intel quad confusing

there is a q6600 wich costs £168.25 and q6600 go stepping wich costs £176.85 which is the best and what is go stepping.

G0 stepping runs at 95watts, whereas B3 (the other one) runs at 105watts. Therefore G0 runs cooler, this makes a difference as qua cores run much otter than dual cores. I would recommend going for G0 if you can, especially if you are planning to overclock. I have a q6600 G0 (overclocked to 3Ghz) and I am really happy with it.

If you goole q6600 G0 should be able to find out more info.

Hope this helps

right but where im buying from th go stepping doesn't have any reviews but the standard one does and is rated 5/5 i think i'll study it more thnx for your help.

a lot of people were waiting for g0 stepping because it's power conservative, just recently released, hence the lack of reviews

right thnx, would this help overclocking cos i wnated to get it up to 3.4Ghz r summet.

that'd be alex's department I think

For overclocking G0 is definately better as it will produce less heat at the same speed as B3. If you want to get 3.4Ghz, as many people have, you will have to get a different heatsink fan (the cpu cooler) as its unlikely that the intel stock one that comes with the chip will get you this far. The quads can get pretty hot so you will have to keep an eye on the temps when you are testing for stability.

3.4ghz would be doable with decent air cooling. But it's all dependent on the individual chip. Not the brand, not the model, but the chip. There's no guarantee your cpu will clock higher at all. But. core2's tend to be decent overclockers. I've, personally, never failed to get less than a 30% increase in perfomance.

Problem is that quad-core core2's tend to be bandwidth hungry so if oc'ing is your game I'd be looking at a dual-core E6750. Had one of these upto 3.66ghz, stable, yesterday.

It's also going to depend on your motherboard and the voltages it can provide to the cpu. And a decent bios doesn't hurt either.

I believe (correct me if I'm wrong anyone) that the Go 6600 has a stock voltage of 1.35v. Dual-core core2's tend to have a stock voltage (V.I.D) of 1.3v. This lower voltage gives you that much more headroom for oc'ing.

As the 6600 is top-locked, you'd have to increase the fsb on the mobo to get an overclock.

i wasn't aiming for 3.4ghz (although it would be nice) but somewhere higher or around 3.0Ghz and my motherboard is gonna be asus p5n-e sli 650i i do plan to use stock coolng but if anybody knows a £30 better cooler for a quad then let me know but im getting water cooling next year.... i hope to anyway.

Like Alex said, 3.4 is doable on air but not with the stock cooler. You MAY be able to get it to 3Ghz with stock but its going to be be pretty hot, so may struggle, and not sure I'd recommend it.

In terms of coolers I use a Thermalright ultra 120 extreme with an S-flex fan. Its a really good cooler but not the cheapest in the world. I've read that the Scythe Ninja is pretty good but some people have had problems with the mounting. I've also heard of some people running on a Freezer 7 Pro. this is reasonably priced and will be better than stock but I think the Ninja will give slightly lower temps. I'm sure that others can recommend others.

Make sure you get good thermal grease too something like Arctic Silver 5, Arctic creamique (not sure of the spelling) or Mx-2. A good grease doesn't cost much but will lower your temps.

In terms of voltage, most people overclocking a Q6600 run below the stock voltage. At 3Ghz mine runs stable at 1.30v but others have been able to run stable at 1.25v or less. it depends on you chip so you have to experiment to see what works.

iv read a review of the ninja scythe and was the quitest, best cooling and easiest to install but the review was made before quads were out so im not to sure but i'll do some research thanks for your help also could someone tell me (if they have a quad) what speed they got theres up to and what parameters they'v used.

Hi xactly, if you look at your post on 'ram speeds' you'll see that I've put a link in there which refers to a guide about overclocking quads. Its really useful and may answer a few of your questions.

In terms of speeds. The very highest I've seen on air was 3.6ghz but I think that kind of overclock is extremely rare, especially on air. On average I think the highest is about 3.4Ghz, but thats with a good cooler. if you are trying to go for this kind of overclock then choose your cooler wisely. ultimately though like Alex said it depends on your chip. Some people have had problems getting past 2.8Ghz.

Currently I am running a Q6600 G0 @ 3Ghz. Vcore voltage is 1.30. FSB 333x9 (multiplier). My ambient temps have been quite high so I have tried to go any higher than that. I may try to go to 3.2Ghz. if i do I'll post it but all I will be doing is raising the FSB as I want to keep temps down so I wont raise vcore by much if any.

If you want a really high overclock then you are better off going for a core 2 duo rather than a quad. generally people get higher overclocks on those because they produce less heat. On quads heat is the restricting factor.

When you run stress testing software, such as orthos, your load temps will go pretty high. there is a lot of debate about what is too high for a quad but I think the general consensus seems to be 60-65c (better 60c than 65c though). some people argue that up to 70c is ok but personally I wouldnt push it much past 60c.

Be careful as well in terms of the software you use to measure temps. Speedfan for example will not give accurate readings for a quad (I think in the next version this is corrected) so use coretemp or TAT. I use both.

tanks for your help i'll keep that in mind but i was told that quads are more futureproof and i was only planing on getting it slightly higher because of the scores i've seen on here i thought i would only need to overclock liitle bit to get it better at games than the duo's.

To be honest in terms of games I dont think you'll see a difference between a dual core and a quad core in current games. If you add a E6600, for example, in that table you'll see the performance is the same as the quad. most current games aren't designed to use the additional cores so there is no performance gain with a quad. Most gamers I think would recommend dual cores at the mo so you can reach higher speeds because of the higher overclocking capacity of a dual. But then you also have to take into account the graphics card too.

No doubt this will change in the future, and in the long term I think more and more software will be developed to take advantage of the extra cores.

thats my point im not sure weather to get a q6600 or a e6600 upwards.