Q8400 vs G3220

[nefereek]

Hi guys. Second question. I am with my servant q8400 for around six years now and i was wondering if i would see any difference in games if i upgrade it to a pentium G3220. I use an Asus GTX 650. And is there a big difference if the new mobo is an H61 or an H81? Thank you in advance.

[Goobley]

I'd have thought that your best bet is to overclock the quad. In pretty much any modern nicely threaded engine (bf etc.) the quad is going to destroy the pentium. This article shows some pretty compelling evidence: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ison,3487.html , if you can overclock that would be my recommended course of action as the most it'll cost is a decent CPU cooler that you can also (probably) use on any new build.

[nefereek]

Trust me i have tried many many times. In most cases-even if i oc it for the minimum percent-it freezes. So oc is out of the question. I use an asus p45qse.

[explorer]

Trust me i have tried many many times. In most cases-even if i oc it for the minimum percent-it freezes. So oc is out of the question. I use an asus p45qse.

That is a good board for overclocking. If your cooling is adequate then perhaps your processor doesn't allow it.

[Bonebreaker777]

Hi guys. Second question. I am with my servant q8400 for around six years now and i was wondering if i would see any difference in games if i upgrade it to a pentium G3220. I use an Asus GTX 650. And is there a big difference if the new mobo is an H61 or an H81? Thank you in advance.

As per the linked article, if the GPU is not the bottle neck, the increase would be around 20-30%. Also there is a big difference if the new motherboard would have H61 or H81. A motherboard with H61 (socket 1155) couldn't take a G3220. The highest available Pentium for socket 1155 is G2140.

A motherboard with H81 (socket 1150) can take your proposed G3220 (and the highest available is G3450, or the overclockable Pentium G3258). Choose carefully.

If I would you, I would go with socket 1155, some B75 motherboard or the cheapest whatever can run Ivy Bridge processors and you are good (socket 1155 Pentiums and Celerons are sold for £30ish and socket 1155 motherboards for £20ish).

EDIT: If you feel for it, you can always go for a socket 771 Xeon with a 771-to-775 adaptor and post-pond the purchase of new components for a while. Your CPU is stuck at 2.66Ghz, while a Xeon would have 3/3.16Ghz without overclock plus 12MB cache (vs the 4MB you have now), and all this for £30ish. Xeon x5450 - £24, Xeon x5460 - £33, 771-to-775 adapter - £2ish. No need to buy new CPU, new motherboard, new memory modules. Just mod and change.