Upgrading from E6600

[Kalivos]

Hi all. I do a lot of gaming, and I'm trying to decide what to go to from me E6600. I'm torn between the E8500 or the Q9450. Looking at bench results for most games, they seem to be relatively close to eachother in performance, but would the quad core be better simply because it is quad core? Another reason I'm asking this is because of the price difference, heh. Thanks in advance.

 

[deathman20]

There are many threads on this and alot will say quad the others will say daul.

The question is, what else besides games do you do on your system? Do you have a nice cooling system for the CPU if you do plan on going quad to cool it? Whats your motherboard?

 

[Freezer7Pro]

If you're mainly gaming, there's really no need to upgrade.

 

[deathman20]

If you're mainly gaming, there's really no need to upgrade.

Depends on what his E6600 is limited too as well.

 

[Kalivos]

There are many threads on this and alot will say quad the others will say daul.

The question is, what else besides games do you do on your system? Do you have a nice cooling system for the CPU if you do plan on going quad to cool it? Whats your motherboard?

I plan on getting a better cooling system when I switch out processors, and I'll likely be getting a new motherboard as well to support 1333FSB.

I play games, watch videos, and do light video/audio editing.

Current motherboard is an Intel BOXD975XBX2KR. I have the E6600 OC'd to 3.0ghz, I'd push it farther if I had a better cooler at the moment.

 

[deathman20]

I plan on getting a better cooling system when I switch out processors, and I'll likely be getting a new motherboard as well to support 1333FSB.

I play games, watch videos, and do light video/audio editing.

Current motherboard is an Intel BOXD975XBX2KR. I have the E6600 OC'd to 3.0ghz, I'd push it farther if I had a better cooler at the moment.

All righty. Sounds almost what I do except switch video/audio with 3D Rendering. With that, its sorta on the boarder line but if you really don't do alot of video/audio editing, I'd say stick with a dual core, cheaper, cooler, higher OC's and easier to clock.

The E6600 is a decent chip probably could get it into the 3.6Ghz range with a lucky chip and good cooling, but im always one for new fangled cores with more cache and that run cooler Like in comparison my E6600 and E6400's lapped @ 3.4-3.5Ghz have roughly the same temperature my E8400 (unlapped) does at 4.05Ghz.