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Considering a move from Dual Core To Quad, but lower FSB? any point?

zeegy

zeegy

zeegy

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Joined
7 Oct 2003
Posts
674
Location
Bournemouth
Hi guys,

Am considering upgrading my CPU, its getting a tad old now, im considering an i7 but parts of may are just telling myself to wait untill all the new technology comes out next year.

At present, i am running a E8200 (dual Core 2.66Ghz 1333fsb) cpu on my Asus p5n-e SLI board.

I want some more grunt on the processing part, as i believe that it may be the bottleneck to my ATI 5850.

Whats your guys opinions? should i migrate to quad? its it a worthy upgrade?

Im looking at the Q6000 (1066fsb @ 2.4Ghz) Quad, i would go for a 1333 chip, but they dont seem to be reccomended for my board - people have got them working, but then others seem to have real issues with them

Will i see a performance drop if my FSB drops? is this even worth considering?
 
Obvious question here is: what do you do with your PC? Think most people would suggest you stick with what you have for gaming. If you do video or graphics work, quad core all the way imho :)

For reference, Tom's Hardware recently ran this article on building a balanced gaming PC. The 2nd chart on that page implies that even a Phenom II x2 550 (overclocked) very nearly keeps up with an AMD 5870. I suspect that you're pretty much in line with your 5850 and won't see a vast performance gain from changing CPU unless you have some specifically quad optimised games.

Though you could look into overclocking what you have - suspect you'd comfortably hit 3.33GHz :)
 
Thats what i was suspecting - as most games dont benefit that much from extra cores yet....

Time to dust off my old Coolermaster WC Kit, and find a 775 waterblock for it :)
 
Hehe, well if you're going water, I imagine 3.3 is the minimum you'd get out of it xD

I believe both Intel and AMD are due some next gen products within 6 months, so probably worth hanging on for a while if you can :)
 
@eddiew....i agree with ur premise but contradict with your conclusion.
no doubt its true that intel will be releasing its new sandy bridge cpu(s) which will be based on a newer architecture, but as long as gaming is the main concern here...it would take quite a few years before the games start using that many cores, minimum of 6.

games Have started using a quad core now, and for sure all the upcoming games will utilize a quad core even better. As long as the core 2 duos are concerned , i think that they are a 100% bottleneck for the present as well as the future games.

@zeegy, if u are going to game for like 5 more years i think , at this stage the i7 9xx is the way through but if u plan than your gaming days are going to be over in say, 3 years or so then the cheapest and the most sensible way is getting a quad core.
a q9400 oced to 3.5ghz or more will suffice.
 
bongas said:
@eddiew....i agree with ur premise but contradict with your conclusion.
no doubt its true that intel will be releasing its new sandy bridge cpu(s) which will be based on a newer architecture, but as long as gaming is the main concern here...it would take quite a few years before the games start using that many cores, minimum of 6.

games Have started using a quad core now, and for sure all the upcoming games will utilize a quad core even better. As long as the core 2 duos are concerned , i think that they are a 100% bottleneck for the present as well as the future games.

@zeegy, if u are going to game for like 5 more years i think , at this stage the i7 9xx is the way through but if u plan than your gaming days are going to be over in say, 3 years or so then the cheapest and the most sensible way is getting a quad core.
a q9400 oced to 3.5ghz or more will suffice.
Click to expand...

IMO, it'd be much smarter for him to buy a q6600 now and then do a complete overhaul to newer tech in a few years than waste money on a stupidly priced chip now with the hopes of future proofing. An E8200 is not a "100% bottleneck" for present games, especially considering that they overclock very well and will outperform slower quads in games that are not multithreaded. For some games, yes it is a bottleneck (I'm thinking BC2 here), but his situation is certainly nowhere near as bad as what you imply.
 
i am sorry u got me all wrong, by the PRESENT games i meant the games which were released in 2010 or even 2009........Battle field bad company 2 , dragon age origins, gta 4, even tom clancy's splinter cell conviction uses 100% of a core 2 duo (in task manager)
assasin's creed 2, bioshock 2, mass effect 2, ..........i can go on ,
i think i have made my point.

and as long as the q9400 is concerned.......i agree it aint that great.......it was a random guess!!
 
Devrij said:
IMO, it'd be much smarter for him to buy a q6600 now and then do a complete overhaul to newer tech in a few years than waste money on a stupidly priced chip now with the hopes of future proofing. An E8200 is not a "100% bottleneck" for present games, especially considering that they overclock very well and will outperform slower quads in games that are not multithreaded. For some games, yes it is a bottleneck (I'm thinking BC2 here), but his situation is certainly nowhere near as bad as what you imply.
Click to expand...

Could you justify the move from a 2.66 1333fsb DC to a 2.4Ghz 1066fsb QC?

In your opinion, is it worth the upgrade?
 
bongas said:
iBattle field bad company 2 , dragon age origins, gta 4, even tom clancy's splinter cell conviction uses 100% of a core 2 duo (in task manager)
assasin's creed 2, bioshock 2, mass effect 2, ..........i can go on
Click to expand...

Ah, this sort of thing I was unaware of - I'm not a big gamer really, last I knew there was pretty much nothing going beyond dual cores ^^;

Although the THG article I linked higher up might be useful - it does depend on what Zeegy wants to play I guess :)
 
agreed.....if he wants to play the games of 2009 and beyond , then quad core is the way to go.... but if his gaming compassion is limited to the "old games" then u were right at the first place that the core 2 duo is not a bottleneck... and in that case ZEEGY will no longer be called a real gamer....or more precisely an up to date gamer.

cheers @eddiew
 
best i look for a QC then, and then hold back for a full refresh when i can justify it. cheers peeps. am i going to notice much of a difference going from 1333 to 1066 fsb?
 
if you really want to OC to then go for that Quad Core Q6600 because once you overclock the cpu, its natural that you will overclock the fsb too, and it would become more than 1333.
 
I had an E8200 on a AC Freezer 7 Pro couple of years ago, happily did 3.4GHz with stock vcore on the same mobo I have now. Moved to the Q6600 and did notice a very big deference in gaming, but only after the over clock. E8200 did ran cooler even when over clocked, than the Q6600. Power consumption is much higher in Q6600 as well.

I was on a fence about upgrading to an i5 760 or PIIx6 1055t for the last few months, but now have set my mind for a custom water cooling loop - a lot a reading still!
 
It seems judging by posts about dual vs quad, most people seem to have moved onto quads while some still own dual. I also have a dual E6600 as mentioned in earlier post and don't see any need to upgrade yet as I mainly use my PC for gaming.

Does any body have rough idea as to how much time duals have left before they are considered redundant when looking at the issue from gaming perspective? I had thought that most games still run fine on dual.
 
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