Socket 775 - So with it about to be replaced, what is it's fastest speed?

[pastymuncher]

So you are saying in 2yrs time games won't as a matter of course support more than two cores? I suspect you're wrong.

I recon the Q processors will have a little second lease of life with titles over the next couple of years when all of a sudden all that extra processing power is harnessed...

We will have to wait and see won't we. We are now a couple of years on from the launch of multicore cpu's and back then, just like you, people were saying that we will be seeing a mass of multicore cpu supporting games over the next year or so. They still have'nt arrived. One or two multi threaded games coming out does'nt mean that there is going to be a sudden flood of them. It just is'nt going to happen any time soon. It's as if the dev's just can't be bothered to do the extra coding.

In a couple of years we will have 4 and 8 core cpu's that make the Q series as obsolete as a P4. Core i7 will be starting that off with it's tri-channel DDR3 soon to be followed by the other two sockets. I very much doubt that games will be the programs that actually use all of these cores.

 

[benktlottie]

If you look at the best Intel available processor available when the C2D's were released, it was the EE3.73ghz, the 3.8ghz 775 and the Pentium D 3.4.

Today, those 3 chips can still be used to run any application commercially available with ease. Add a 10-15% overclock to those chips and you can play Crysis, encode video and watch 1080p HD no problem!

Software is quite a few years behind hardware, and this seems to remain constant. So, the disparities will still be there in 2-3 years time.

So, in 2 years time, todays current C2D beasts (QX9770, Q6600, E8600) will all still be decent chips, but slower comparibly with what will be available then (like we compare P4 to C2D these days). And todays current chips will be sufficient for further software releases over the next few years. An overclock may need to be applied, but most of todays high end C2D's will be fine.

A 3.6ghz C2D Q6600 isn't going to be obselete in 2 years!!! The opposite, a P4 3.8ghz will be obselete in 2 years time. Processor have an approx life cycle of 6-7 years....

EDIT: I just thought of an amusing scenario I encountered with the last project I ran as PM. We were doing a Vista upgrade for 110000 people and a hardware refresh for 20000. We found a machine running a little DOS app in a live business environment running on a P2 266mhz Compaq with 64MB RAM! It servered its purpose, and wasnt known to crash. We couldnt Vista the box, and because of the dodgy old coding, no hardware refresh. So we left it, and I would imagine its still going now! The hardware is totally and utterly obselite but if it aint broke, why fix it?

 

[cavemanoc]

...snip...
then i7 will become as standard as core2duo
which will lead the way to better games

forcing you to upgrade anyway

why are you complaining/or even raising the issues

if you want your computer to perform well - you need to accept that you will have to stump up the money for the performance

I beg to differ - my s939 platform still gives me all the performance I need - like wise my (heavily OC'ed) Socket A kept up with the 939s well into their first couple of years. Were it not for the cheap asking price of DDR2 I would probably have skipped C2D altogether. The real question is whether AMD can recreate their ATi success in the processor arena, that could dramatically change the 'accepted upgrade path'

We are all too easily seduced by shiny new tech and often feel pressured to upgrade long before it's really needed or justified. Chasing the bleeding edge doesn't really grant and concrete advantages over judicious selection of mid-range kit.

 

[benktlottie]

I beg to differ - my s939 platform still gives me all the performance I need - like wise my (heavily OC'ed) Socket A kept up with the 939s well into their first couple of years. Were it not for the cheap asking price of DDR2 I would probably have skipped C2D altogether. The real question is whether AMD can recreate their ATi success in the processor arena, that could dramatically change the 'accepted upgrade path'

We are all too easily seduced by shiny new tech and often feel pressured to upgrade long before it's really needed or justified. Chasing the bleeding edge doesn't really grant and concrete advantages over judicious selection of mid-range kit.

What he says!