I have been trying to decide the same choice for my media
editing/encoding box. I didn't know about the E8400 Wolfsdale, as I
was looking at the Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz . Is the only
difference the cache size, and, of course, the cheaper price?
Am I the only one considering Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Yorkfield
3.0GHz 12MB L2 Cache? It can be had for what I paid for my dual
3.56Ghz Xeons five years ago. I bought them in the 2/04 and four
years later they still do everything I need to do and they don't seem
old to me at all. As long as the premium ASUS motherboard holds up
they should continue to do their job well into the future. The only
down side is power cost, they suck up as much electricity as my
refrigerator, but they have proved to be a great value to me.
I see the same future value for the QX9650. And the Extreme CPUs
offer maximum versatility, as well as holding their value remarkably
well. Unless I see something better this is the choice I will probably make.
So I'm debating between these two CPUs:
Q6600 Kentsfield (2.4 Ghz, Quadcore, 65nm)
E8400 Wolfsdale (3.0 Ghz, Dualcore, 45nm)
