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Upgrade question - dual or quad

jb444

jb444

jb444

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Joined
7 Apr 2009
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19
i have a sk775 board with an E5200 but would like to upgrade the cpu to extend the life of this pc for a few more years ( already the E5200 struggles or does not meet min req for some games )

so while the pc is used for many general tasks, the main reason to upgrade is to play games

gpu is OK i think ( HD4870 )

so do i go for a faster dual core or maybe a cheaper quad core, have read mixed reports about the dual/quad/games thing but dont understand enough yet, and whichever cpu i get i will want to o/c :-)

budget is under £100 on ( used )
 
Depending on the motherboard and ram you have you could overclock that E5200 to 3.4-3.6Ghz for a big boost in performance. It will need a half decent cooler but the Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 is less than £20. Then you can replace that 4870 with something like a GTX 460. What res do you game at?
 
pastymuncher said:
Depending on the motherboard and ram you have you could overclock that E5200 to 3.4-3.6Ghz for a big boost in performance. It will need a half decent cooler but the Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 is less than £20.
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+1. That CPU just loves to be overclocked - if your board is decent then a 50% clockspeed increase is very do-able so long as you invest in a decent after-market cooler.

If you do want to upgrade the CPU, then I would look no further than a second-hand Q6600 (G0 stepping) or Q6700. The Q6600 G0s have been selling for £75-80 recently. The extra two cores of the Q6x00 are starting to be very useful in modern games as more and more titles are being programmed to utilise more than two cores - this means you will get better performance in games like this and in general the system should last longer before a full upgrade is required. Also, these Q6x00 chips overclock well - with a decent cooler and motherboard you should be aiming for an overclock to 3.5-3.6GHz.

As for the graphics card - the 4870 is still a good card and approximately on-par (in terms of raw performance) with the 5770 and only slightly behind the GTX 460 768MB. Due to this, I would only suggest upgrading the GPU if you plan to get something of the GTX 470 or HD 5850 level or better - otherwise you won't feel much of a performance boost. That all said, if you overclock/upgrade the CPU and that resolves your performance problems then a GPU upgrade may be unnecessary at the moment - so long as you feel it performs sufficiently in modern games at your resolution.
 
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I just upgraded from an E5200, 4GB DDR2 and a 4870 1GB.

I found that even if it was overclocked to 3.8GHz on some games it just wouldn't help, and only a quad core would have got me proper playable FPS.

Obviously as said above the cheap upgrade option is getting a Q6600 if you don't mind staying in socket 775. Otherwise the jump to AM3 is the cheapest upgrade path if you wanna get an up to date DDR3 quad core system.
 
hi all and thanks for the replies

just to gave you some more info, i have the E5200 running at 3.5 with a freezer7 pro cooler

the system plays all the games really well on 1680 x 1050 on high settings but struggles with Black Ops with most things turned off.

The 4870 is also o/c so dont think it is the problem

the game specs a E6600 as min, but i thought that the e5200 running at 3.5 would work, but the game has lags in mp and stutters a lot in single player

i dont want to change from sk775 now, cannot afford to, so by selling the e5200 i expect to be able to afford about £100 on another cpu, just wondering if Q6600, or E8xxx or E7xxx series would be better

games played include cod MW, cod MW2, Black ops, civilization series, MOH, etc
 
my q6600 at 3ghz, 4 gig of ram,and a gtx260 plays black ops smooth,at 1680 x 1050 all settings maxed,while my sons pc strugles he has amd x4200 dual core with an 8800gt512mb frames drop in to the 20s.on medium settings.
 
If you are buying a new CPU for gaming I would discount the E7xxx and E8xxx series - you are already running a 3.5GHz core 2 duo, so it wouldn't be a huge upgrade.

The Q6600/Q6700 or one of the Q8xxx or Q9xxx series would be the way to go. More and more games are using more than two cores, so these quad cores really can help with performance.

Is it only Call of Duty: Black Ops where you are having performance problems? Because from everything I have read - that game has some real problems that shouldn't be blamed solely on hardware. It may be worth waiting a few weeks to see if any patches come along to improve the situation before spending money on a new CPU.
 
yes, it is only black ops that struggles with this setup

i have tried it on my own work pc, it has an E7400 and HD 4870 and it plays it fine, but the E5200 just struggles badly

anyway, have decided to go with a quad core and replace the e5200 in my sons pc if it means it keeps him off my work computer, now i want to know if the Q6600 or Q8200 would be best, i will probably o/c as well
 
SouthEastBlue said:
I just upgraded from an E5200, 4GB DDR2 and a 4870 1GB.

I found that even if it was overclocked to 3.8GHz on some games it just wouldn't help, and only a quad core would have got me proper playable FPS.

Obviously as said above the cheap upgrade option is getting a Q6600 if you don't mind staying in socket 775. Otherwise the jump to AM3 is the cheapest upgrade path if you wanna get an up to date DDR3 quad core system.
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You have 2GB of ram? I think you'll find that was the problem...
 
jb444 said:
anyway, have decided to go with a quad core and replace the e5200 in my sons pc if it means it keeps him off my work computer, now i want to know if the Q6600 or Q8200 would be best, i will probably o/c as well
Click to expand...

Q6600 for sure. The Q8200 is tough to overclock.
 
if u have no intentions of moving to another socket, jus get the q6600 used. wouldnt cost u heaps. 4gb ram is fine.
 
Si105 said:
Why do you have your inferior system as your signature?

Seems pretty fail to me.
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An Athlon II Quad core is better than a Pentium Dual core - so his best system is in his sig. As he mentioned, 2GB is currently undergoing an RMA - he will have 4GB again when he gets it back.
 
My Athlon II x4 has unlocked 6MB L3 cache too so its basically a Phenom II 920, either way its better than my old E5200 dual core which was beginning to struggle a bit on some games.

As for the PSU on a Q6600 it will pull a little more power than the dual but it should be OK as long as it's not over volted and running a big overclock.
 
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Get a quad such as a 2nd hand q6600 and keep the 4870 for a while. I use a q6600 at 3.6ghz and 1gb 4870 and it seems fine with most games at 1920x1080
 
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