I have been holding out for Q9450 but, i dont think i will be waiting til feb or march. I was going to get a Q6600 but after reading the review on the E8400 i am thinking of getting it. i will be using it for video encoding,video editing and general home use. i will overclock either cpu but not to the extremes. i will be using a gigabyte p35 ds4 or a gigabyte x38 ds 4 mobo and a zalman 9700led cooler. In your guyes opinion what do u think? I know the 4 cores will be good for the video work and all but i like the overclocking potential and the support for SSE4 for future encoding apps. I have been banging my head against the wall over this i will be using the system for at least 1-2 years then i will do a complete upgrade to the nehalems or whatever is out then. all of your opinions would be much appreciated.

Video you say?

SSE4 + Quad FTW! Wait for the Q9300 or Q9450 in February.

The SSE4 has shown 30-40% improvements in programs that utilize it at equal cores and clocks to processors that lack SSE4.

If you were primarily a gamer, I would say E8400.
For what you do, I say go for the Q6600.

are sure you can clock the 9450 to same speed as the q6600?

the e8400 and e8500 will out perform quads in most games when oc over 4-4.3ghz

dual cores are good for gaming. quads are good for video. again. they say SSE4 will have many improvements.

i guess u have to stop banging ur head. n make a decision with a compromise.

I am glad I am not the only one who now realizes quads are a poor choice for gamers this year (or at least gamers on a budget lol). =)

Me--- 90%gaming, so getting 8400, try to oc at least to 4ghz, enjoy the hell out of it, get Nahalam 4 or 8 cores, when games actually need the extra cores in a year or 2 lol.

quads are not a poor choice

q6600 at 3.6ghz is the best chip out there - the x6800 give slight improvements in some games

but the 8500 really changes all that - intel has set these up so you can oc a quad, near the duals in the 4.4.5ghz area, any more without getting an extreme chip.

from july tell the end of the month the q6600 is the best (under 500)chip for gaming.

next month the best gaming chip is the 8500 at 4.25ghz this baby will scream on air cooling alone!

i am swaping out a g33/e6420 to new g35/e8500 in my thermaltake lan box. shoen below


i amd testing the cooler i used in this:



email me to see if it works! i know in a few days - cooler just came today!

i expect to run that lan box at 4.25ghz

next month

Ok, not really a "poor choice" but a cheap $200 E8400 OCed to 4ghz is a better choice for probably the next year or so, especially if you are on a budget... Better to get the cheaper E8400 then a Q9450, and use the money you saved on a better GPU solution (R680, GX2 maybe?)

Your first picture looks strange, like it's a half height dwarf tower, is that really a high tech lunch box? =0

Since the OP is looking for a video edition solution, I would say grab the Q6600 now or wait for the Q9450.

About gaming, I'm still a fans of the quads, but keep in mind that for the foreseeable the processors we have now are not going to be used to their full potential as graphics cards are going to hold them up. I suppose scores in the synthetic benchmark area will show variations between Q6600's and 45nm Duals and 45nm Quads.. but with ANY of those CPU's in your system you're going to be good to go for a couple years IMO since games are far less CPU needy then they are GPU needy.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Vista "intelligently" divvy the workload among cores? (ie: Even if the game itself doesn't support quads, won't vista break up the work among the four cores to some extent?)

Nope. Vista can only balance load on the cores by assigning runnings tasks to different threads. A running game that is not optimized at all will simply be a really demanding task that gets assigned to a thread. That thread will be running at 100%. The only thing Vista will do, is try to keep other tasks from being assigned to that thread.
The older Pentium Ds had a terrible method of doing that. They just kept switching those demanding tasks between the threads wich caused terrible lag for some gamers.

Ah ha!...knew it was too good to be true. Oh well, I can't say I'm disappointed I got a quad. Running at 3.6GHz. By the time a real difference between a Q6600 @ 3.6 and an E8500 @ 4ish manifests itself (ie: outside of benchmarks), both processors will already have become outdated.

I'm actually having the same dilemma; Q6600 or E8400? I have been waiting for the E8400, and am fairly convinced it is the best choice, but part of me still has the hots for four cores. I will primarily be doing gaming, so is the E8400 still the best option?

I really couldn't say, but I have a Q6600 I just bought clocked up to 3.6 GHz. As I said in the last post, the difference between a Q6600 @ 3.6 and an E8400 at 4.0 would be negligible, for all intents and purposes. Both chips will probably have the same life-expectancy. However, having the four cores might provide added longevity. For me, the old American adage "more is better" played into my decision to get the Q6600.

I'm also deciding between the E8400 and Q6600. I'm building a DAW so I probably won't be OC'ing much. It's hard to justify spending $60 more on a proc that's over a year old now.

Another thing is RAM speed. Without OC'ing the Q6600 (266MHz FSB), DDR2 800MHz RAM would be running @ 533MHz. To get my RAM up to it's rated speed, I would need to OC the Q6600 to 3.6GHz, which is too much when all I want is a stable system.

If I don't plan on OC'ing would the E8400 be the better choice?

OC'ing does not play a role in the subject.
If you OC both, the result is the same.

Also, no need to wory about RAM speed or Bus Speed.
You can adjust the memory multiplier so it runs at full speed w/o OCing the Q6600.

You can also increase the FSB on your system and decrease the multiplier so that FSB and Memory increase w/o OCing your CPU.

If you use stuff that makes use of Quad cores, go that way.
If you will keep your PC for a long time w/o an upgrade. Go Quad.
If you will be looking at Nehalm this time next year, save the case and go dual.

I just bought a new computer with the E6850 instead of the Q6600. I choose this because I didn't fell the need for those 2 "backup" processors, and I would much rather have 2 very-fast cores instead of 4 medium-fast cores.

You see, I already had an 2 core - 2,4 gHz AMD processor and I wanted to fell a difference with my new computer. So now I'm running the E6850 at 3,6 gHz with no problems and I couldn't do that with a Q6600, because it generates twice as much heat. (I could probally only get it to 3,00 gHz.)

The Dual core I better for gaming and 'big' software, because most games/programs can only take advantage of 1 or 2 cores. So if you want a quad core, then you must consider if you need that ekstra power for running several programs at one time.

But I have to say, that I'm good at keeping my computer clean of software I don't need, so I don't have the need of those "backup" processors.

Hope this was helpfull

DON'T BELIEVE ALL THE "QUADS ARE NOT FOR GAMING" HYPE!!! I almost fell for it but did my research and bought a Q6600. OC'd to 3.3Ghz I'm seeing a huge difference from my FX60. I'm tempted to do some more research into how Vista is using all my cores even with non-quad core optimized games because I've seen real increases that I don't think can be simply attributed to just using a faster CPU. Also I've heard a lot of people say Crysis, while it's supposed to be quad core optimized really doesn't benefit from it. It my experiences thats not try. The gains are marginal at Very High due to constrants of the GPU, but at lower resolutions and quality settings I've seen as much as double the performance.

Thing is the new dual cores clock extremly high compared to Q6600s lol. Most on air would only reach 3.4ghz, maybe some at 3.6 with low ambient.

The new duals can wizz straight up to 4ghz.