Nvidia Geforce 9 Series to be Released February 21st

[Ren Wo Xing]

There are few games which can make efficient use of dual-core technology, and virtually none that make efficient use of quad-core technology. Why are they putting out octo-core? The only programs that'll find those useful are certain encoding programs, and benchmark programs.

[sarakoth]

There are few games which can make efficient use of dual-core technology, and virtually none that make efficient use of quad-core technology. Why are they putting out octo-core? The only programs that'll find those useful are certain encoding programs, and benchmark programs.

Efficient or not efficient, the Q6600 is like the best CPU in terms of price. It outperforms everything in its price range and rivals other CPUs almost twice its price.

[MysteriouX]

Quad core processors right now are dirt cheap. The Q6600 @ 2.4 GHz costs around $250. Supposedly its performance is double that of the e6600.

I've heard that the MSRP for the 9800 GX2 is like $599.

the price of any electronics product will depend on where you buy it. I'm sure I can get a Q6600 in a country like thailand much cheaper, but then they may be 'off the truck' items or fakes made by china and aren't reliable.

Also for the new graphics chip, i wouldnt be suprised if the price rose even further as it will have 2 processors on 1 card. And the price will also vary depending on the brand, such as ASUS cards, gigabyte cards, MSI cards. As each of these companies are allowed to change the settings on the nVidia chipsets even if the companies sold the same model chipset with the same memory and clock speed, other detailed specifications may vary along with performance. Differences such as pipeline, memory bandwidth, interface etc will vary depending on the company.

[sarakoth]

the price of any electronics product will depend on where you buy it. I'm sure I can get a Q6600 in a country like thailand much cheaper, but then they may be 'off the truck' items or fakes made by china and aren't reliable.

Also for the new graphics chip, i wouldnt be suprised if the price rose even further as it will have 2 processors on 1 card. And the price will also vary depending on the brand, such as ASUS cards, gigabyte cards, MSI cards. As each of these companies are allowed to change the settings on the nVidia chipsets even if the companies sold the same model chipset with the same memory and clock speed, other detailed specifications may vary along with performance. Differences such as pipeline, memory bandwidth, interface etc will vary depending on the company.

In the United States, legit Q6600's retail for around $250.

As for the things manufacturers can change, they don't really amount to much of a difference.

[MysteriouX]

In the United States, legit Q6600's retail for around $250.

As for the things manufacturers can change, they don't really amount to much of a difference.

Oh but those things that manufcaturers can modify, they will amount to a huge difference if you are running a high-end graphics intensive application or game or even trying to Emulate a PS2 game on a PC.

It's like what Sony is doing to their PS3s, the initial release of the console had some pretty cool stuff like hardware emulation for PS2 games, then in order to reduce the price of the PS3 they switched that to software emulation and then in order to reduce to price in Europe the new 40gb version doesn't even have an emulator for PS2 games.

Those differences can mean a lot.

[Ren Wo Xing]

Efficient or not efficient, the Q6600 is like the best CPU in terms of price. It outperforms everything in its price range and rivals other CPUs almost twice its price.

Actually, here's where you're wrong. The E6850, clocked at 3.0 ghz, is roughly analogous to Q6600 in price. Depending on the situation, the E6850 often outperforms the Q6600 in many applications which are not written to optimally allow maximum usage of the quad-core processor. Sure, the Q6600 outperforms it in a lot of benchmarks, but benchmarks are designed to put everything to its limits. This is why I say that efficiency and programming makes such a big difference. With your average game or your average software, the E6850 outperforms the Q6600; on the other hand, if you rip/record a lot of music, do a lot of animation, and other CPU-intensive and multi-threading capable software, the Q6600 will show big performance gains.

[sarakoth]

Actually, here's where you're wrong. The E6850, clocked at 3.0 ghz, is roughly analogous to Q6600 in price. Depending on the situation, the E6850 often outperforms the Q6600 in many applications which are not written to optimally allow maximum usage of the quad-core processor. Sure, the Q6600 outperforms it in a lot of benchmarks, but benchmarks are designed to put everything to its limits. This is why I say that efficiency and programming makes such a big difference. With your average game or your average software, the E6850 outperforms the Q6600; on the other hand, if you rip/record a lot of music, do a lot of animation, and other CPU-intensive and multi-threading capable software, the Q6600 will show big performance gains.

Maybe it's good to prepare for the future, when software is designed to make the most out of all four cores

[oGaKirA]

Maybe it's good to prepare for the future, when software is designed to make the most out of all four cores

Ya right that's what they said about 64bit cpu's but luckily I never bought into it.

[MysteriouX]

Maybe it's good to prepare for the future, when software is designed to make the most out of all four cores

You do realize how illogical that sounds...you spend several hundred dollars to buy a processor which has few software available to make efficient use of it waiting for the software to appear in the future (perhaps a year or two or more) and by the time that software comes out your processor has already become far outdated.

Personally I would wait for the software to come out before getting the processor.