bohemianbeatle

Hey guys! I've been thinking of upgrading my PC for this christmas but I need some advice regarding some issues.

My current system rig:

Intel Core 2 Duo 6600 2.4Ghz
Asus P5B Deluxe
4x1Gb 667 RAM Kingston
Nvidia 9800GTX
Creative Sound Blaster Fatal1ty
LG W2452V 24" Monitor
Windows XP

I've been thinking about changing to a quad-core system, such as Q6600, Q8200 or Q9400 but I'm not really sure if it makes such a big difference, or maybe I should get a new core 2 duo such as the T7500? Then depending on the micro I'll need to get a proper motherboard, any good one you would recommend? I'm not really going for the best of the best since I'm not planning to spend too much money, I just want to upgrade it to keep on playing the latest games at highest settings for one more year since my rig is 2 yr old by now. I don't think I should update my video card.

By the way, I might update my RAM. Current one is 1Gb 667 Kingston, is there a big difference with a 800? I'm currently using XP but I own a copy of Vista and I might install both so when gaming I could take advantage of the full 4Gb RAM support and DX10.

So as you can see I know little and I'd really appreciate if you could give me some advice. Again, I don't want the best, I just want to spend around 400€ (510$, I live in Spain) or so upgrading, and it's just for gaming.


Thanks a lot and take care!


John.

BlueMak

If your motherboard can handle faster or quad core cpus, I would go that way, if I wanted to upgrade the CPU. A faster graphics card would help too.
I assume you want to play at 1920x1200.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

mkk

No need to switch RAM unless you're considering the relatively inexpensive move to 4x2GB 800MHz memory and 64bit Vista. 667 or 800 doesn't make much difference when you're playing game at high resolutions, and your current memory can possibly run at nearly 800 already with a bit of tweaking.

Dual Core still gives you more for the money when gaming, like an E8400 and some overclocking on top if you wish. Put the rest of the budget towards a graphics card, like something in the order of a HD4870 for its high res performance. My HD4850 is doing great at 1920x1200 as well but the 4870's have much faster graphics memory after all.

kris23

a 965P board can handle up to 8GB or so of DDR2 800 with minimal performance hit so that board is fine, a Q6600 is good if OCed, there are newer revisions of Q6600 since the E6600 days so OCing is very easy.

in certain games, 4GB is the bare minimum if you game with ALL things on max so 8GB is good too. RAM is cheap so the upgrade shouldnt be too hard. GPU is alright but a GTX260 core 216 is a good choice for now.



if an upgrade isnt a necessity, wait for the Core i7s to hit and buy the midrange of everything thats out at the time...... X58 has support for both CFX and SLI so its a good way to go if you really want to keep on gaming...

theres news of a new Nvidia GTX 3XX line to hit sometime in december-january

so if you keep on saving to get stuff at the time you buy, its a good idea.

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A Desire to Game

Hmmm.....I would advise that unless you plan to overclock I would stick with the 667MHz ram. You will only see a slightly SIGNIFICANT difference in performance b/w ram in applications other than gaming (unless you OC). If you OC and go with DDR2 800 then you may see an additional 10 FPS at MAX!!!

Go with an E8400 @ 3.0GHz
Upgrade video card. (I like [COLOR=red]4870 1GB[/COLOR] better)
Go with Vista 64-bit (I like DX10 for gaming)
Keep the RAM unless you have extra doe.

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Three is my new favorite number. (SATA III, USB 3.0, GTX 300's)

bohemianbeatle

Thanx for the info. Btw, I made a mistake. It's not a 9800GTX but a 9800GX2 and as far as I'm concerned it's better than 4870 1GB.

Would it be a significant increase changing to the E8400? or should I spend a lil more money and go for a quadcore? Again, its just for gaming and yeah, I want to play at 1920x1200.

A Desire to Game

Well a 9800GX2 is a little nicer than a 9800GTX, lol. I think that kind of a video card should suffice for a while actually. However, the processor is a definite MUST!!! Charts, benchmarks Desktop CPU Charts Q3/2008, Crysis - 1680x1050 Here is a link showing Crysis at 1680x1050. I know you will be playing at 1920x1200 but this will show you what kind of impact a fast core 2 duo can have on your system. There is over 21FPS difference b/w your E6600 and the E8400 at stock speeds (30FPS is considered fair gameplay). Let me remind you that if you do want to OC, then the E8400 has reached speeds of over 4.0GHz per sec with the right cooling. Most games are not utilizing the 4 cores (UT3 is the exception) and it would be silly to shell out the cash for a quad core if you intend on this being a GAMING rig. Trust me on this one.

The E8400 performs neck and neck with quad processors in the $500 range (Q9650) because of games not utilizing quad core. Even when Nehalem comes out, the E8400 will still be a strong competitor. You really need that ~3.0Ghz clock speed for today's gaming.

The E8500 and E8600 are also good values and worth looking into for a little more $$$.

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Three is my new favorite number. (SATA III, USB 3.0, GTX 300's)

bohemianbeatle

Thanks, that's really helpful! does the E8500 and the E8600 use 775 socket? cuz I don't want to change my mobo to be honest. I'd rather save that ammount of money and buy some kind of cooling for oc the cpu, altho I'm not used to oc and I have no idea about it, but I should def give it a try since I've heard this mobo is good for oc.

A Desire to Game

LGA 775, you got it.

OmegaRED

Since you already have a LGA 775 MB and a Dual core cpu I would absolutely upgrade to a Q9550 (or a Q6600 if you really want to put the money towards another component such as video card or ram).

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bohemianbeatle

Well, as far as I'm concerned when it comes to gaming E8400 or E8600 beat Q9550, doesn't it?

BlueMak

and you base that on what?

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Judas

as far as gaming goes... or any form of computing for that matter... a Quad core will always trump a dual core..

what you marginally gain initially from a dual core's faster rated speeds is fairly pathetic in comparison to what a quad cores extra 2 cores will provide later on down the road.

Essentially getting a dual core will provide you with meer percentages of faster speed over the quad core for an extremely short period of time. While the quad core will within the short period of time, get closer to matching that dual core in performance and then completely blow it's doors off by as much as 100% or more later on down the road.

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bohemianbeatle

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong.. but the E8600 its a 3.33 Ghz processor... and the Q9550 is a 2.88 or something like that right? well, if I'm not planning to oc, wouldn't it be better for me to go with the one with the highest speed? Again, it's just for gaming and even tho if I plan to oc I've been told that the E8X00 series oc really good in comparison to the quad cores. I've also been told that games do not benefit from the 2 extra cores of the quadcores, so why should I get one if it's slower than the dual one? To put it straight, if i get a Q9550 would I get more fps playing Crysis (just to name a random game) than using the E8600? sorry for my English btw and thanx for all your help :P

Judas

don't get confused or convinced that GHZ means everything. it's only a very VERY small factor in the entire equation.

Would you get more FPS playing crysis (horribly coded game imo) with the quad core or dual core that you've listed? You've probably get 3-5% more FPS on the dual core, but in another game you could likely get as much as 100% more FPS on the quad core if that game made good use of quad core and was cpu limited on the dual core.

So ask yourself this:

Do i only want to play current (AKA as of november 2008) or older games with about a 5% give or take, advantage over a quad core.... With the fact that in the extremely VERY NEAR future, my dual core will be unable to cope well with those newer games giving me roughly -25 to -100% performance vs the quad core.

OR

Do i want to play my games these current or older games with a -5% hit for the time being but be able to have 25-100% more performance then the dual core in the up and coming games.

Really it's an apples to oranges comparison. The 2 cores will never be able to ever compete with something that is nearly identical but with twice as many cores.

And to top it off, at same clock for clock settings, the quad core will always win out. Even a slightly slower quad core will usually always win as while a game may only take advantage of 2 cores, that means the rest of background tasks or other devices will have thier resources shifted and moved over to the cores that aren't being used giving the game exclusive access to 2 of the cores.

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bohemianbeatle

Ok I'll trust you only because you have an i7 lol just kidding. Yea I guess you're right.. I guess I'll have to spend a little bit more and, like you said, go for something that will probably last longer or cope with next games better than a dual core.what about oc? if I get the Q9550 could I oc it to 3.33Ghz not having to buy some cooling stuff?

I'm pretty sure It's not such a big deal anyway, cuz if I want to play next gen games at 1920x1200 it would be more of a video card than a cpu issue.

Judas

i don't have an i7... but it is on order

the 9550 does oc very well, probably not as good as the Q6600, which alot of people are still purchasing because it's quite a potent CPU that costs nearly nothing and people have managed to oc into the 3.6ghz range on stock cooling (rare) or with much better cooling.. i think the fastest i've seen is 4.2ghz on the q6600...

Anyone building a machine today that plan to use it for games or for more extensive tasks, i always recommend the quad core...

it's really no different then the previous comparison between a single core vs dual core, where the single core was marginally faster because it had a higher frequency.... but the moment more dual core programs arrived, the damn single core died a quick and sudden death.

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bohemianbeatle

Yea, old times.. well, you just convinced me so I'm going for the Q9550. I'm buying it for christmas so the prices will drop for sure anyway.

Thanks again for your help, man, and enjoy your i7 when you get it!

Judas

i plan to..

looking forward to the results i've seen in the DH benchmarks....

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bohemianbeatle

Btw, I just found this information on the web that pictures what you just said before. thanx again

X-bit labs - Multi-Core Confrontation: Core 2 Quad Q6600 vs. Core 2 Duo E6850 (page 8)

Judas

no problemo

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Mousey

Do you do anything else outside of gaming such as graphics design, 3d modelling or video editing?
A quad core would make any of those tasks infinitely faster if the application can take advantage of 4 or more cores. The new Photoshop CS4 can not only take advantage of quad core processors but also GPU acceleration with a bit of patching meaning cake-takingly huge documents work like a breeze.

Cinema4D can take advantage of every single core in your system, be it 1, 2, 4 or even 128 i'm led to believe. More Cores = Infinitely faster rendering

Quad core is the best possible choice at the minute because more developers are factoring quad core support into their games, so physics ect. can be processed on another core to keep the GPU chuggin along nicely. in short, better frame rates down the line if you go quad core now

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bohemianbeatle

Yea that sounds reasonable. I will mostly use it for gaming, some multitask maybe. This thing about going for c2duo or a quad core is really driving me crazy, cuz since people just get carried away with the ghz and I don't really know too much about the whole cpu world, so then I browse the net and I get like 300 results about ppl arguing about the same thing so it gets really confusing.

I really hope I can notice a big improvement when gaming, cuz I've been trying to play games such as Far Cry 2 or Crysis at the highest resolution but they're laggin just a bit, not as smooth as I'd like the game to run. I was thinking maybe my current E6600 was bottlenecking the 9800GX2 cuz I don't really see the RAM or the video card being the problem here. Specially now that I just got this 24" Monitor and I want to play at 1920x1200 ...

BlueMak

The 9800gx2 will probably be the major issue after you upgrade cpu.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.