Core i7 or Core 2 Quad?

Dapper Dan · Dec 10, 2008

honestly for gaming i would get a e8400 / e8600 ... those things are almost garanteed to get 4.0Ghz on air i've seen some at 4.5Ghz which would be much more efficient and cool than a quad at or around that same speed

White_Pawn · Dec 10, 2008

If this a new system, and it sounds like you have a fairly large budget, i see no reason as to not go i7.

920i
gigabyte X58 UD5
4 or 6gigs of pc1333//1600
w/e budget for videocards
corsair 750TX
WD 640gig BE
case//cooling

Dapper Dan · Dec 10, 2008

why blow your load right now on a first revision... wait till at least revision 2 ... also unless he renders / encodes he's not going to need a quad core and he'll see a bigger improvement in gaming with a 4+Ghz dual core than a 3.5Ghz quad

White_Pawn · Dec 10, 2008

Dapper Dan said:
why blow your load right now on a first revision... wait till at least revision 2 ... also unless he renders / encodes he's not going to need a quad core and he'll see a bigger improvement in gaming with a 4+Ghz dual core than a 3.5Ghz quad

i7 will do 4ghz.

Dapper Dan · Dec 11, 2008

yes .... but he doesn't need 4 cores ... you're telling him to spend like 2-300 extra on 2 cores he will never use

i was talking about core2 .. like the Q9450 someone mentioned

I♥GFX · Dec 11, 2008

Dapper Dan said:
yes .... but he doesn't need 4 cores ... you're telling him to spend like 2-300 extra on 2 cores he will never use

i was talking about core2 .. like the Q9450 someone mentioned

Never is too strong to say, you don't buy a gaming desktop for just a few months, a quad will last years and be ready when games actually do begin to use the 2 extra core's he'll "never use". Helps a hell of a lot in GTA4. Then the tides will turn for the dual vs quad battle.

I see no reason not to buy the Q6600, in fact on newegg its $3 cheaper than the E8500.

Badbonji · Dec 11, 2008

What about waiting for the Core i5 for a smaller budget?

KonaKona · Dec 11, 2008

If i5 is on LGA775, then it might work, but if its not then its probably too far off to be within range (p55 would have to be out.)

Quad cores are only going to get better as time goes on from a software standpoint, remember when everyone said you were better off getting a single core CPU for gaming?

At this point I personally wouldent buy anything over a low end Q9xxx, simply because of the price of the 920. I plan on using a Q6600 for my next rig, but I'm really cheap and all.

Or, you can save up and get a i7, but even on a game that works well on a quad, it probably wont have that much of an advantage over a C2Q because of that L2 cashe. If games start supporting SSE4.2 then it will be diffrent though....

Big Mike · Dec 11, 2008

i5 is supposed to be LGA1160 or 1156, it still uses an integrated memory controller but eliminates the QPI of i7 from what I've read. IE it's probably never going to be compatible with anything resembling an existing 775 solution even if they got the pin count down to 775 (it'd be like socket 939 vs AM2, same pin count but not compatible)

th3 · Dec 11, 2008

remember when everyone said you were better off getting a single core CPU for gaming?

Yea, that was somewhat common in 2005, and those who said it were wrong. Could be the same with Core2 vs i7, i would be careful in advising ppl to buy Core2s unless they are on a strict budget, Q9550 and higher should be out of the question for new builds (but still great for drop-in replacements).

i7 is what counts now, cant base the rest of our life on a few handpicked over-exposed benchmarks where Core2 scores 1-3Fps more, that was what fooled some people into buying single instead of dual in mid 2005, and already in late 2005 noone would recommend singles anymore.

jason4207 · Dec 11, 2008

Dapper Dan said:
why blow your load right now on a first revision... wait till at least revision 2 ... also unless he renders / encodes he's not going to need a quad core and he'll see a bigger improvement in gaming with a 4+Ghz dual core than a 3.5Ghz quad

+1 best bang4$ is an OC'd e8400 E0 system.

I♥GFX;5901377 said:
Never is too strong to say, you don't buy a gaming desktop for just a few months, a quad will last years and be ready when games actually do begin to use the 2 extra core's he'll "never use". Helps a hell of a lot in GTA4. Then the tides will turn for the dual vs quad battle.

I see no reason not to buy the Q6600, in fact on newegg its $3 cheaper than the E8500.

Do you have any links that show that GTA4 runs better on quads than duallies?

MadMan007 · Dec 11, 2008

GTA4 is like the new Crysis, runs like crap on any system

jmdixon85 · Dec 11, 2008

I would definatly go with a quad core. Games and other software might not take full advantage of the 4 cores right now, but sofware is catching up. And most new games in the future will support 4 cores. You might aswell future proof yourself.

Evilsizer · Dec 11, 2008

if your building in peices then go i7, there is imo no reason to build a core 2 system. If you are going to keep the rig atleast another year or 1.5yrs. better gpu's will continue to come out that will then require better/faster cpus.

th3 · Dec 11, 2008

any links that show that GTA4 runs better on quads than duallies?

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=362187

Dual-core processors have a serious disadvantage and only with 3.6 GHz an E8500 is able to beat the Q6600, but GTA 4 nevertheless suffers from frequent lags on dual-core systems - no matter if an AMD or Intel CPU is used.
...
The Phenom X4 9950 easily passes the Q6600 and theoretically is on the same level as the Q6700

AMD's Athlon 64 X2 6400+ is doing fine compared to the E6600 and beats Intel's Conroe CPU

Why is AMD doing so well here? The memory controller maybe, that suggests that i7 with its enormous bandwidth and low latency will have a serious advantage.

dim1014 · Dec 11, 2008

+1 for i7 for reasons stated by Evilsizer

Dapper Dan · Dec 11, 2008

th3 said:
http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=362187

Why is AMD doing so well here? The memory controller maybe, that suggests that i7 with its enormous bandwidth and low latency will have a serious advantage.

sorry to burst yer bubble ... but AMD has not made anything close to outperforming intel since like P4 days

and this is in the intel section so i think he is going intel not amd ... no reason for posting it

th3 · Dec 11, 2008

Dapper Dan said:
sorry to burst yer bubble ... but AMD has not made anything close to outperforming intel since like P4 days

and this is in the intel section so i think he is going intel not amd ... no reason for posting it

Sorry but you didnt read my post. If AMD, and Phenom in particular, is doing that well in GTA4 and the reason is the IMC then i7 is gonna rule in GTA4. And THAT is what this thread is about, "Core i7 or Core 2 Quad?".

Evilsizer · Dec 11, 2008

right cause TH3 post could also be taken as a comparsion. in that your looking at 2 cpus one with a IMC one without. if the cpu with IMC is doing better in certian apps vs one without. how much better then do you think i7 will be over those tested, that is the point. with i7 out now and that review posted on Dec 6th, im suprised they didnt test out a i7 rig. rather dissapointing they didnt...

one thing i see that does matter in this argument though. is that while avg is higher the min fps is same from a [email protected] to 4ghz, that the x2 at 2.6ghz has the same min FPS.

I♥GFX · Dec 11, 2008

jason4207 said:
Do you have any links that show that GTA4 runs better on quads than duallies?

Besides the official minimum requirements and i7 folks running it decently?

In the previous above link, no dual beat the QX6580 @ a mere 3.0GHz, the E8500 had to be OC'ed to 4.0GHz to still lose. The E8500 @ 3.6GHz merely had 1 frame higher than the Q6600, at a low stock clock 2.4GHz! The Q6600 OC'd to 2.6GHz will destroy the E8500, a whole 1 GHz lower.

Proof is obvious, google this stuff yourself.

Core i7 or Core 2 Quad?

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