CPU shopping ? Stuck on a dual or quad decision ?

[WalkinTarget]

Then check out these benchies and mull that one over:

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=770&p=3

I was at first set on a dual chip when I upgraded, but decided (not really sure why) to go quad. I am far from a bleeding edge kinda guy (I'm quantity over quality) but went with the quad. I play CoH at the high resolutions that this benchmark was done at, so it is a very clear indication that some games strongly favor the extra cores.

It may only be a few games that the quad shows its advantage, but with quads available for under $200, its worthwhile, IMO, to consider a quad as opposed to a higher clocked dual chip.

[K PhaNTOM]

sweet, my boy Q6600 isn't that much different than the 600 bucks one lol

[Skud]

I shouldn't look

I'm trying to make my last build go for a while...don't want to spend the cash on new Ram, MOBO, CPU...but it is tempting...

[Duke{CLR}]

Interesting graph the WT. I'm wondering why the Q9450 isn't there. I do hope that someday the my upgrading was worth it. Up to now I have only been playing games that wouldn't even test my Conroe E6600.

[juneau]

Dual. That's all i need to say.

[Anonymous Walrus]

Go for a quad, its more of a personal choice at this stage in the game, plus from what I can tell, RTS will be the first genre to advance on the use of more cores, far sooner then FPS and RPGS at lest. Furthermore, who doesn't like to play a RTS while playing music in the background and surfing the net while you what for your economy to increase. A quad would definitely be more useful here...

[DougBob]

Come on WalkingTarget go for the gusto, get the Quad Extreme

[bobytt]

WT funny , i was watching this earlier...

By the way , i just changed my QX6700 to Q9550. the old boy was in my case since day one of the quad cores

[Dead...Again]

I get a page load error when i click the link

[WalkinTarget]

Hmm, link was working

Give it a day and try again. Looks like their site is offline at the moment.

Cliffs:
Company of Heroes @ 1920x1200 benchies:

Quad core chips - 180+ fps
Dual core chips - 90+ fps

[DougBob]

It's working now.

[Dead...Again]

Wow that is huge. I've been happy with my OCed E6600, but maybe I should look into an upgrade...

[WalkinTarget]

Dead, the extra cores will be put to use best on RTS games, so keep that in mind. On a standard FPS game, the numbers are closer. It seems like the RTS games really benefit from the extra cores, so your decision should be based on what games you play.

My e6600@3.2 is still fine as a spare gamer, so honestly, my eyes are not going to see a difference between 80 fps and 160 fps at my age.

Point is, if you are in the market for a chip, at $190 the Q6600 is a great bargain. Just be prepared to toss some good air cooling at it to reach the same OC's as the dual chips.

[Dead...Again]

I do occasionally play RTS, but mostly FPS and WoW.

I have a Zalman 9700, so cooling shouldn't be a problem.