Power consumption
- higher for quads either at idle or at load
- which leads to higher electricity bill!
Heat generation
- 4 cores will generate more heat
- As such, a quad would need better cooling
- Remember that heat is the no. 1 enemy of over clocking
Overclocking
Quad-cores loses out to dual-cores in terms of overclocking in every aspect (even if they use the same processor die):
1) Speed - dual-core can overclock higher at any given vcore
--- e.g. my previous E6750 can OC to 3.5Ghz at 1.400v in BIOS, where my current Q6600 can only reach 3.2Ghz at 1.400v in BIOS....
2) FSB - quad-cores usually have a lower max FSB, mainly due not only to heat but bus speed issues
--- e.g. a E6750 G0 stepping may max at 490-500mhz.... a Q6600 G0 may only max at 450-460mhz....
3) Tweaking/BIOS setup - a quad-core may need more tweaks in BIOS e.g. VTT, GTL, etc....
4) Vdroop - using a similar setup/motherboard, quad-cores usually have a larger vdroop, making load vcore lower and thus less overclocking speed
--- It is observed that quad-core results in more vdroop
--- For example, for a BIOS-set vcore of 1.400v:
------ a dual-core may result in a vdrop/vdroop of at load e.g. : 1.39v/1.36v
------ a quad-core usually has a higher vdrop/vdroop at load e.g. : 1.36v/1.32v
--- So, if you look at the real vcore at load, the dual will be running at 1.36v whereas the quad is running at 1.32v, which is 0.04v lower.....
5) Heat - there will be much more heat generated for an overclocked quad-core as compared to an overclocked dual-core
--- this will again, limit the overclocking capabilities of the quad....
Speed for speed - Dual-cores are cheaper than quad-cores
- e.g. E6600 is cheaper than Q6600 (both stock speed at 2.4Ghz)
- e.g. E6750 is also cheaper than Q6600 (Even though the E6750 runs faster at 2.66Ghz)
At the same price point - Dual-core are generally has a faster speed
- E.g. Previous, you could probably get a E6850 (3.0Ghz) at the same price as a Q6600 (2.4Ghz) - dropping prices not withstanding
- Due to this factor, the dual-core would be better suited for non-overclockers.....