Which of these *should* perform better?

[BDEE]

Two old computers which I have and looking to donate one for gaming on. Appreciate they are both "poor" specs, but which should technically be better for gaming on?

Q6600 2.4Ghz with 4GB DDR2 @ 667mhz


OR

Athlon II X2 250 3.00Ghz with 2GB DDR3 @ 1333mhz


Many Thanks

 

[stulid]

The Q6600 is the faster option.

 

[Akagi]

Indeed it is. Though depending on what motherboard the AMD CPU is in, I'd be tempted to keep that one as it is newer and you could slot a Phenom II in at some point.

 

[demon8991]

The Q6600 is the faster option.

Agree the Q6600 is definitely faster!

Indeed it is. Though depending on what motherboard the AMD CPU is in, I'd be tempted to keep that one as it is newer and you could slot a Phenom II in at some point.

My choice would still be with the AMD option as given the right motherboard as mentioned above you have a much better future proofed machine.

 

[disi]

Very close:
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core2-Quad-Q6600-vs-AMD-Athlon-II-X2-250
The Athlon wins in single core performance and the Intel in anything multicore because of hyperthreading* it is a quadcore. For single core applications (most games) the Athlon would be slightly faster given those benchmarks.

*just saw it doesn't have HT

p.s. the AMD needs ~40% less power and runs ~10 degrees hotter... with am3 socket on the board, you can easily upgrade to the latest and greatest AMD CPU, while Intel LGA 775 socket it not used anymore and you need a new board to upgrade the CPU.

 

[BDEE]

Thanks - the other issue I have now discovered is that the mobo the q6600 is on only has an old pci slot, so can't attach a pci-e GPU, whereas the mobo the Athlon is on has a pci-e, so another consideration for which to contine with. It's for gaming for te kids, so nothing with major demand - I looked at the mobo the Athlon is on - its socket AM3?

 

[Akagi]

What motherboard is the Q6600 in? Model should be printed on it somewhere if you don't know.

 

[BDEE]

I've gone with keeping the athlon. The board it is on will take some upgrades - the board the q6600 was on was an off the shelf Packard bell job - I eventually found a manual online for it after some digging - was one of these generic re-branded boards with a different model number on - it has zero upgrade potential, so going to look at a phenom and some more ram as an upgrade to the Athlon

Thanks all.

 

[demon8991]

I've gone with keeping the athlon. The board it is on will take some upgrades - the board the q6600 was on was an off the shelf Packard bell job - I eventually found a manual online for it after some digging - was one of these generic re-branded boards with a different model number on - it has zero upgrade potential, so going to look at a phenom and some more ram as an upgrade to the Athlon

Thanks all.

Good choice, as previously stated you have the option (motherboard dependant) of upgrading the CPU at some point to get big performance gains.