How slow it my Q6600 compared to more modern CPUs?

[MrMarvelous]

Then don't upgrade.

 

[NeilF]

Then don't upgrade.

Indeed! I'm astounded that an I7 seemingly offers so little improvement over a Q6600? Seems bonkers!

 

[gpuerrilla]

Indeed! I'm astounded that an I7 seemingly offers so little improvement over a Q6600? Seems bonkers!

Depends on what i7 you are comparing against. I noticed an improvement going from 2007 to 2012 tech.

 

[joeyjojo]

Some of those charts suggest the exact opposite. Those figures make an upgrade for me look utterly worthless...?

Those are averages, the minimum FPS has probably increased by more. Also, BF3 is old, expect to see the gap widen with newer ones, e.g. Metro LL.

That said, most of the time the GPU is way more important. A £100 CPU will generally be plenty for a high end GPU. It's only really crossfire/SLI (or a few really CPU heavy games) where you need an expensive CPU.

But I digress...

 

[NeilF]

Depends on what i7 you are comparing against. I noticed an improvement going from 2007 to 2012 tech.

That was the latest gen!

 

[NeilF]

Those are averages, the minimum FPS has probably increased by more. Also, BF3 is old, expect to see the gap widen with newer ones, e.g. Metro LL.

That said, most of the time the GPU is way more important. A £100 CPU will generally be plenty for a high end GPU. It's only really crossfire/SLI (or a few really CPU heavy games) where you need an expensive CPU.

But I digress...

Fair comment!

Metro on medium settings, at 1920x200 was twice as fast on the i7!


It's a shame he doesn't mention what his Q6600 was running at. ie: Mine's 40% above standard speed!

 

[cheesyboy]

Indeed! I'm astounded that an I7 seemingly offers so little improvement over a Q6600? Seems bonkers!

Did you not look at the link I posted?

Toms Hardware did a cross-generation lab test a few months back. They used a Q9550, but it gives you an idea of gains in a few games;
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-wolfdale-yorkfield-comparison,3487-9.html

A significant jump moving to a modern i5

Shows a huge increase in gaming performance moving to an i5-3570k in Borderlands 2, Crysis 3, Far Cry 3, Starcraft II etc. And that's a better Core2Quad than yours, and a stock-speed 3570k.

Although, they did use a better GPU than you have.

i7s don't usually offer much extra performance over the i5s in games.

 

[NeilF]

Did you not look at the link I posted?


Shows a huge increase in gaming performance moving to an i5-3570k in Borderlands 2, Crysis 3, Far Cry 3, Starcraft II etc. And that's a better Core2Quad than yours, and a stock-speed 3570k.

Although, they did use a better GPU than you have.

i7s don't usually offer much extra performance over the i5s in games.

OK! That's impressive! - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-wolfdale-yorkfield-comparison,3487-10.html

Using the Q9550 @ 3.4ghz is a fair comparison (sort of) to mine Q6600 I guess! So you're sort of doubling FPS with some titles.

Basically on a lot of titles the minimum FPS is 50+% higher!

 

[gpuerrilla]

Basically on a lot of titles the minimum FPS is 50+% higher!

Which is more important than having > 120 fps if you do not have a display that requires it.

 

[NeilF]

Which is more important than having > 120 fps if you do not have a display that requires it.

Agreed...

 

[Jaswan]

for reference

i have a 7950 clocked at 1250 core and 1700 mem, so a fair amount faster than your 7870 i would guess. iv mostly been playing farcry3 and my gpu usage is usually 99.9% load. but my cpu sits at 40% (4670k that is "only" clocked at 4.2, i cant see the point in clocking it higher)

Jason.

 

[NeilF]

^ Interesting

 

[Jaswan]

hi,

if you use msi afterburner you can set the osd to show gpu/cpu loads. put it on then fire up a game and see if the cpu is limiting your performance i.e full load.

Jason.

 

[FartInferno]

Yesterday I upgraded from my 3.4 Q6600 to an FX8320 (Kept my HD6950 for the time being). Performance wise there isn't any particular wow factor, it is most certainly quicker though. But, instead of venting hot air from my rad at idle & very hot at load, it now blows cold & a little bit warm I've yet to overclock it . My SSD finally reaches it's rated transfer speeds too. Gaming wise, I ran a few benchmarks before upgrading and in all cases my min FPS increased dramatically (in Valley 1.0 it doubled) but max FPS only improved slightly. Played Arkham Origins last night and any previous slowdowns were gone.

I spent £320 on an FX8320,990FXA-UD5 & 8GB of Geil Potenza, money well spent in my view, I should be able to recover some of the cost if I sell the Q6600 setup on. Would've preferred Haswell but very happy with what I got.

 

[NeilF]

^^ So that sort of backs up a doubling of minimum FPS is a fair expectation of moving from a Q6600 to a modern CPU.


Last night I was playing "State of Decay" at 1680x1050 on my Radeon 7870XT (Q6600 at 3.4ghz). In high graphics quality it was running at about 25-35fps. In medium it was up to about 55-70.

For the moment I'm happy to drop the visual quality and get the higher FPS, but it's clear that soon I'll need that magical double or tripling of speed.

 

[kevbiss1]

As well as minimum fps greatly improved , i find this overall leads to a much smoother gaming experience.
Going down the pc gaming route will enevetively lead to required upgrades
since ive added a gtx 670,i find gaming at 1080p is now a complete superb gaming pleasure(with all settings on ultra)

 

[NeilF]

As well as minimum fps greatly improved , i find this overall leads to a much smoother gaming experience.
Going down the pc gaming route will enevetively lead to required upgrades
since ive added a gtx 670,i find gaming at 1080p is now a complete superb gaming pleasure(with all settings on ultra)

Well, the Q6600 gives me a good experience at the moment with my 7870 XT, so I'll happily live with it at least well into next year But then I'll upgrade and expect a double/tripple frame rate increase!

 

[Akagi]

BIG difference. A heavily overclocked Q6600 (talking 3.6GHz+) is matched by Sandybridge i3's. Just imagine how it would fare against something like a Haswell i5 for instance.

I think my Q6600 at 3GHz was bottlenecking even my 4870X2 as I saw a tremendous frame rate boost when I moved the 4870X2 into an i7 920 rig.

 

[Gazb]

Yesterday I upgraded from my 3.4 Q6600 to an FX8320 (Kept my HD6950 for the time being). Performance wise there isn't any particular wow factor, it is most certainly quicker though. But, instead of venting hot air from my rad at idle & very hot at load, it now blows cold & a little bit warm I've yet to overclock it . My SSD finally reaches it's rated transfer speeds too. Gaming wise, I ran a few benchmarks before upgrading and in all cases my min FPS increased dramatically (in Valley 1.0 it doubled) but max FPS only improved slightly. Played Arkham Origins last night and any previous slowdowns were gone.

I spent £320 on an FX8320,990FXA-UD5 & 8GB of Geil Potenza, money well spent in my view, I should be able to recover some of the cost if I sell the Q6600 setup on. Would've preferred Haswell but very happy with what I got.

That's a pretty nice upgrade for not a 'huge' amount of money, and that setup should hopefully last you longer too, with games becoming more and more multi-threaded.

 

[implosiveturnip]

Last night I was playing "State of Decay" at 1680x1050 on my Radeon 7870XT (Q6600 at 3.4ghz). In high graphics quality it was running at about 25-35fps. In medium it was up to about 55-70.

Some serious bottlenecking going on there if you're only hitting 25-35 on high in State of Decay with that card. It's a DX9 title and not the best looking one around either. You're going to love the jump to a newer chip! I went from a Phenom x4 9550 be to a 3770k and the difference was night and day!