Thread: Quad or not to Quad

Originally Posted by sacredsarcasm

yeah i have a mobo way ahead of the rest of my gear. the 680i evga

Games in particular tend to only use 1 core at this time. BioShock is the only game I know of currently that is multi core optimized and it is optimized for dual, not quad core. The next Unreal Tournament is going to be dual core optimized also. But games that use quad core let alone require it are not even on the horizon yet.

The quad core will benefit you if you run a whole bunch of things at one time. The system will launch new processes on whichever core is being less utilized at the time. A few specialized applications are optimized so they can be "multi-threaded" and run parallel processes on multiple cores at once. But the vast majority of games and other software do not take advantage of multicore processors.

In my opinion quad core is luxury and a bragging point for those with money to burn. Save yourself some dough and go dual core. By the time true multi core software is widely available todays quad cores will probably be less than buff.

Originally Posted by Blue_Thunder27

I have the q6600 on a 680i Mobo, and i can not slow that thing down. Just my two cents.

Oh yeah it's fast. Exactly as fast as a dual core of the same speed except that it is capable of running more parallel processes. You could run about twice as many applications at once with the same impact on performance as a dual core.

Originally Posted by Blue_Thunder27

Why would some one go Dual core for the SAME price as Quad core.

Show me a quad core that costs the same as a dual core for a decent Mhz and L2 Cache and say hell yes buy it.

I cannot find a single case of a quad core processor costing the same as it's equivalent dual core.

They are all at least 100 dollars more for the equivalent Ghz and L2 Cache size.

Also, the dual core processors have faster busses across the board.

2 more cents from somebody who did the research.

Originally Posted by Blue_Thunder27

Go look at the processors that he listed.

e6850 $279
q6600 $279

Same price but not comparable. the e6850 is a faster processor with a faster bus.

Originally Posted by Blue_Thunder27

q6600 vs e6850: 3dmark06 Benchmark

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_20...=871&chart=419

From somebody who did the research.

Sure it gets more 3dmarks, it can run more processes at once. SLI systems get more 3dmarks too, even though framerates can decrease from using SLI. Go find out how it performs running a single threaded application, say, um, like a game.

Ok, so its like this: it has four workers, and the other has two who are faster. Sure if I have 8 jobs to do, I would rather have the four slightly slower workers, but when I have one or two jobs to do, the two win out. The game only needs one worker. So should you give it one slower worker, or one faster worker?

3dMarks are nice when saying "my system pwns yours" but they dont really describe how well that system will run a single threaded game with xfire in the background.

I will openly admit that the Quad core processors will smash the Dual cores when running a whole bunch of things at one time, or running truly multi threaded apps. But I doubt anyone here is doing that. They are playing games and running Xfire or doing something equivocal.

Here is the e6850 outperforming the q6600 at a game
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page15.html

Here it is outperforming quads at yet another game:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page14.html

and another
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page16.html

and another, top of the chart.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page17.html

Quad core won this one, UT 2004. but only by a hair
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page18.html

Oh snap, E6850 back on top at yet another game
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page19.html

And again at Itunes, E6850 on the top
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page20.html

ooops, q6600 winning for HDTV playback.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page21.html

How about Divx transcoding? no quads on top here...
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page22.html

E6850 on top again, this time DVD cloning
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page23.html

Ahh.. finally, the Q6600 gets a leg up in MPEG2 to H.264 encoding
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page24.html

And again the Q6600 is on top at Adobe Premier
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page25.html

Oh but with pinnacle studio 11 plus the E6850 comes back out on top of the Q6600
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page26.html

And again on AVG AV
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page27.html

And again for winrar
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page28.html

Top of the list again for PPT to PDF
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page29.html

Shucks, quad cores have it for Deep Fritz 10 Chess
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page30.html

Here it is again at the top of the chart rendering in CS3
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page31.html

Q6600 takes it for 3DS Max
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page32.html

And Qcores win again at Cinema 4d
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page33.html

And we already know it (the Q6600) wins 3dmark06
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page34.html

Q6600 wins PCmark05 CPU but not Mem where the E6850 tops the list
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page35.html

Q6600 wins for some CPU multithread MFLOP tests
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page36.html

E6850 Better at floating point memory operations
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page37.html

And better at integer memory operations
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page37.html

Another multithreaded CPU test goes to the Q6600
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page38.html

and again to the Q6600
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page38.html

Awwww.. how cute, they tie for Windows Experience - Memory at 5.9
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page39.html

Rats, my E6850 was beat fro Windows Experience - CPU
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/...07/page39.html

and finally, at the end of the CPU comparison:

"If you are about to purchase a new platform, we recommend going for one of the latest chipsets (Intel P35, G33, Nvidia nForce 6 series) and probably one of those FSB1333 processors. " -from tomshardware

So, out of 25 comparisons the Quad cores take 6. Note they beat the dual cores at multi-threaded applications and battery style CPU tests. Note also that the Dual core won out on not only more tests, but tests of commonly used applications and games. Note also, that the toms review recommends the 1333 bus CPUs; the dual cores.


And I could keep doing this for a lot of different applications and games. So, do you wanna get your frag on as hard as you can? or do you wanna say "I got 1000 more 3d marks!"

Are you running multi threaded software all the time or playing games and surfing the net?

How is that for research? 2 more cents.