Core 2 Duo E6850 vs. Core 2 Quad Q6600 ?

I'm about to upgrade (building from scratch) but I'm not sure which of these CPU's would be the wisest choice. They are both the same price.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0GHz 1333Mhz, 4MB
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 1066MHz, 8MB

I wouldn't mind over-clocking slightly, although I have no experience of that.

Thanks

depends on what your doing, the quad core is faster overall, but it requires a well optimized application to take full advantage of it, if you a heavy gamer i would probably get the dual core as most games are only two threads (though they are just starting to use a bit more then 2, they still can get nowhere close to using the full 4 cores). The 3Ghz will result in the best FPS for a gaming system, however if your doing stuff that works very well with multiple cores (server, programming [building specifically], ray-tracing), then get the quad core as it will be much faster

Basically if you need to get every ounce of speed out of a single threaded app then go for the dual, but if you run many applications or some that are very well threaded then get the quad as it has the best overall speed

Right, so if only 2 cores are being used - it wont be as fast as the dual core. Hmm. But I could overclock the quad core to 3Ghz! I saw someone say they had done that and were still using the stock fan and it was fine. I plan to get a Zalman fan.

I will use it for gaming but I don't have as much time for games as I want - the main use is web app. development.

Currently when I work I have too many apps running and my P4 2.66GHz laptop gets frustratingly slow - seriously. Typically:
FF with 20 tabs, cuteFTP 8 Pro, iTunes, Nusphere PHPEd IDE, Apache, MySQL, Photoshop/Fireworks, SciTE/Notepad, Skype. And also maybe Flash 8 IDE, and IE 7.

I'm tending towards the quad core as it will be more future-proof and I've read nothing but "wow" from customer reviews.

yea, i would just get the quad core then, you can overclock it but don't expect to hit 3Ghz with the 2.4Ghz CPU, i think its a bit much (though some people have done it, i think it would require a bit much), 2.6-2.8Ghz is probably more likely, and if your running many applications and are not a heavy gamer then the quad is the way to go

The biggest problem with that CPU is the multiplier is locked pretty low and that makes it tough to overclock, hitting 3Ghz would require overclocking the FSB by 25%, that will be very hard on the motherboard

I have the E6750 with 1333MHz and it runs like a dream
So either way, both of those processes are gonna' handle quite a bit haha.

Ebuyer has some great deals for quads at the moment!

I've seen a few encouraging comments of people overclocking this cpu to 3.2 / 3.3 (http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.aspx?sku=330169). But I will probably be satisfied with 2.8GHz.

Heh yeah, ebuyer is a couple of quid cheaper

I'm looking at decent motherboards though - meant to be very easy to overclock. But I can't work it out. I'm agonising over some Asus boards - mostly P5K3 (DDR3), P5KC (DDR2/DDR3), P5K

I need to decide on DDR2 or DDR3, and thus motherboard Any suggestions for this cpu - or shall I make another thread?

go with DDR3 if you can afford it and find a board that supports a nice fast speed, otherwise get DDR2, though you may want to see if you can get your RAM overclocked

If the CPU FSB is 1066MHz, does that mean I can't have RAM faster than that? I probably can but will the cpu be able to take advantage of it?

I think Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 1066MHz, 8MB is better .

no, on an intel system the speed of the RAM and the speed of the FSB are independent, you can have anything you can build, and most most boards will let you control each separately

They're not independent, however while you don't have to run them in sync, you still need to run them to a specific divider to each other.