Got 2 CPUs, which one to use?

[cenedra]

Im currently running a Core 2 Duo E8500 overclocked to 4.0 Ghz (it still runs all games fine btw ).

My brother just upgraded his PC and passed me his Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz.

Im not sure how well the Q6600 can be overclocked since it has been running at stock all these while, but Im thinking of taking it and OC to 3.0 Ghz.

Just wondering, will a Q6600 @ 3.0 Ghz be faster than my E8500 @ 4 Ghz?

I mainly use my comp to play games and watch movies only, so not sure if the extra cores can make up the 1 Ghz speed difference in gaming.

Any advice pls? Thanks!

 

[muddle]

U can always buy more clock by overclocking. But u can never get more cores from it.

That said i doubt the q part is capable of hitting 4ghz. Anyway does your games require 4ghz to run?

 

[cenedra]

I guess I'll use the quad then. I was running my games fine when I was doing only 3.5ghz.

Thx guys. Gonna try ocing the q6600 and see how far I can push it.

 

[A2yincor]

yup, the core2 quad @ 3.0ghz will be faster than the Core 2 Duo E8500 overclocked to 4.0 Ghz in multithreaded games.

 

[XseanX]

Im currently running a Core 2 Duo E8500 overclocked to 4.0 Ghz (it still runs all games fine btw ).

My brother just upgraded his PC and passed me his Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz.

Im not sure how well the Q6600 can be overclocked since it has been running at stock all these while, but Im thinking of taking it and OC to 3.0 Ghz.

Just wondering, will a Q6600 @ 3.0 Ghz be faster than my E8500 @ 4 Ghz?

I mainly use my comp to play games and watch movies only, so not sure if the extra cores can make up the 1 Ghz speed difference in gaming.

Any advice pls? Thanks!

Core2 series, what a memory... Last time I upgraded from E8400 to Q9550 due to some of the game which I played lags quite badly. After the swtich, everything run much smoother therefore you definitely will see improvement if the game utilize more than 2 cores...

Nowadays like jin sian, not much game fully utilize the hardware power, especially cpu processing power, mostly dependent on graphic. Therefore, not much incentive to keep upgrading them..

 

[cenedra]

me no money buy new comp, so gotta keep pushing my rig to their limits

I was running my E8500 stock until May this year and its lagging when i play games, forcing me to OC it. Somehow after oc to 4.0ghz it is enough to run all my games without lag now.

I dont hv BF4, but Im able to play BF3 without my CPU being a bottleneck after I OCed.

 

[FinalTidus]

actually if games utilizes only 2cores then your e8500 will be faster.

If games utilizes 4 cores then your q6600 will be faster.

but bear inn mind that the q6600 will use more power and emit more heat. so u gotta weigh the tradeoffs.

For me i will sell the e8500 and use the q6600.

 

[Nakedtoes]

still remember mine first quad core processor.. Q6600 GO version..

 

[fockyerdod3r]

I will sell both and get an i5. If that is not possible, i will use Q6600 and OC the hell out of it.

 

[cenedra]

E8500 and Q6600 not worth much, and changing to i5 will require a change of motherboard and ram as well, so I just hv to make do with my current setup for a year more at least.




Managed to get the Q6600 stable at 3.4 Ghz with max temp in prime95 @ 85degrees (my cooler sucks, so cant push it more), but I decided to run at 3.3Ghz as the temp max at 74degrees only. Not worth getting a 10degree increase in temp for a 100mhz performance boost.

Just wondering, are the haswell CPUs as overclockable as these old C2Q CPUs? These Core 2 Quad CPUs seems to be easily overclockable by 40-50% without much efforts.


PS: Thx to everyone for convincing me to change CPU. Initially I was kinda lazy to change, cos I was thinking a 3.0 Ghz C2Q cant be better than a C2D @ 4.0 Ghz. But now it seems the Q6600 is noticably faster than my E8500 after ocing.

 

[muddle]

very rough approximation approach to estimate cpu processing power:

for both cpus belonging to the same platform (e.g. lga775), use this formula:
processing strength = no. of cores x effective speed
(physical analogy: mass = density x volume)

E8500 @ 4ghz:
2 cores x 4ghz = 8 units of processing strength

Q6600 @ 3ghz:
4 cores x 3ghz = 12 units of processing strength

so in a cpu intensive workload (e.g. protein-ligand docking), u will expect
Q6600 @ 3ghz to be 12/8 =1.5x as fast as E8500 @ 4ghz
i.e. if E8500@4ghz takes 60 seconds to calculate the optimal docking configuration of ligand to the protein, then u will foresee that Q6600 @ 3ghz will take only (8/12)(60) = 2/3 of 60 = only 40 seconds to do the same calculation.

across platforms (lga775, lga 1156, lga 1155, laptops), i have seen this rough formula verified (well, roughly).

May i know how does this apply to ht-capable cpus aka i7?

 

[shawntyq]

not true, my old q6600 can oc 3.4ghz

q6600 is a good oc chip.

i would use q6600.