Core 2 Quad Q6600 or C2D E6850?

[hrcs]

Which one do you guys think should I be getting as I'm planning to upgrade my PC? Which one do you think will be more future-proof as I won't be upgrading for another 2-3 years?

I mainly use my PC to play games, rip CDs and DVDs, make DVDs from video files, internet surfing and Photoshop. I also plan to upgrade to Vista. I'm also NOT planning to overclock my CPU.

Thanks in advance.

[ripken204]

the quad is definatly future proofing.

i am not sure why you are against OCing.. you could get the Q6600 and very easily OC it to E6850 speeds and you would have 2x the cores.

[bonestonne]

wait a little longer for penryn to be released. faster, cooler, and better for so called "future proofing".

you can't really future proof a computer, there's always something newer out there. Photoshop definitely benefits from extra cores, however gaming may not for a while. ripping CDs or DVDs is marginally helped by a quad core, but that also depends on the codec and your choice in settings. the quad may help in photoshop, but you may not notice its beef for a while.

dual core may last a while though, its really hard to say if quad core is really necessary for a home computer, even with photoshop. faster bus will do more than having 2x the cores, clock speed means nothing when you compare different architectures.

another thing to think of is a cheaper dual core, because then you wont have a slow quad later, you'll have saved money, and be ready for a faster quad core when the time comes.

best way to future proof is to get a motherboard with plenty of compatibility with stuff you think you may never need. when the time comes, you're more than capable.

[newsposter]

Or, future-proofing can be thought of as buying as cheaply as you can because no matter what you do, the whole thing will be obsolete in 12-15 months anyway.

Soooo, buy a good case, power supply, hard drives, optical drives, keyboard, and mouse. Those can be recycled through multiple generations of hardware. Treat everything else as disposable. Even monitors get to be disposable. I bought a 24" Acer STN flat screen last week for way less than I spent for a 17" TN Phillps three years ago.

Unless you are going for overclocker bragging rights, there isn't a lot of real-world performance difference between a thoughtfully built 'cheap' rig and a 'future-proof' rig.

[jcarle]

Those of us who know how to build future proof systems know that there are two things in which you must invest in primarily, the rest is secondary: The motherboard and the power supply.

The power supply is very important, not for the wattage, but for the quality. There's nothing more idiotic then to spend several hundred, if not thousands, of dollars in a system only to have the thing explode on you because the power supply is of poor quality.

The most important component for future proofing is the motherboard as it is the foundation upon everything else is built on. Nothing else matters more then the motherboard because at any point in the future if you want to upgrade to a new technology and your motherboard doesn't support it, most often then not, you have to start over again because the parts you had that went with your motherboard are no longer supported.

It's a lot cheaper and a lot easier to upgrade a processor, add a hard drive, add more memory, or change videocards then it is to change your motherboard only to find out that new motherboards no longer support your memory, your hard drives or your videocard.

Upgrades for past technologies stick around a LOT longer then motherboards with past technologies. Proof of that can be seen with PS/2, AGP, PCI and IDE. You can buy PS/2 keyboards anywhere, high performance AGP videocards are still available, there's a whackload of PCI based components on the market and you can still get high capacity IDE hard drives and IDE optical drives. It's getting harder and harder to find any of those technologies on newer motherboards, so much so, that certain technologies simply can't be bought on recent motherboards, such as AGP, PS/2 and sometimes even IDE and PCI.

The flip side is that someone who buys a motherboard with 1600 FSB support, DDR3 support, SATA 3Gb/s support, PCI-Express 2.0 support will be able to upgrade there system over and over and over again for a very long time. I've used the same approach with all my systems and the same motherboard has seen 4 processors, 2 memory upgrades, 3 videocards, 6 changes in hard drives, 3 optical drive changes and 2 cases. You will never be able to have the same lifespan with a cheap motherboard where future proofing wasn't invested for.

At the beginning I invested into a quality power supply and I put everything I had into the motherboard and bought a cheap case, the least expensive CPU, a minimum amount of ram, used on-board video and on-board sound, a single hard drive of the smallest capacity and a single cd-rom drive. Over the years I upgraded the system so many times that I didn't keep track, each time with the same motherboard. Recently, because I wanted to move to the Core 2 lineup, I upgraded my motherboard (I had a deal opportunity, so I took it) and because I had carefully considered the future-proofing of my previous motherboard, when I swapped motherboards, *every single component* I had transfered over to my new motherboard. After which I still continued upgrading with the same motherboard.

The first motherboard I had 3 years, this one I've had for about half a year. Most people who consider themselves enthusiasts don't even last more then a year or two with the same motherboard because they want to upgrade to a new technology that just came out but their motherboard doesn't support it because they hadn't considered the future-proofability of their motherboard. Investing in the foundation makes sense, I'd take the time to consider it fully and take the time to research what's coming out technology-wise over the next few years. You may not want to future-proof for everything that's coming out, but at least you'll know where technology is going and what to expect.

People don't spend enough time researching. Penryn just came out, yay! Let's all go and upgrade to 45mm CPUs and enjoy the ride, yes? The answer is no. Now is not a good time to upgrade for someone who wants upgradeability. The next generation of CPUs from Intel will not be compatible with the current generation, hell, they may even go as far as release a new socket for it (which they may actually have to due to the electrical differences). What people don't consider is where technology is going. Does anyone know where Intel is going next? I do. Is it because I'm an inside man? No, it's because I read and research. Intel has stated that they are going to be moving to an on-die memory controller. Meaning, they're going to do what AMD's been doing with socket 939 from the beginning. So the memory controller which is part of the current ICH9R and maybe even the ICH10R won't be there in the future and instead will be on the processor. Doing so means that everything will be so completely different that nothing in terms of processors and motherboards will be compatible. So unless you want to future proof only for about a year, perhaps two (which is the real-world time I believe it will take before the on-die memory controller because standard for Intel), then it's best to just wait. Otherwise, just buy the most future-proofing you can with what's available today to extend the life of your computer for as long as possible.

Edited December 31, 2007 by jcarle

[ripken204]

i totally agree with everything you said but if you want to future proof yourself to the max right now you would have to spend an insane amount of money..

a DDR3 motherboard.. DDR3!!.. some of this stuff can cost ALOT of money. he said he wont be upgrading for 2-3 years. maybe we should figure out what he means by upgrading, if it is a completely new computer or upgrading parts.

[newsposter]

'future-proof' is a myth. The only thing that lets you get close is a more or less constant outflow of money. So saving money and building 'good enough' and putting money back into the bank for the next time is one approach.

[jcarle]

'future-proof' is a myth. The only thing that lets you get close is a more or less constant outflow of money. So saving money and building 'good enough' and putting money back into the bank for the next time is one approach.

You've obviously missed the point completely.

[newsposter]

don't assume that your point is the only one to be made, I don't........

[ripken204]

just read my last post, that pretty much sums it up. no point in arguing over it.

[jcarle]

Here's what the near future hold in terms of Intel's development.

[ripken204]

so its 32nm i was wondering what size was next

[newsposter]

Considering that Intel is having ramp-up problems with their own 45nm process (related to some of the weird properties of Hafnium and nano-scale lithography) either prices are going to stay up (yield problems) or volume product releases (AMD killers) will be delayed.

IBM on the other hand has signed up just about 'everyone else' for it's own 45/32nm processes (fab9 I think, maybe fab11) which includes AMD and most of the Seven Tigers. IBM has been fabbing their 5Gz (!!!!) production Power6/6+ chips in 65nm for a while now, will be moving to 45nm in 2-3 weeks, and have their own 32nm on the roadmap for 3q 2007, both ahead of Intel. If AMD can once again get their head out on new CPUs, IBMs process will be pretty useful to them.

Of more interest than raw CPU bit-banging is the efficiency of mobo chipsets (Intel ICH9/MCH9 is wonderful in this respect, the projected numbers for ICH10/MCH10 are better) as well as where ATi and NV are going with their R700/G9xx GPUs, expec with on-card multi-GPU layouts. Nvidia already has low-volume workstation-focused cards (Quadro FX series) that pull 25% as much power as their 'consumer' grade counterparts. ATi is close behind with their new-generation 3850/3750 boards as well as some of their FireGL boards. Either company could put a pair of their best GPUs on a single PCIe board with 512Mb GDDR and easily fit within a 100 watt power budget, still 1/2 of what a loaded 8800 series card burns through. 100 watts seems to be the upper limit for passive (no-fan) cooling on a PCIe card. This would effectivly kill SLI/Crossfire but what the heck, anyone remember socket 939?

I just scrapped AMD CPUs for a goodly handful of E6850s, I don't care a whit whose logo is on the chips. But if I were looking to future-proof something I'd look at the essential enabling tech behind CPU and mobo chipset roadmaps and make some kind of judgement as to maturity and availability.

Edited January 1, 2008 by newsposter

[jcarle]

A good place to get a general idea on what's coming up is over at http://www.mikeshardware.co.uk/RoadmapQ108.htm.

[ripken204]

A good place to get a general idea on what's coming up is over at http://www.mikeshardware.co.uk/RoadmapQ108.htm.

ive actually been looking at that site for years, just havnt viewed it lately