quad core or dual core 4 gaming ?

[delankster]

my 2yr old pc's starting to feel its age a bit.
and was thinking of a new cpu, and maybe some ram to freshen it up, untill upgrading the whole rig in a few years time

at the mo i have a core 2 duo, clock'd @ 2.4 with 2 gig ddr2 pc2-6400 ram with a geforce 8800 gts 512 on a asus p5b mobo

first thoughts were to go for the best quad that i can afford, and that works with my mobo
but have since read that the dual cores perform better in games than the quad.
" its better to have a larger clock speed on the 2 core than a lower clock speed on 4"  :g:

memory is pretty much dictated by my mobo (2 gig per slot, 4 slots) and windows xp (3.5gig) so i remember reading somewhere .

so my dilemma is.....
with my £200+ budget do i go for say a Core 2 Duo E8600 3.33GHz with the higher clock speed
or something like the Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz with the extra cores ?

your thoughts pls

[Anonymous]

This page says that both CPUs are supported but that you will need to ensure your BIOS is 2001 or newer.

So that sorts that part.

For the rest I would say go for the higher clock speeds of the dual core since you are going to upgrade in a couple of years anyway.

[spudgun55]

i would go for the quad, reason, its going to last you longer and with new games like GTA3,fallout 3,crysis ect ect  which are quad inhanced.

Q6600, you can easy oc to 3.4 on air plus only £130ish from overclockers:yahoo:

[kregoron]

Go for the Q9550 tbh, more and more applications and games utilizes quads these days, and this will without doubt increase to most of all apps and games in the near future especially with windows 7's awsome core balacing

[Anonymous]

But as he has already said, he is upgrading the whole thing in 2 years so he might as well get the benefit of the higher clock speeds.

[kregoron]

just browsed through a few charts at tomshardware and other review sites
 
the Q9550 actually beats the E8600 in something like 90% tests, even single thread applications..
im guessing that is due to the core being newer and more optimized
And we all know that 1 mhz on one cpu isnt as fast as 1mhz on another cpu anymore.. So the sentence im going for that cpu as it got more mhz cannot really justify much anymore
 
So the only benefit he would actually get from getting the E8600 is lower power usage and a tiny performance (1-4%) gain in a very limited amount of games /application

[Anonymous]

I only checked 2 sites; Tom's and Anandtech. In apps the 9550 wins pretty much all the time. In gaming the 8600 tends to win.

TB H why doesn't he just buy the cheapest?

[kregoron]

I only checked 2 sites; Tom's and Anandtech. In apps the 9550 wins pretty much all the time. In gaming the 8600 tends to win.
 
TB H why doesn't he just buy the cheapest?

Well im not really sure why he wants to upgrade, he already has a C2D, so so towards the E8600 im guessing he isnt really gonna gain that awsome much, he could go for the Quad just to get on the wagon
 
i would honestly suggest that you wait and save for a better rig when you decide to go a for a full rig upgrade

[delankster]

the main reason i was thinking of upgrade was getting the most out of the rig i've got .
The cpu was a cheap buy, enabling me to spend more on other parts.
The chip i have is fairly stable clock'd at 2.4 mhz but does have its moments and was always the plan to upgrade it as soon as i could afford.
 With it only having 2mb cache and the newer chips going up to 12mb thought it could be worth splashing some cash, Especially
since intel are dropping there prices.

 Did orginally think of upgrading the 8800 gts for something with a bit more grunt, then looked at the prices and thought better of it

Cheers for your thoughts, think i'm leaning towards a quad
 but will let ya know what i decide

[Anonymous]

i would honestly suggest that you wait and save for a better rig when you decide to go a for a full rig upgrade

totally agree

[kregoron]

the main reason i was thinking of upgrade was getting the most out of the rig i've got .
The cpu was a cheap buy, enabling me to spend more on other parts.
The chip i have is fairly stable clock'd at 2.4 mhz but does have its moments and was always the plan to upgrade it as soon as i could afford.
 With it only having 2mb cache and the newer chips going up to 12mb thought it could be worth splashing some cash, Especially
since intel are dropping there prices.

 Did orginally think of upgrading the 8800 gts for something with a bit more grunt, then looked at the prices and thought better of it

Cheers for your thoughts, think i'm leaning towards a quad
 but will let ya know what i decide

Well yes you will see a slight performance gain, but not really anything that can justify buying a new cpu now, if you upgrading everything with a near period anyway. as the upgrade you will probably be doing is a mean machine with i7, ddr3 and so on.. so the cpu will be rendered useless again..

But okay if you are gonna get a new cpu now, id still suggest a Quad..
There are just more transistors for the money (no one can deni that fact )

[[BIG]magnus]

What C2D do you have at the moment?  If you are having a few moments with reliability with your rig and you have not done much house cleaning in the case I would be inclined to do a good clean and even remove heatsink clean up cpu and heatsink and reseat with new thermal material.  Good hoover remove all dust.  Reboot cross fingers all goes well.  As for your present cpu the lack of L2 cache will make very little difference in most games.  Clock speed is what you want and a lot of the smaller cache'd C2D overclock very well with a little voltage.  Even getting a new CPU cooler like a xigmatech or the like will let you get some more MHZ for not much outlay.  Depending on the chip i would imagine 3.2 - 3.4 being fairly easy.  I have my Q9550 running at 3.9 but I don't think it makes a huge difference in my gaming over my old E8400 at the same speed.  Looking at task manager most games seem to use all cores on both chips but in reality it uses the same amount of CPU cycles on both chips but the Q each has less work to do but neither is maxed out.  I would go with the clean and spruce up for less than £35 first before going for an upgrade you will be surprised how much more can be squeezed out of your CPU.

Magnus

[kregoron]

magnus;260845']  As for your present cpu the lack of L2 cache will make very little difference in most games.  Clock speed is what you want
Magnus

what?

Bigger caches actually have troumendous amount affect on performance, and honestly clock speeds arent that big a fuzz anymore.. mhz difference helps a lot in stuff like video encoding, databases, and certain rendering scenarios..
Games arent really that solely depending on CPU speed anymore, its a delicate balance between CPU speed/cache/instruction sets..
i thought Intel / AMD showed 1 mhz cant be compared to 1mhz on another cpu anymore.. in the old Athlon 64 vs p4 war..

[delankster]

c2d is a E6300 1.86 ghz under an artic-cooler freezer 7 pro.

house cleaning..... i wouldn't say its a state in there, but its worth a try

will have a spring clean this wkend and see if it makes a difference :thumbsup2:

[kregoron]

c2d is a E6300 1.86 ghz under an artic-cooler freezer 7 pro.

house cleaning..... i wouldn't say its a state in there, but its worth a try

will have a spring clean this wkend and see if it makes a difference :thumbsup2:

well its always a good idea to give it a nice good cleaning, could give you a tiny bit more headroom to oc it a little

I just realised i might have a Q9650 up for sale, as its just collecting dust, got a offer from a m8 tho, so ill have to hear him if he still wants it (he hasnt asked for it in a while or you could give me a offer in a pm and get back to you over the weekend.