[majinwar]

Just wondering what people would pick between a Q6600 and an E6850? Which can overclock farther? ( I don't fold or anything that requires many cores, just looking for the "fastest" possible.. does that make sense? lol )

Also, if I decide to go down the intel pathway.. I would need a motherboard, no budget restrictions, no need for dual GPU or anything, so which seems to be the favourite right now?

Also, are the new 45nm chips that are coming out socket 775 still? aka I could get either the Q6600/E6850 and buy one of the new ones in january without having to buy another mobo?

Sorry if this is a lot to ask, just wanted other options incase phenom doesn't do as well as I'd like.

Thanks in advance!

[Evilsizer]

im just going to hit the mobo first since thats atm is the easiest to answer. no need for dual gpu's then go for a P35 based board. Under $200 and ocs like mad, my fave is the IP35-Pro with well none in second besides the IP35,LOL. while the asus has some nice options you are paying a pretty penny for them. then take into account the WD raid issue. Since your going with seagate 410AS's you dont have to worry about that.

as far as the 45nm cpus go they are supported on P965/P35/x38/x48/NV6xx/NV7xxxx boards. really the whole dual vs quad is a much bigger thing then you think. as while we have one game with good multi core support Lost planet that showed a nice 30-40fps boost. sorry i dont recall the numbers and waiting for a page to load at work takes 10mines thanks to there proxy server. my suggestion if you upgrade every 3months go dual now quad later. if you want your pc to last a long time and you upgrade every 6months+ quad is your choice. ocing on a dual vs quad well depending on how lucky you get, the dual will oc 200-400mhz faster. if you wait till january to buy a 45nm cpu with the plan to upgrade in q3-q4/08 then go with a dual. at the same time though it the TDP numbers im seeing even if intels specced them right. ie a QX9650 is specced for 130watts but is actually 73watts technically for all reason 75watts. a quad would be good choice if these TDP numbers hold true for quads. if i recall though intel was speccing the new none QX's for around 80-85watts. with that much lower TPD then ocing a 45nm quad is going to blow away current 65nm quads,G0 steppings included.

basicly look at how often you upgrade and what you need to do with your rig. then base your cpu on those choices and how much you want to spend. its not as simple as dual vs quad, some people simply dont need all the power has to offer.

[start]

I bought a q6600 because the way I see it, it gives me twice the computational power :P