What does a Quad cpu feel like?

[davedudes]

Ive currently got a C2D E8400 @ 4Ghz, and curious to know if i was to upgrade to lets say a i7, what difference in gaming and general usage would I see? would it blow me away?

 

[gurusan]

With things like encoding you will be blown away, otherwise I'd bet most of the time you wouldn't notice any difference.

 

[setter]

As mentioned, in uses such as encoding, rendering, a quad will really show its worth. Gaming wise, no difference in the majority of games, there are so few that utilise 4 cores at the minute.

 

[siumatfung]

gaming and general usage u wnt see that much but encoding and rendering YES!

 

[ghop]

Having used a few quad core systems, as a whole whilst doing general windows stuff, there's pretty much no difference. Encoding and gaming is where you'll notice the differences I think..

 

[1kiwi]

No real diff in gaming. Except on Fary Cry 2 and some other multi core oriented games ...

 

[gurusan]

Even then it's really negligible. From what I've seen the games that do get a significant boost already will get 100+ fps on a dual core, such as UT3 and L4D.

Will be interesting to see a performance analysis of BC2 though

 

[1kiwi]

GTA as well ...

 

[jamiehavok]

GTA as well ...

i think gta iv is still currently the only game that you can almost say you need a quad core.

 

[Rroff]

Main difference in gaming isn't so much the increase in fps, but some areas are just smoother...

 

[reflux]

As mentioned, in uses such as encoding, rendering, a quad will really show its worth. Gaming wise, no difference in the majority of games, there are so few that utilise 4 cores at the minute.

Actually, there are a large number of games that use quad core. Almost every new release can process four threads.

 

[easyrider]

Ive currently got a C2D E8400 @ 4Ghz, and curious to know if i was to upgrade to lets say a i7, what difference in gaming and general usage would I see? would it blow me away?

No

If you used your PC for Video editing/Audio production...pure rendering or encoding then yes.

Everything else?

Nope

 

[Shane5578]

feels good, although mine is a laptop so some cores turn itself off when not needed.

 

[Simps]

Going from a s939 3500+Venice @ 2.7 to a Phenom 965 @ Stock feels sexy
First upgrade in 5-6 years. Rar's take no time to extract. I can actually see over 100fps again in my games (i know thats partly GPU)
I'm loving it

 

[Anth]

As an owner of a I7 920 and also a AMD 4850e CPU, I would say if I had a choice today between.

A £200 Intel Quad CPU and a £50 spindle hard drive

or

a £50 AMD dual core and a £200 Intel SSD drive.

I would chose the latter. I was quite dissapointed with my upgrade from the 4850e to my I7, it was only when I bought my Corsair X series SSD did I feel pleased with my upgrade.

 

[Matrix]

Just wondering i have a Q9950 running @3.5ghz would i notice much difference on a I7 920?

I tend do some encoding but the Q9550 seems pretty fast as it is.

 

[Anth]

Just wondering i have a Q9950 running @3.5ghz would i notice much difference on a I7 920?

No not really, when you look at benchmarks for high quality quads the differences really are just seconds apart.

I would say just stick with what you have.

 

[PermaBanned]

Well the heatshield is quite smooth, it's cold to the touch as with most metals. The pins on the other hand are quite sharp and fragile, but the cores themselves are just little bumps. The PCB can be sharp too, the sides kinda feel like cut plastic.

In all seriousness though, everyday tasks aren't really effected. Even with gaming, do you notice a few frames difference? I certainly don't.