[10pmStalker]

my E2160 is clocked to 3.15GHz Will Q6600 make a huge difference? and how far would I be able to clock it with a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L? and freezer pro 7 cooler?

 

[10pmStalker]

anyone, please

 

[stressfreesoul]

Not sure. You might be able to OC it to the moon, but then it may blow up a week later. Finding a happy medium in overclocking (not going too far) is essential. Considering the E2160 is only a dual core and the Q6600 being quad would make a hell of a difference. Even if you only OC'd it to 3Ghz. The larger L2 cache makes it soooo much faster.
For example,
the E2160 has 1Mb of L2 cache where the Q6600 has 8Mb
the E2160 runs on an 800Mhz FSB where the Q6600 uses 1066Mhz

Its all round a stronger component. This comes from personal opinion though, as I have a Q6600....:wink:

I managed 3.1Ghz with my MSI P31 Neo, so you would probably manage the same but slightly more stable.

 

[stressfreesoul]

Which revision is your mobo, btw? 1.0 or 2.0?

 

[10pmStalker]

im not to sure what revision I have, how do I find that out? Also I have been looking into the E8400 for faster speed, not sure what im getting yet. Are there quad core games starting to come out any time soon or will the Q6600 be long gone before I need that much for gaming?

 

[stressfreesoul]

Again, not sure. Im not the biggest PC gamer as I have a supplemental Xbox 360 for such entertainment. Ive enclosed a list of some of the latest Intel processors and their L2 caches, clock speed and the FSB they run with.
I hope its of some use to you!!

 

[Kalim]

E2160 3.15GHz will be better than a Q6600 2.4GHz... only if you only use applications which require 2 or less cores (nearly all).

And Q6600 G0 can overclock to to 3.15 GHz pretty easily too but it needs a lot more cooling and more power.

 

[10pmStalker]

thank you for your replys guys, Kalim what do you think about the E8400, should I pick that up for 210 bucks or just stick with what I got? I dont want to spend money on something that isn't going to show a huge improvement. I would clock it to atleast 4GHz, from what I read its not hard to do. Looking forward to hearing your opinions

 

[Kalim]

E8400 is a far better investment than the Q6600 for most users but it all depends on what you use your system for, how much improvement you see. I would buy the E8400 over the Q6600 for most users out there within a heartbeat! 4 GHz E8400 is monster performance we wouldn't have dreamed of possible this easily a year back :wink:

3.8 to 4GHz is what is usually possible for regular use, yes.

 

[10pmStalker]

cool its set then, E8400 it is! I plan on getting a new mobo and just replaced my ram, what the heck may as well go the rest of the way and build a decent 2nd computer with my extra parts. Any chance you know of a good power supply that is pretty cheap? Wont be using the 2nd build for gaming or anything

 

[Kalim]

Can you list your total expected system specifications please. Your power supply suggestions would have to be adapted to those details. :smile:

E8400 by itself consumes very little power due to hi-k and metal gates used in the fabrication process but the graphics is usually the largest power hog nowadays.

 

[lazareth1]

Even thouogh most apps dont take advantage of multi cores, The quad core will still prove an advantage. Just say your playing a 3d game, It doesnt support multi cores so just uses 1 core. The other cores can then be used by other apps and the OS itself in the background. This obviously means the 3d game can make sole use of the 1 core it is using so it improves gaming. This again means more cores like the quad core do in fact indirectly help in gaming.

 

[stressfreesoul]

Agreed. Besides that, quad core utilisation in games is only round the corner anyway. Im surprised there isn't already, what with the advent of dual card/dual GPU SLI setups that are already available.

 

[Kalim]

I'm not so sure of that, we've been expecting it since November 2006 but that never came. What did eventually come to rise is this. The latest PhysX/CUDA developments are all trying to move gaming and video transcoding loads from the CPU onto the GPU entirely since modern GPU's have huge untapped power if well utilized here, eclipsing a 4 GHz quad-core by many stretches. That aligned to folding and parallel processing power of 800 Stream Processors (ALU's in the latest HD 4800) is monster power no desktop CPU can come half as near to and hence optimization and exploitation in this field is what everyone is now working hard towards. The focus really has moved over to the GPU in desktop computing now.