E8400 vs Q6600

which one should I get for a gaming rig?

 

i'll be running windows XP, btw

 

Well it has a higher clock speed, imho games are adopting an increased level of multi-threading and thus increased high end CPU useage. The E8400 will beat the Quad at the moment for most games but if you had a 64Bit environment and was playing Crysis in the 64Bit environment then the Quad will start performing and produce similar/better outcomes at the lower speed, I have my Q6600@3.15 and it screams in a 64Bit world.

Multi-threading is becoming greater for software developers so ideally the more Cores (at reasonable speeds) processing that info the better.

 

Right now dualies still rule the gaming word cuz most games are still single-core. A growing # of new games are multi-core.

If you ask 10 forums the same question, most of them will vote for E8400. I'm no exception.

Google for benchmarks.

 

E8400 is also awesome at overclocking. You can get it up to 3.8Ghz on stock voltage!

And as Bold Eagle said, not many things take advantage of quad core at the moment.
(but if you had money, you could buy a skulltrail and two quad extremes and overclock them and you'll have one helluva machine)

 

i'll get the q6600. I forgot to tell you guys i'll also be doing some 3D Studio and UnrealEd

 

Well that is where the Quads do start shining in the real world apps.

 

^^^ Agreed. Also, at audio encoding/decoding.