Quad Core or Xtreme?

On the NP9261 whats better to have :
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Processor Q6700 / 8MB L2 Cache, 2.66GHz, 1066MHz FSB [+$375.00]
or
Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme Processor X6800 / 4MB L2 Cache, 2.93GHz, 1066MHz FSB [+$860.00]

the cache seems more on the first one

not for gaming for heavy business usage

 

why would you get the x6800? its like $1000. the e6850 is 3.0ghz and is about $700 cheaper. Also go for the q6600 the price difference between the two isnt justified.

 

You can get an intel core 2 quad at 2.4ghz (not extreme processor), and you can overclock it yourself saving you money while getting the same performance.

 

exactly, get the Q6600 or the E6850. preferably the Q6600 it is more futureproof and can over clock very well. not sure about the e6850.

 

but the 3.0Ghz not offered at sagernotebook.com website ?

 

go to http://www.xoticpc.com/ i think you will find it much cheaper

 

yeah no way id buy the extreme cpu unless you are loaded with money to burn

 

regardless the price which is the fastest of the following:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0GHz w/ 4MB L2 Cache - 1333MHz FSB
Intel Core 2 QUAD Q6600 2.4GHz w/ 8MB L2 Cache - 1066MHz FSB
Intel Core 2 Duo EXTREME X6800 2.93GHz w/ 4MB L2 Cache - 1066MHz FSB

in regards application responses and heavy business usage?

 

I would go for the Quad Core for business apps, and for the price. http://www.techspot.com/review/36-intel-core2-quad-q6600/page5.html

 

Assuming you need business productivity and that you work with traditional MS Office - alike apps, the ranking would be:

- Intel Core 2 Duo EXTREME X6800 2.93GHz w/ 4MB L2 Cache - 1066MHz FSB
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0GHz w/ 4MB L2 Cache - 1333MHz FSB
- Intel Core 2 QUAD Q6600 2.4GHz w/ 8MB L2 Cache - 1066MHz FSB

I went for the E6850 with some pain in my heart because it is very sexy to have a Quad in a laptop. The 6800 is just too expensive. When I will be running software that can thread to 4 cores I will upgrade to the Q6700 or if it will be supported: the QX6850

 

The only thing I don't understand is how the core 2 duo has a 1333MHz FSB, but the Core 2 Duo Extreme only has a 1066MHz FSB. Can anyone tell me why? or is it simply a typo?

 

The new Core2Duo's have an increased FSB speed of 1333. The X6800 is an older model that uses the 1066 bus.

 

I am also pondering getting an NP9261, but not sure which processor to buy. I'm not going all out on this machine, preferring to wait and see if some higher-end DX10 video cards will be supported, as well as higher-speed quad core CPUs. My question is, given that there is only a $5-10 price increase between the 6850 dual core running at 3.0 ghz (at 1333 FSB) and the Q6600 at 2.4 ghz (but only 1066 FSB), is the quad core really a smarter buy than the dual? Would I likely be wishing for that extra .6 ghz on most apps that are currently unable to utilize the advantages of quad core?

 

Or, does is make more sense to overclock the Q6600 (close?) to E6850 speeds? Can that be done in this notebook? Anyone tried yet?

 

Currently, it isn't possible to manipulate the FSB or the multipliers of the CPU's on this laptop, so overclocking isn't an option. I was originally going to going to get the E6850 for the higher FSB and clock speed, but after looking at how the performance compares to the Q6700...the drop in performance on single threaded applications isn't really all that much but the performance increase on multithreaded apps is a good jump.

 

are u saying that u can oc the Q6600 but not the Q6700?

 

u can oc the Q6600 but u cant oc the Q6700?

 

For office apps, go for the Quad.

http://www.techspot.com/review/36-intel-core2-quad-q6600/page6.html

 

You can't overclock any cpu's on this laptop yet. The BIOS doesn't support changing any of the settings to overclock.

 

you cannot overclock anything on the 9261. the bios does not allow it.

 

i dont know if he put the list backwards on purpose, but for heavy applications the quad core will be better and more future proof. just stay with the q6600, the q6700 and the qx6850 are wastes of money.

 

Read here about E6850 vs Q6600: http://xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2quad-q6600_12.html#sect0

 

He is more interested in business apps not games so I would recommend the Quad. http://xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2quad-q6600_11.html#sect0

 

Even if you were interested in games it would be better to go with the Quad core anyways. Its future proof if you think about it. Games and programs will make use of the cores in the near future and you might as well go for the Quad right off the bat so you don't have to spend more money and time in the future to put the Quad core in.

 

Will they really use more than 2 efficiently... until now most quads dont offer much of a speed boost in games. Not even sure crysis will make this happen... its really hard to programm multy threaded applications unless you assign the cores to simple stuff like graphics, physics, drivers and sound. Making 4 processors work on one task is kind of difficult and very error prone... one reason why the ps3 is having so much trouble... it has the muscle, but no one wants to spend 3 years debugging.. easier to just put 90 % of the game on 2 threads and let the others sleep ;p

 

Thats one way to think. Another way to think is what happened when two cores came out? Its the same thing that happened when two cores came out, and its the same thing with 32bit OS and 64bit. People feel safe with what they know and most people don't like to move forward in the technology market because its "unknown territory" and they don't feel comfortable with the change. Technology is always changing whether people like it or not, and in the technology world I like to try and be a little future proof with my purchases, because something new and better is always coming out. Do some research on Games and how manufacturers are working on multi-threaded games that will utilize the cores.

 

if anything, in vista the OS will combine the split 8 meg cache together for use in single threaded apps...so you get a boost there anyway

 

The fine thing with this Sager NP9261 is that we can upgrade it in different ways. I just received my system, equipped with an E6850. I will love it for now but will probably upgrade parts like memory, disks, video cards and probably the processor as well.

 

Thats the main reason I returned the laptop I previously bought and why I turned to Sager. I love the fact that the laptop can be upgraded easily, especially the Graphics Card!

 

so when it comes to being "future proof", which one would you rather have if you have to choose between E6850 and Q6700? is it worth the extra money? I'm still wondering which one I should get..

 

well def the q6700 is more futureproof because soon apps will use more cores but right now the e6850 and probably for a while will be a bit faster because most programs only use 1/2 cores. and plus it has more fsb and overall clock speed in general

and to not help at all - i don't knwo what i would chose either but it would def be between those 2 because the x6800 is pointless, essentially slower than the other 3, less fsb and not future proof - and cost $600+ more

 

Bashar,

Exactly which business applications will you be using?

 

Ok, I reading this thread and what you guys are saying makes perfect sense, but I'm still wondering why anyone would want to invest in this type of hardware to run business apps? Is it just me or is there some logical explanation for this? To me, if all your going to do is run business apps then get the hardware that can run it and save the extra cash. Maybe in a couple years you will find business apps that will take advantage of a quad core but right now the only stuff that can do that resides on a server. I know of no client software out there that can use this technology. I can't even think of any games that take advantage of more than 2 cores right now.

 

How about Vmware? Vitualization ?

Multi-cores helps with a bunch of things.

Lets say you want to run 4 apps at once...
Say virus scanning and playing a game and also monitoring temperature..
and outlook for your email...
You could do this with a quad core.....

For business, quad core is the way to go...

For gaming the quad core barely lags...and I mean barely...

Also when someone does figure out how to oc the quad proc... they have great potential....

Do yourself a favor and get the quad..
Thats what Ill be getting.

Joe

 

Well VMware or virtualization will (should) be run on a server with just the client software being run on the laptop. I can currently game, download, run AV scans or whatever on my dual core and it makes no difference. I see no lag or resource issues even with 6-8 things open so I don't see that point at this time.

Going forward I can see this becoming very useful but realistically your a couple years out before software will be written to properly utilize the quad core, At least on the client side of the house. Servers are already running quad cores and your midrange systems are already up to 16 way quads. (where you can allocate portions of a cpu to specific apps.)

 

I don't agree at all....
I do software development and the best thing that ever happened for the developer was to be able to do virtualization.
This gives you accurate representation of the product your developing.
I work on many different systems all the time.. So being able to replicate it in a virtual environement is key.

Have you ever looked at Vmware workstation... Not a server application.

yes your dual core can run many applications.. But a quad core will do it better than your dual core. Thats the point of quad core.. What part do you not get...

Even on server applications, most are not truly muliti-threaded.. But being able to run multiple applications on server is key..

I could just buy a server to do this... But I need portable one.. thats why I am going with a quad core 9621.. With the 4gb of memory 7200rpm drives and Raid make this system killer for virtualization.

Joe

 

Well ok Joe,
I can agree that if you're going to setup and develop vm on your laptop that the quad core would be an advantage but come on Joe, you got to admit that is on the extreme end of "business apps" To most people this means office or a gui to a server based app. For those people you would see no difference between the dual / quad core processors and that is the only point I was trying to make. Since the author did not specify what business apps entails that is what I took to be the intent of the thread.

 

Ok paul your right... I tend to be a little too hard core when it comes to the extreme need... I agree with Paul.. It your using the basic office apps your probably won't notice the difference.. If your using some strong apps then it would be better to go with the quad..

Joe

 

Some people may think they need a mobile workstation to run business aplications that ask a lot of power. You probably know applications like Autocad, Arcgis, Shortrec (Route planning), and self-developped optimization tools?

I agree with you that a Quad isn't allways the best solution. It is sexy though and may be supported by current and future applictions that can handle more than two cores. I chose to have the E6850 because it seems to have the best performance for my applications now. The E6850 costs a little more than the Q6600, so money was no motive here.

By the way, when I want to play a game, I want to be sure my system runs it comfortably

 

I have a quad in my 9261 and it really pays dividends when I'm working -- I'm also a software developer and I run VMWare. On a standard day I have two OS's running: Native Vista Business 64 and VMWare Fedora7. I also have an XP Pro SP2 Virtual Machine. Plans are in the works for a Neutrino 4.x VM as well.

The multiple cores really shine there. This is the only "Mobile" platform with 800MHz RAM and Quads -- so there is no other choice if you are a "heavy" in the engineering world.

For gaming the E6850 will be better short term -- unless you are running Supreme Commander. Long term the Quad will be better. If a game takes advantage of dual cores then it will likely benefit from quad cores. I notice that 3 of my 4 cores are usually idle (keep in mind this means 1 of your 2 cores will also be idle if you go with a dual core).

The 9261 is an excellent computer for engineering -- probably more so than for gaming .

 

Do you run vmware on vista business 64?

Have you noticed if vmware is running as a 32 bit or a 64 bit app??

I know it supported 64 bit.. .But everytime I look under task manager it always runs as a 32 bit app...

My other laptop died and I really didn't have time to look at it...

Is there a way to install it as a 64 bit app?

How many vm's can you run???
Have you noticed if virtulization is enabled on the cpu... I have heard that it is disabled....

Also how was your experience with xoticpc???? I am thinking of ordering your same config except for the q6700.... How do you like your experience overall???

Joe

 

According to VMWare you can run 64-bit VMs if your native OS is 64-bit. You can have as many VMs as you want running at the same time -- until you run out of resources . A VM can consume 300-500MBs, or more.

I have no issues with Vista 64 except for some old USB hardware that doesn't work because the OEMs never made Vista or Vista 64 drivers. I've replaced my USB RS232 dongle for example.

My experience with Xotic was very good. They are very responsive and answered the many emails I sent.

The only time I was frustrated was when my laptop was stuck in the testing phase for over a week. This was due to Sager and not Xotic -- and Xotic did a great job of finding out why it was held up (SLI and 4GB issue with 8700's).

My 9261 is simply awesome. I love it so far... but I really wish I could run my two 8700's in SLI! I'm running Office 2007, Visual Studio Express 2005, QNX Momentix, Altera Quartus, Altera NIOS EDS, VMWare Workstation, and some other stuff. All running quite well (except NIOS EDS which isn't Vista 64 compliant until they release 7.2 SP1). Very pleased with the experience so far.

Also get the 4GB of RAM. You'll need it in Vista. My Vista load takes 1.3GB immediately after a cold-boot. While running a few standard apps its over 2GB. With some VMs running I push 3GB.

I'd get the Q6700 if you can afford it. I was hoping to overclock the Q6600 but that doesn't seem possible at the moment. Unless Sager/Clevo opens up the BIOS then there's not much hope for overclocking the CPU.

 

For your USB issues... Why don't you just use them with your vm's?
You can pass through your devices directly to your virtual machines...
Its great because the drivers 64 bit vista are hard to get for some hardware...

Can you open up task manager and see if vmware is running with a *32...
If it is.. then vmware is running in 32 bit mode... this is what I was seeing
in my m7700...

When I had 64bit vista running I turned off quite a bit of services...
Have you looked at vlite? at vlite.net...

looks pretty cool... i might try it out..

I will be definitely getting the Q6700... I just wish we could do some overclocking.... Hopefully someone out there will listen...
I wish I did lowlevel programming.....

Joe

 

so quad core with less FSB is better than dual core with higher FSB ?

1066 Vs 1333 ?

 

Bashar it really depends on how you use your computer. If like several of the other engineering types here you run multiple apps and copies the quad core is your best choice. As long as the native OS supports multiple cores it will divide up the work load until resources run out. If you are using single apps or dedicated apps a dual core with a higher fsb will be faster than a quad core slower fsb processor. But if like me and it is normal to run 4 or 5 copies of excel, bandwith calculation program, network simulator, a couple of sheets on explorer, a virtual window running another OS and a few minor apps. I would say the way to go would be a quad core. Each app may not run faster but having them all running at the same time at good speed is best, for me.