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[H-kon]

The itch is there, so i am planning to buy a quad core cpu when money allows it. I just sold one E2200 based computer and hoarding the money for later.

I've been looking at the Phenom X4 9950 which compares to a Q6600 as far as i can tell. That you need to pair it with the  AMD AM2+ socket  790GX chipset isn't cheap either.

Then there is the Q6600 - It's good, but also, it draws a lot of power compared to the 0.045 micron Penryn based offerings like the Q9300, Q9450, Q9550 which offer a huge bang, but also comes with a hefty price tag in my opinion.

I am picking up a GA-G31M-S2L which is dirt cheap and is probably the best motherboard that I've ever had except for the KT133 chipset based A7V-133 back in the late 90's.

I am leaning towards the Q9550 if the price drops this month, otherwise i am not sure.

What do you think offers the best value right now? The computer will be used for movie encoding/decoding mostly and BOINC of course and the general purpose stuff.

[Elf]

Found this article at AnandTech.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3344&p=1

They tested the Phenom x4 9950, 9350e and 9150e and a number of Intel Quad/Duo chips. They didn't test a Q9550 but did test a Q9450 which is a bit slower.
They did have a problem with the Cool'n'Quiet feature of the Phenom chips which hamper performance in some tests.

A G0 stepping Q6600 is a 0.065 micron and (as far as I understand it) runs up to 95watts of power.
A Q9550 is a 0.045 micron, has more cache and runs up to 95w of power. I could be wrong with the power thing, haven't done much reading into it.

The GA-G31M-S2L board looks good and supports all the Intel Duo and Quad chips.

I would stick with Intel C2Q chips. In Australia the Intel and AMD equivalent cpu's are about the same price but the AMD boards are more expensive.

[H-kon]

Thats a great post Elf

Looks like the Phenom X4 9950 is marginally faster than a Q6600 which is being EOL'd in November.

I am looking at Intel again, and the Q9550 seems to be the best of the bunch until Core7i arrives which require a new (expensive) motherboard and DDR III memory which isn't much faster, but have much greater bandwith.

AMD chips are a little bit cheaper here than Intel, but it does seem like a bad buy. More power requirements (and cooling) and less performance pr Mhz than Intel's offerings.

I can get two Q6600 for the same price as one Q9550, so i might replace my two E2180's with those, or go with two E8500's.

Hmm. Too much choice, and prices are pretty decent. They'll go up pretty soon here though since our currency (NOK) is falling like a rock compared to the Euro and the Dollar (100 USD was 500 NOK, now it's over 700 NOK).