Need a new cpu

deceit

My system at the moment is
E6400 Artic Freezer 7 pro
P5E3 Ws professional x38 ddr 3 asus motherboard
4gb ddr3 xms3 cas9 corsair pc10666
2 raptor 150gb drives
antec p180 case
hd4870 graphics card
780 watt ocz mod xtream psu
22" & 19" tft's
Vista ultimate
Want to get a new cpu for this system as i think its the bottleneck for the system. Any advice on which would be the the best cpu to get out of E8600 or Q9400. This system is mostly used for gaming (crysis, resident evil 4, wow, conan, qw:et and a few others), usually using internet or watching a movie on other screen while gaming though.

Anti

Q6600 is the way to go. Especially as they are only 150€ and overclock like a dream.

deceit

Would an overclocked q6600 be as good as the two above cards if overclocked?

PaddyTheNth

For your purposes, yes probably. It has a bigger L2 cache than both of them, and as games are starting to take advantage of more cores it'll do well against the 8400 going forward. It overclocks better than the 9400 apparently.

Both of those are 45nm chips however whereas the 6600 is 65nm, so it'll draw more power and run hotter (more noise).

Anti

PaddyTheNth wrote: »

Both of those are 45nm chips however whereas the 6600 is 65nm, so it'll draw more power and run hotter (more noise).

Eh... No... A hsf fan at full pelt on a 45nm core pushing 45c will sound the same as a 65nm core pushing 55c. Its all down to the cooler, the chip has no impact on the noise what so ever. And the difference in power consumption between a 45 and 65nm chip is tiny.

PaddyTheNth

Manties wrote: »

Eh... No... A hsf fan at full pelt on a 45nm core pushing 45c will sound the same as a 65nm core pushing 55c. Its all down to the cooler, the chip has no impact on the noise what so ever. And the difference in power consumption between a 45 and 65nm chip is tiny.

A 45nm core consumes less power and produces less heat....I thought that was a given. My assertion is therefore that the cpu fan can run at a lower speed as it has less heat to help disperse, therefore it generates less noise.

If you're saying that the 45nm doesn't consume less power and doesn't produce less heat, then I'll have to get back to you on that later as I'm at work and don't have time to look up my sources right now.

Anti

PaddyTheNth wrote: »

A 45nm core consumes less power and produces less heat....I thought that was a given. My assertion is therefore that the cpu fan can run at a lower speed as it has less heat to help disperse, therefore it generates less noise.

If you're saying that the 45nm doesn't consume less power and doesn't produce less heat, then I'll have to get back to you on that later as I'm at work and don't have time to look up my sources right now.

it does draw less power, and therefor create less heat. But who uses a pwm controlled Hsf? No one i know.

PaddyTheNth

I haven't heard of many people overclocking a Q6600 and sticking with the stock cooler...could be way off on that though. A lot (I'm not going to pretend I've done any sort of analysis, its just my own impression from lots of online shopping recently) of aftermarket CPU coolers come with PWM fans, and certainly from reading a bunch of forums a lot of people who have interest in quieting their PC would go for a PWM fan on the CPU cooler.

Anti

Nah no overclocker would use a pwm fan. i always have my fans hooked upto a fan controller with 5/7/12v rheobus. That way i decide on the noise/heat

PaddyTheNth

Manties wrote: »

Nah no overclocker would use a pwm fan. i always have my fans hooked upto a fan controller with 5/7/12v rheobus. That way i decide on the noise/heat

Fair enough, but then you'd still be dissipating less heat if you had a 45nm core(s)!

I really need to look at how to undervolt fans

Anti

Just use resistors. You can pick them up in places like radionics.ie. Lots of tutorials online. Of you can just buy a rheobus or baybus fan controller.

deceit

So after all this is the Q6600 a better bet to get for what i use it for? Gaming on one screen while watching movie/internet on the other? I dont mind paying the extra €100 odd if its really worth it.

PaddyTheNth

deceit wrote: »

So after all this is the Q6600 a better bet to get for what i use it for? Gaming on one screen while watching movie/internet on the other? I dont mind paying the extra €100 odd if its really worth it.

IMO the 8400 would handle your requirements pretty well. If you want to have fun overclocking, the 6600 would give you the most scope. I wouldn't bother with the 9400 no matter what. If you want to go new generation quad, go for the 9450 for a little more money, it'll give a lot more performance for the money (twice the L2 cache and a faster FSB).

Anti

A newer generation quad would be good, q94XX and upwards. But nothing out there at the moment will even stress a Q6600 so anything over it is a complete waste. IMO.