speed when they've used the Q6600...:frown:

Anyway, GOOD LUCK with your purchase, as any of the two will be GREAT!!! :icon_tiphat:

[Bio-Hazard]

You might get a Quad to 3.0 GHz on air and 3.5 on water with the old B3 steppings, the new G0 stepping might be a different story, but they won't be in retail for a while yet, all the Q6600 in retail right now are the old B3's. The E6850's have been hitting around 4 GHx on air from what I've been seeing, that's very impressive in my book.
If there was more software out there that took more advantage of Quad cores, then I would have gotten one as well, but even some of the new game makers have opening said that the new dual cores are the better pick. Now if you're into video editing and encoding, that's another story all together, then get a Quad.

[werty316]

Out of the two I would with the E6850. Users have reported that it can hit 4GHz easily with air cooling.

The Q6600 is tempting but the heat it generates is a turn off for me even if you get the G0 verison.

[sushrukh]

i would go for the Q6600 because it's available at the same price of a dual core CPU & SweBear,you have said that you don't upgrade your CPU that frequently.So, if u buy a dual core now, you will definitely feel the need to have a Quad core.In this way you could also save some money coz you won't feel the need to upgrade your CPU in the near future & there are applications which supports multicores though not many but the future is for multicores.So, why not now ?

[werty316]

Just think about what CPU would benefit you more.

[Bio-Hazard]

If you going Quad core, it'd be better to wait till the new 45nm cores come out this fall, more cache, less heat and voltage, the current generation is still running a bit on the warm side IMHO. Besides, if you're using it for reviews, the best results for mainstream readers would be from DUAL cores and not Quad cores, you want your reviews to apeal to the largest reader base, or at least that's what I would think.

[darkorb]

get the quad to 3ghz and u got a 6850 with 2 more cores lol

[werty316]

Yeah but would you be fine with these temperatures at stock speed?

http://techgage.com/reviews/intel/qx6850/processor_temps.png

http://techgage.com/article/intel_core_2_extreme_qx6850_quad-core/10

And this is using a Corsair Nautilus 500 watercooing kit, even though it isn't a top of the line watercooing kit.

[darkorb]

holy sh!t thats hot!

[Bio-Hazard]

holy sh!t thats hot!
I think I mentioned something about heat issues in a post or 2 above...............:icon_tiphat:

[raidersforever01]

I would go with q6600 but i do a lot of videos so i need them done quick. Can someone give me a hard drive 1Tb isn't enough.

[Nocutius]

Another vote for E6850 here, unless video editing is a factor i see no need or benefit of going quad right now.

[werty316]

And when a quadcore will be or could be necessary there'll models that consume less juice and give off less heat.

[Bio-Hazard]

For example this one that MSI is currently testing on my MoBo right now..........;) Hopefully it'll be a great OC'er for a great price as well when it's released in a few months..................:) Then I'll jump on the Quad core bandwagon.

Quad Core Yorkfield 12MB (2.33GHz) sample / 1333 / 7 / Under Testing

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=prodcpusupport&prod_no=1141&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=&cat3_no=#menu

[Kougar]

Tough question. I am personally still debating back and forth, and waiting to see some WCing results with non-ES G0 Q6600's... I built my watercooling loop to handle anything, and the board has the best electrics out there for a quad. If it looks like I can hit a high enough OC without raising the voltage to much I may still grab a Q6600. It looks like almost all the stores have already fully depeleted their B3 revision stock, so that wouldn't be an issue. Tank Guys even guarantees you a G0 revision.

After this, my next upgrade will be a Yorkfield... I am looking forward to seeing how well the completely new fab process on the 45nm chips OCs. :)

[Bio-Hazard]

G0 Quads don't look to be all that impressive so far, they still run very very hot. The [H] has a few folks posting up results of retail Q6600 G0 cores.

There is a review up today on OC'ing the Q6600 and compared it to a ton of other non-OC'ed CPU. The results were pretty much what I expected to see, in the games and setting that I and most people play at, the OC'ed Q6600 was only slightly faster than the NON-OC CPU's that most of us non-Quad users are running. Even Supreme Commander with the version 3223 patch applied, at 1600x1200, the OC'ed Quad was only 4 FPS faster than the NON-OC'ed E6750.......... OC the E6750 to a easy 3.8 GHz and it should easily beat the Quad Q6600 that was already OC'ed to 3.348 GHz.

In all the rendering tests the Quads exceled as expected, but I could care less about that, I don't mess with anything of the sort.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...2_quad_q6600/1 (http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...2_quad_q6600/1)

[Kougar]

That bit-tech article was using just another B3 revision, not a G0. Also if you look closely they are using an eVGA 680i board in their photos instead of a XFX board which they claim to be using... I am sure XFX will appreciate that ;)

I have been watching this thread (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=152722) specifically, but I'll look over on H since since the XS forums are still fairly lean... everyone's chips are in transit. :lol:

He got 3.6GHz with a Q6600 ON AIR at 1.352v. This is the typical OC I am seeing with non-ES G0's, he is trying to get 3.8GHz.

I'm sure with water either of us could get a minimum of 3.6GHz... and a minimum of 4.2GHz with a E6850. I don't think the 600Mhz increase is worth the loss of half the cores. In regards to F@H I could probably hit 1600-2000PPD with a Quad. Of course I am waiting to see more results and a few good DQ6 user reports before I decide myself...

[Bio-Hazard]

Only thing the G0 stepping is supposed to help with is temps, and all the [H] guys are complaining about high temps. So that makes me think that someone is telling a little story somewhere. I'm getting to the point that I trust about ZERO % of what users are posting these days, seems story telling is becoming a major pass time here on the web.

I honestly don't think a quad is really worth it yet as that Bit-Tech showed, a G0 stepping isn't going to help the FPS one bit unless you get a higher OC. And I'd still be willing to bet that you can easily match the scores with a properly OC'd dual core.

LOL.I think I posted the same link to the XS thread a page or so back............:)

[Kougar]

Well obivously yes, you are quite right. Most of the stuff posted on the lasted CPUs or motherboards is just random BS, or questions repeated in the same thread over and over again by people that can't be bothered to read 8 posts up. I don't believe words, since there are plenty of users that simply post their "feelings" or best guesses, which gets turned into fact by someone else who mis-read the post.

The lower VID's on GO revisions has lead to lower temps ,which has helped the OCing on them. The same seems to be true of the G0 Q6600 chips, ignoring the occasional Storm block user or people trying to OC them on air. The G0 revision fixes at least three errata that I know of, and introduces at least 1 errata defect that the B3 did not have. Either way Intel modified something in the fab process to use some ridiculously lower Vcores on G0 chips. I mean, out-of-the-box 1.21 default vCore for some quad Q6600's? Not even the highest quality B2 revision dual-core Core 2 Duo's ever went below a 1.25 vCore. :)

I am not trying to say that Quads will give higher FPS at lower clocks. I'd admit they won't. Except for the lost planet and the upcoming Valve Half Life, and Portals I don't recall any that do, SupCom certainly does not. But how much FPS will you lose between 3.6GHz vs 4Ghz?? 110 vs 120 FPS? I simply don't see a point, it's "more than fast enough" already. Most of my points wouldn't apply to other users, I'm just looking at my own system rather than Bjorn's at this point.

I went back and looked for your link to XS but I still didn't spot it? Sorry if ya already posted it and I still missed it though.

[Bio-Hazard]

No biggie about the post, it might have been in a different thread as well, I can't be 100% sure.

I thought real hard about getting a Quad myself this time around because the CPU is a birthday present, so I'm not out anything on it. For me though, I just figured that I wouldn't get any real use out of a Quad right now and that I'd have much more fun OC'ing a EXX50 series CPU instead. And figure the new 45nm cores aren't that far away, and there might even be something out that I use that takes full advantage of 4 cores by then as well, not to mention lower temps and voltage hopefully................;)

Oh, by the way, this just showed up on my door step a few minutes ago...........:grin: