QX6850 or QX9650 Processor??

[Ray&Paula]

Hi, I'm currently building a video editing workstation. Upon looking over the processors I noticed a very close price differance between the QX6850 and the QX9650, anywhere from $10.00 to $50.00. Am I wrong, wouldn't the 12mb be much better than 8mb? Am I missing something? If I am please let know. Thanks, Ray

QX6850 3ghz 1333mhz 8mb

QX9650 3ghz 1333mhz 12mb

[poisondeathray]

Get the QX9650

It's 45nm vs. 65nm, requires less voltage, runs cooler (about 8-12 degress C), and has SSE4 instruction set. The larger cache alone give you 5-10% preformance advantage across the board in most applications at the same clockspeed. There are many reviews if you look around. Both are "extreme" series, so they have their multipiers unlocked for overclocking purposes.

While not many programs take advantage of SSE4 yet, when they do in the future (when programmers finally incorporate it), it will be beneficial. DivX currently takes advantage and boasts 30-40% fps increase - since this is a video editing workstation, this might be useful.

If it were up to me, I would get the Q9450 and overclock it. You could easily get 3.0Ghz on stock voltage (probably 3.2Ghz, and 3.5-3.6GHz with decent cooling) and save $600.

[Ray&Paula]

Thanks for all the help! Ray