Hi all.

Well, like many computer enthusiasts, about every 2 to 3 years, I do a major upgrade (basically, put together a whole new system). As far as the processor goes, I'd like some opinions and feedback. I've done some 'Net searches here on this forum an elsewhere, but I'd still like to get the "latest" opinions.

I'm looking at the Intel Core 2 Duo E6850, 3 GHz, 1333 FSB, 4MB L2 Cache, and, one of two Quads:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, 2.4 GHz, 1066 FSB
and
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300, 2.5 GHz, 1333 FSB

What I noticed about the Quads is that even though the GHz goes up, the FSB and Cache differs.

The Q6600 has 1066 FSB & 8MB L2 Cache
The Q9300 has 1333 FSB & 6MB L2 Cache

It's like the GHz goes up but the cache goes down.

Anyway, the Core 2 Duo and these two Quads are within my price range. I've seen some opinions that say the Core 2 Duo is plenty and will smoke through most applications and games. And yes, I do intend to play some pretty game intensive, hardware-demanding games.

But when doing a "major" upgrade (and not just the processor will I be doing, but also the motherboard, PSU, RAM, PCI-Express video/ graphics card, etc.), doesn't it make sense that, if you can afford it and have the means and where-with-all, to go BIG and make sure you stay ahead of the game? That the technology won't pass you by too soon?

When I caught the "computer bug" back in the mid 90's, I discovered back then that when you upgrade, you don't upgrade a "little bit", but rather, go as BIG as you can possibly afford, because before too long the technology will pass you by and what you have will become obsolete and you'll need an upgrade again.

So what do you think? Even though the Core 2 Duo E6850 with 3 GHz in each core is plenty powerful, would it make better sense to lean towards one of those two Quads I mentioned? Those Quads are going to bring me around 10GHz with those 4 cores.

Thanks for any helpful input and suggestions.
Pez

(P.S. As far as a graphics card, I'm looking at a PCI-Express card with a Nvidia chipset at either 512MB vid RAM or perhaps even 768MB vid RAM. More later!)

First, you are not going to get anything close to 10 GhZ with four cores. Quadcore does not mean that you multiply the 2.5 GhZ by 4; Second, you have to make sure that your current mobo is compatible with the Quadcore CPUs you mentioned. Third, depending on your RAM and mobo, you may not be able to take advantage of the 1333 FSB of the Q9300. Fourth, I don't agree with "go as BIG as you can possibly afford". If you don;t that, that IMHO you will be spending too much for componenets which will come down in price shortly anyway and which you most certainly don't need yet. True, your computer will be up to date for longer, but is that worth the premium price you will probably pay for the latest and most up to date compnents ?

Get Core 2 Duo but get the e8400 or the e8500 thee 6580 is more expensive and the e8400 and e8500 can overclock to 4ghz no problem with normal air cooling. I would go with the E8400. It is really good and priced very well.

quad is pretty much useless.. to an extent where it's not used to it's full potential.

stick with core duo

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

kx5m2g: Yes, you are correct, I stand corrected on that one part about getting up to 10 GHz with the Quad Core; I was misinformed on that one, or misinterpreted it from the information I heard about it. It's more along the lines of an application that could take advantage of a four core processor; each core would deliver a full 2.5 GHz, but no, it is NOT 4 times 2.5.

My current motherboard does not support quad core; however, a new motherboard is one of the components I'll be getting when I build the new system, and I'll also make sure that the RAM that goes along with it takes advantage of the maximum FSB on the processor.

And, prices have been coming down anyway, so I'm not going to be paying top-dollar. I've been keeping my eye on prices of duo & quad cores for a while. They used to be $400+ dollars.

krayzii: "quad is pretty much useless"? At this moment in time, not a lot of applications/ software take advantage of quad cores, but, we should not just live in the moment. Shouldn't we look toward the future? Isn't this where things are heading?

At one time, early home computers didn't even have hard drives; you just constantly swapped out 5 1/2 inch floppy disks. Now we have hard drives with 1 Terabyte capacities. I remember when video/ graphic cards had about 2MB's of RAM on them, and 3-D accelerators had to be "daisy-chained" onto them. Now we have graphic cards that have gone past 512MB's of vid RAM and are now up to 1GB of vid RAM.

Once again, thanks everyone for the input; it's always good to get feedback and varying points-of-view.

Pez

Pez: glad to help. I don't have a Quad Core myself, but if I could get one close to 10 GhZ, I'd rush out and buy it immediately.
Good luck with your upgrade.

It's not that easy to decide for a quad or duo cpu. I'm just building a system for my nephew and I decided on the q6600 because I thought the price for those q9xxx was still too high compared to it. And with the q6600 I see a good chance to OC it a bit i a year or two should it become a bit slow! ;)

If you go for games I think the point is that a quad core has more power if the game supports it. On the other hands the 2,4GHz should be enough to handle those older games that can`t because for games the most important part is the graphic card.

About the different ram on the q6600 and the newer q9xxx models I may be wrong but they may have a different way to handle the L2 cache. With the q6600 each core has it's own 2MB L2 cache but with the newer q9xxx models each core may have access to the full L2 cache.
Again, I may be wrong there but I think I heared that somewhere.

The other advantage of the q9xxx models is the higher fsb clock.

well thinking ahead of the future, if you're going to buy a quad soon, it won't be that developed with applications in another couple of months, maybe next year. and in that time there will be newer quad cores around.

i've just built my machine 3 months ago and was dwelling on a quad or a core 2 duo.. the core 2 is able to run applications/games pretty fast, pair it up with a very nice graphics card in which you can put your machine to the max.

Go for quad, you can never go wrong there for the price and performance.

Get the Q9300, come with 45nm tech, suppose to run cooler and consume less enery. Although it has 6MB cache, it performs average 7% better than q6600. If you can afford it, it definitely not a bad choice.