im thinking of buying this

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/spec ... Q6600E#top


all the review look pretty good and it should do my for a while to go and its rite in my budget, also im thinking of putting it with this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... cket%20775)%20PCI-Express%20DDR2%20Motherboard

any comments or suggestions appreciated but 200 really is my limit

My advice is dont bother, cpu prices have gone sky high for xmas, that will be back down to 110 quid after.

Also q6600 isnt a gaming cpu as none are properly optimized for dual core never mind quad core, and so best gaming cpu's are e8000 series e8400 is besty bang for buck and what ive got that runs tf2 on full on its own no need for a decent gpu. Oh and E8400 is 100 quid or was till the prices went up

is it better than the q6600? cos i heard there the same but the quads are far better at multitasking.

cheers btw, ill put off till jan then

Pilsy made a really good post about this in a previous thread although it may have been deleted

Definitely avoid Q6600 and look to the newer dual core is what he recommended in a nutshell (with loads of stuff about FSB and caching that i just about got my head around but damned if I could repeat it!)

yeh i remember reading it but went to look just now and cant find the post, i found an e8500 for 130 quid but i got to find a good mobo as well

i dont understand this pure hatred for the q6600 cpu.

i got one, and would recommend it to anyone (well not at the mo cos prices have gone through the roof).

i can play l4d and encode dvds etc at the same time. Even though most games arent optimised for multiple cores, you will have 3 spare to do stuff with.

dvd's that used to take 5 hours to encode, now take around 45 mins.

as for tf2, well i get 150-200fps, but i put that down to my gfx card, not my cpu.

as long as your gfx card is good, you dont need the super douper mega clocked c2d.

not a gaming cpu? its the best damn gaming rig i have ever had. plays all the game i have with no problems. But again i put that down to the gfx card.

Get a quad, you wont be sorry. I know i wasnt.

my 2 pennies.

please join my protect the q6600 club today.

I second that, best damn CPU Ive ever owned. Along with my 8800 GTX, it runs every game at full settings (with excpetion of crysis, that needs SLI). Also Ive clocked it from 2.4ghz to 3.2ghz with ease.
I think I read that it will be going out of production by the end of the year. Expect prices to drop.

Not sure I'd agree with that motherboard choice - nvidia boards are tricky to set up and have buggy drivers etc etc. Stick with Intel. P35 / P45 come highly recommended. Simple to set up, fast, cheap and stable.

Sticking with overclockers I've had a scan through B grade and these would be my preference (in order):

IP35-Pro £80.49
MSI P45 Platinum £80.49
Abit IP43 £63.24 or £68.99 New
Asus P5K SE £53.81

I'd try and go with the IP35 Pro or P45 Platinum if you can afford it, you will definitely get the best results.



Regards quad over dual - at this time there's no point getting a quad. Just now the i7 first generation has been released with 8 cores (4 physical / 4 HT), in 12 months time we will have 16 cores with 32 and 64 on the horizon. A good high speed dual core now will give you better long term performance than a slower quad. You get more on-die cache per core (3mb per core), higher cpu clock speed, higher FSB, more memory bandwidth, less power usage and 1/3 the heat output compared to the Q6600. And its a lot cheaper. Dual cores are more forgiving in terms of motherboard / powersupply / memory setup as well, if you skimp in these areas with a quad you're in for trouble but you can usually get away with it on a dual.

Basically if you are going to get a quad you should get at least the Q9450, preferably the Q9550 to make it worthwhile over the dual. And the price difference calls this into question.

When these guys bought their Q6600's the dual cores at the time at the same price were the E6600 and E6750, neither of which could compete with it. Its not that I have any hatred for the Q6600, its just its old first development technology and as such has been superceeded (in my opinion by the new E8400/E8500/E8600). If they were £90 - £100 I'd say bargain. At £160 I'd rather shout rip off tbh!



[PIMPAGE] If you are after an E8500 I have several for sale at the moment that came in some cheap servers I bought and were replaced with Xeon's on install. £100 +postage to members and regs, will be going on ebay for considerably more in a week or so. Follow the link in my sig for details or just fire me a pm .

ABIT IP35 PRO is great, at least we can agree on that

I'll never stamp my foot and say im just right because - as long as someone puts forward a reasonable case for their opinion its all good, but most importantly if you're happy with what you have then does it matter?

Anything from an E4200 (is that the older allendale c2d? I forget!) and up will play source games very capably with a decent gfx card, we're debating percentages and efficiency here, nothing more.

Value for money is the name of my game - Get as much as you can for as little as possible. Price to performance ratio FTW . A high end dual core and any basic P35 or newer board is capable of 4ghz on cheap cooling with a cheap PSU. My server is running a 4Ghz E8500, Q6600 Intel Heatsink, B Grade gigabyte P35 DS3R (£45), a 470w gigabyte PSU (£28) and HyperX PC9200 DDR2 @ 1200mhz 1.95v (£40ish) and a 9800GT (£80). It has no problem running TF2 at all putting out near 400fps in 1280x1024 and consistent over 60fps with all details/AA/AF maxed @ 1920x1200. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone as borderline isnt the word, but im perfectly happy running it myself and it shows what you can achieve. As further proof to the point it wont even boot with a Q6600 unless I use the Corsair 650TX from the other machine. Just gives the beep code for no cpu inserted.