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which cpu for gaming ?

yeah get a quad core q6600 go step
used will be fine as long it hasnt been touched for overclock
gfx wise
a 260 216 core will do you fine for the time being
atleast up until feb next year
by which time crysis will soon be out
then you can upgrade hefty
 
I ran my e8400 at 4GHz for two years on a Thermatake V1. The new i3/i5 dual cores are much better as they run cooler and with less voltage...great for gamers.
 
Well I was running an X2 550 @ 3.6ghz, with a 9600 gso 1.5gb :rolleyes:. Twas painfully slow in games, so got a 5850. Bottlenecked like mad by the 550, so got an i7 860, clocked it to 4.2ghz.
ZOMG I CAN NOW PLAY METRO AND CRYSIS!!!!
Rather quickly too :)
 
Can someone please define or point me to somewhere to explain this "bottlenecking" that seems to pop up like a over ripe cherry all the time?
 
Shayper said:
Well I was running an X2 550 @ 3.6ghz, with a 9600 gso 1.5gb :rolleyes:. Twas painfully slow in games, so got a 5850. Bottlenecked like mad by the 550, so got an i7 860, clocked it to 4.2ghz.
ZOMG I CAN NOW PLAY METRO AND CRYSIS!!!!
Rather quickly too :)
Click to expand...

Did you do any benchmarking before and after the quad?
 
Metroid said:
I would recommend the:

£227.94 Intel Core i7 950
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-328-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1272

or the

£138.64 AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 970 Black Edition
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-275-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1328

Dual core is crippled for games. The ideal would be 3 cores or more.
Click to expand...

Show the evidence that dual cores are crippled in games!! ... rubbish statement

I'm playing with clan mates in the US who whoop my a*** with a dual core and low end GTX260 in the latest online FPS's
 
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Keep what you have. 3.6ghz E8400 is fast enough to keep up, espcially at high resolution high details when the focus is on a decent gfx. I'd try to push the chip towards 4ghz mark and pair it up with a decent gfx, that should last you a while yet.
 
Essexraptor said:
Can someone please define or point me to somewhere to explain this "bottlenecking" that seems to pop up like a over ripe cherry all the time?
Click to expand...

I was playing MW2 at 1080p on my i7 rig running @ 4ghz with a 512mb 5670

I was getting massive amounts of stutter and very low FPS in high action parts.

Basically the rest of the rig was wanting to process the game but the GFX could not keep up causing a "bottleneck"

The motorway has 4 lanes and the cars are travelling at a constant speed then all of a sudden road works and the motorway becomes 2 lanes.

What happens? All the drivers brake and have to slow down to wait for the traffic to pass through the crippled area of road. Causing a bottleneck

In essence your pc is only as fast as the slowest part.

Throw extra lanes at it with some extra cores and it will be faster even at a slower clock speed as the traffic can still pass through much quicker.

From experience I would take 2 extra cores over 400mhz any day of the week to keep my motorway running smoothly :p
 
easyrider said:
I was playing MW2 at 1080p on my i7 rig running @ 4ghz with a 512mb 5670

I was getting massive amounts of stutter and very low FPS in high action parts.

Basically the rest of the rig was wanting to process the game but the GFX could not keep up causing a "bottleneck"

The motorway has 4 lanes and the cars are travelling at a constant speed then all of a sudden road works and the motorway becomes 2 lanes.

What happens? All the drivers brake and have to slow down to wait for the traffic to pass through the crippled area of road. Causing a bottleneck

In essence your pc is only as fast as the slowest part.

Throw extra lanes at it with some extra cores and it will be faster even at a slower clock speed as the traffic can still pass through much quicker.

From experience I would take 2 extra cores over 400mhz any day of the week to keep my motorway running smoothly :p
Click to expand...

Thank you :)

So in essence as far as gaming is concerned the limiting factor or "bottleneck" is the GPU?

I always thought it had to do with memory bandwidth

It's just that this "bottleneck" excuse always seems to be rolled out as a CPU fault. My understanding was in most modern games the processor(s) on the graphics card now bear the brunt of all the graphical rendering with very little done by the lowly CPU at all. I monitor my i7 CPU loading and 75% of the time it seems be doing very little or sod all much.
 
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Essexraptor said:
Thank you :)

So in essence as far as gaming is concerned the limiting factor or "bottleneck" is the GPU?

I always thought it had to do with memory bandwidth

It's just that this "bottleneck" excuse always seems to be rolled out as a CPU fault. My understanding was in most modern games the processor(s) on the graphics card now bear the brunt of all the graphical rendering with very little done by the lowly CPU at all. I monitor my i7 CPU loading and 75% of the time it seems be doing very little or sod all much.
Click to expand...

i7 @ 3.8ghz is not going to bottleneck anything.

A celeron 1.6ghz and a 6870 for example is not going to get you many FPS in games....The cpu would not Feed the GPU fast enough allowing it to fully breathe causing a bottleneck

Its all about balance:)

Thats why SSD's are so popular they take away the mechanical HDD bottleneck in windows...The top end rig still has towait forthe spindle to spin to get its data however fast it is. Not so much now
 
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Ive overlocked my cpu from 2.8 to 3.5 without touching the voltages. Its stable and my idle temp is 35c but underload is gets to early to mid 40cs still ok. My question is im gonna have ago at getting it to 3.8 maybe 4ghz, when do i start to touch the voltage?
 
After recently "clocking" a 955BE for a build you'll be quite surprised how much of a increase you can get with no voltage increase at all. 3.8 should be relatively easy 4ghz is harder.
To answer - as always a little increase at a time till it falls over and then increase the voltage. Once you have a good OC don't forget to do the same with the HT with small increases. Many people forget to increase the HT side, which gives you a far better and more stable OC overall. :)
 
Paracelsus said:
Did you do any benchmarking before and after the quad?
Click to expand...

Yes mate.
Before, with the 550 and 9600 I was getting round abouts 10fps average on the metro benchmark, at 1080p with low tessellation and no AA, with graphics at high
After the upgrade to a 5850 I was getting about 20 fps at these settings, and when I ramped up the detail to what the 5850 could supposedly reach it dropped back down to 10fps, which didn't seem right. I tried to unlock the other two cores of the 550, but it kept locking up.
The I noticed a i7 860 oem for around 180 quid on here (ridiculously luck there), got a p55 gd 65, and now average 34 fps with all the settings (including aa, but not tessellation) turned up nice and high :)
Just got a second 5850 :rolleyes: as the price has dropped like a stone on the bay, and as soon as that is delivered will chuck some more benchmarks up for you :)
 
maby some have slow cpu´s bc they have so much clutter in their system, and getting a new os +cpu+mb ram ect system is fresh and running at optimum speeds.

when sandy b hits, how much do you think the core i will drop, seeing the Q quads still cost a fair amount.
 
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