Quad vs Duo Core

[Grimmy]

^ You've seem to answer your own question yourself.

If your into OC'ing, the Q9300 wouldn't be that great, in my opinion.

Thing is, I'm glad I have a Q6600 for a quad, and not have to upgrade soon, since it runs pretty darn well for my needs.

But an E8400 can hold its own, especially in OC'ing which will help in games, but will prolly still studder when background process need CPU time/resources. At least that is what I used to see with my old E4400 @ 2.8ghz and 3ghz.

 

[geofelt]

When i7 arrives, current quads priced at over $300 will not be able to compete. Their price will have to come down.
Since there is no change in the under $300 offerings, I would not expect the duos and lower priced quads to change much.

 

[Abydosone]

^ You've seem to answer your own question yourself.

If your into OC'ing, the Q9300 wouldn't be that great, in my opinion.

Thing is, I'm glad I have a Q6600 for a quad, and not have to upgrade soon, since it runs pretty darn well for my needs.

But an E8400 can hold its own, especially in OC'ing which will help in games, but will prolly still studder when background process need CPU time/resources. At least that is what I used to see with my old E4400 @ 2.8ghz and 3ghz.

I will not be OC'ing at all. I may eventually get into that, but for now stock speeds work for me. Does that change any decisions?

Also, this is off topic, but for the above build with an ATI 4850 and an E8400, will a Corsair 450W (450VX) be enough to power the rig? Only 1 HDD, 2 optical drives, some case fans and thats about it. It is 80 plus certified as well.

 

[Grimmy]

^ All I can say, the 450 Corsair should handle it fine.

As far as no OC'ing, faster GHZ is better for you since your want to game. But either would do fine.

The pros and cons I see:

pros - Q9300 will perform slower since its at 2.5 ghz vs 3ghz
cons - Q9300 may run games smoother because of back ground processes, even though the E8400 would run the game faster.

I only say the hiccups since I've used a dual core, and only real times my game got choppy was pretty much when my Avast was getting an update. With my Q6600, it doesn't affect it at all.

Heh, the last thing I'll say is, if you can get better FPS, I find that it doesn't really make me a better gamer.. I tend to die faster from some odd reason.

 

[reidthaler]

OK, thanks for helping me settling the question for the day.

What about the other questions I raised:

Would you still recommend the Q6600 or pushing myself financially and go with one of the 45nm quads? which one?

For OCing, can I simply OC with the OC in the BIOS and not mess with voltages and timing? Would this the be decent RAM? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820145184

Thanks!

Reid