New CPU Advice

[Cerador]

Here's my problem. My current spec can play battlefield 3 on decently high settings.

Yet when I play a game like Guild Wars 2, the system suffers.

I've heard (it may be bad advice) it's because games like BF3 are more about the GPU while Guild Wars 2 is more about CPU.

Could someone look at my specs and tell me if upgrading my CPU would help with games like Guild Wars 2.

Any other upgrade suggestions are welcome as well.

Here's my current specs:

* I was told to come here from a friend as he said you guys know your stuff. Feel free to link to any overclockers.co.uk products for me to checkout.

 

[HankScorpio]

It is true that BF3 leans more towards GPU scaling while mmos favour cpu performance.

Are you looking to build a new system? Also have you overclocked your CPU?

 

[Cerador]

To be honest, I want to avoid building a new system if I can help it.

My build, while not high-end does run games like BF3 pretty darn well.

It's just certain games, like GW2 feel like something is holding it back slightly.

I haven't overclocked my CPU, no. Would that help increase performance quite a bit?

It is true that BF3 leans more towards GPU scaling while mmos favour cpu performance.

Are you looking to build a new system? Also have you overclocked your CPU?

 

[HankScorpio]

Should do, depends how much of an overclock you squeeze out of it. No idea on these cpus though. 2.4, perhaps you can push it to maybe 3Ghz? Will most prob give a fps boost in most games doing that.

 

[notthemilkybark]

The Q6600 is a famously good overclocker. Take a look around a few threads here, you should find plenty of hints to getting more performance out of it. Should help ease that CPU bottleneck.

 

[HankScorpio]

Should be good then. If you're playing BF3 fine on high settings at stock cpu speeds, your rig should be good for a while longer with a good overclock.

 

[hyperst]

Do you have an after market cooler on the cpu?

If not it would be a good idea to do that before overclocking, and yes 3.0ghz would improve your performance in the games you want and only for the cost of a half decent cooler.

 

[bremen1874]

It's a Dell so a CPU overclock probably isn't an option (although there’s a chance that a conductive paint pin mod could get it to 3GHz on default voltage – but that’s getting a bit messy).

Depending on the systems age it might take a later model S775 quad, but given the premium pricing they still demand it probably isn’t worth it.

Time to cut your losses and get a third Gen i5 based system (or live with it as it is).