Which processor to choose?

Question

Processors

Hello Khabrovchani! I have a question for you, to which during the day I could not find an answer, opinions differ. Actually the question itself: they offered to exchange motherboards, I now have an asus p5k motherboard with a Core QUAD Q6600 processor (4 cores, 2.4Hz), they offer p7h55m and a core i3 540 processor (2 cores, 3Hz). Processors are critical, some say take the i3 540, others don't even think about it! Google has at least shown that the i3 540 is more powerful. How to be? Is it worth the exchange? Thanks in advance!
I will clarify that at the moment, on a machine with asus p5k + Q6600, music is being progressively written + working with video + many other calculations are being made, almost by decoding md5 hashes.

Answer 1

Do not change.
The number of cores decides.

Answer 2

It depends on the tasks that you need - if you work a lot with programs that support multi-core processing (for example, 3d max or the like) and speed is critical for you, then 4 cores justify themselves. If you have more tasks that are not capable of separation, then 2 cores are more relevant

Answer 3

www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 2.982
Intel Core i3 530 @ 2.93GHz 2.728
540 is not there, but you can draw a conclusion from 530.
I would never take i3 for anything. in this case, the number of cores decides.

Answer 4

Take i3, but in my opinion you will need to change RAM to DDR3.
PS: For pictures, photoshops and decorating md5 hashes, use graphic adapters, they are much more powerful.

Answer 5

i3 540 - obsolete. Recommend i3-2100 or higher.
Performance :
e6600 = 2.161
i3-540 = 2.846
q6600 = 2.992
i3-2100 = 3.860

Answer 6

The Q6600 itself has the same mother: until now, the processor is not a bottleneck in modern games.
I will say this: many 3.5 years ago tried to dissuade me from buying this processor, they advised me to install a more powerful dual core. So, their powerful dual cores started to shut up on modern games a year later, and mine is still good.
In general, in games, the cores decide now.

Answer 7

Approximately the same. Is that the 1156th socket is preferable in terms of future upgrades.

Answer 8

First, decide what model you have.
You can see the comparison test here.
It is clear that testing can “lie”, but it will do as a subjective assessment. E6600 Noticeably loses to i3. Q6600 is unfortunately not there, but this is not the only free test sheet ;)

Answer 9

To work with video - definitely 4 cores (by the way, video transcoding is one of the small cases when I loaded all 4 cores at 100%.). Most serious work applications have long supported multi-cores. The games are great too.
Life story: I myself had a Q6600, but then I had to transfer to a simpler car. I simply could not sit with a weak processor for a long time and took the Q9400 for inexpensively.
If you change it, then only on i7, then the increase will be noticeable.