Intel Core 2 Quad 9550 or Core 2 Duo 8600 for games...

My current setup is:
ASUS P5B-E M/B intel965 chipset (Supports 45nm CPUS 1333MHZ FSB via bios update and DDR-2 1066MHZ RAM)
2GB DDR-2 RAM 800MHZ
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHZ 6600 1066MHZ FSB
nvidia 7950 GTX 512MB
Onboard Sound card
WinXP PRO

The above system is mainly used for games, I would be interested to upgrade the CPU to one of the following:

Intel Core 2 Quad 9550 (s775/2,83GHZ)
Cache Memory L2 12MB
FSB1333 MHz
45 nmicron

Or:

Intel Core 2 Duo 8600 (s775/3,33GHZ)
Cache Memory L2 6MB
FSB1333 MHz
45 nmicron

So, which of the two CPUs will give me better performance for 3D games on my current rig? (Examples, CRYSIS, Half Life 2 Episode 2 & online C&C3 Kane's Wrath)

Thanks in advance

Have you overclocked your E6600? I should imagine you'd get at least 3Ghz out of it.

If I were you, I wouldn't change my CPU, rather the GPU. The 7950 GTX is what's holding you back in games so thats where the money needs to be spent. 8800GT's are pretty cheap now and are a significant performance jump over your current card.

If you are desperate to change your CPU, I would consider the Q6600 or the E8400 for price : performance.

Yeah I agree if you have not overclocked the E6600 then the is untapped potential there, and in gaming the advantage of CPU speed is pretty much levelled out at 2.4GHz anyway.

A GPU upgrade will see you much more benefit and if you have £200 to spend then a GTX260 or HD4870 (both around the £180 mark) will show you a huge performance leap in games.

Also while your board may support the 45nm chips via a bios update it would surprise me if the were not small issues which may arise in the stability stakes after all the board was never designed to run at 333 FSB or for the 45nm CPUs.

By the way, If I overclock the E6600 CPU from to 2.4GHZ to 3.0GHZ, will I need to get a better fan-cooler?
I'm using the standard Intel fan-cooler that came with it in the box when I bought it...

Standard heatsink and fan should be fine for 3Ghz (especially if you don't have to increase the voltage to hit 3Ghz, which you shouldn't need to)

Hey, I never shut-down my PC as its online 24/7! ;)
Ok, I'll get a better fan-cooler!

Which do you suggest?

Thanks in advance

Take a look at http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=15387

How ever, I would still like to know which is the better CPU for games at the moment?
E9550 or E8600?
Will those 4 cores have any difference for games?

That subject has been done to death, use the search facility.

It might be a better idea to just overclock the E6600 CPU from to 2.4GHZ to 3.0GHZ, and get e better fan-heatsink-cooler
Akasa AK-965

How ever, I would still like to know which is the better CPU for games at the moment.
E9550 or E8600?
Will those 4 cores do any difference for games?

I might as well buy a new GPU instead. How about the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 how well does it compare to the equivalent ATi GPU?

Read here for a lengthy dual core vs quad core gaming dicussion:

http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...dual-core.html

The answer to that question is who knows, as I said earlier anything more than 2.4GHz really makes little to no difference, games are on the whole GPU bound so better graphics processing is more important than CPU speed.

If you were planing on not upgrading the CPU for 3 years then I would say the Quad would be better as time goes on more multi-threaded games will come along and benefit from the extra cores. If you wanted it for this very minute then the duel is probably better as the are not many games which make use of 4 cores. However the differences in game play at real world settings would be negligible as I repeat the game will be GPU bound.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by retroborg

Will those 4 cores have any difference for games?

---

No they won't

Well yeah, I was planning on not upgrading the CPU for 3 years and maybe getting the next generation of NVIDIA cards after the 200 series... I really can't be bothered in changing the motherboard & Ram all over again! :(

I read that the current nvidia 280 is not as good as it’s advertised to be, so it might be wiser to go for the next series...
Is it true that the 280 doesn’t fully support DX10.1 in comparison to ATI?

Yeah the nVidia cards only support DirectX 10 while ATi support 10.1 no idea what the advantage of DX10.1 might be mind.

And as to upgrading etc. I will say it again games (in the majority of cases I'm sure somebody can find one that really benefits from CPU speed) are GPU bound and CPU speeds above 2.4GHz see only very small increases (if any) in performance. So if you want to upgrade to play games you would be much better served upgrading your graphics card than your CPU.

Then in a year you can look and see if new games are benefiting from faster CPUs or more cores if they are upgrade your CPU then.

Yes you're right, however in a year from now I doubt that the CPUs being sold then will be compatible with my Intel965 Motherboard... especially if Intel decides to drop below 45nm or simply change the slot from the s775 to something else...

Don’t know why but I never liked ATI cards my self... if I upgrade the GPU it will probably be an nvidia card....

Oh and what about the new line of DDR-3 RAMs, do they benefit greatly in comparison to DDR-2 1066MHZ?
I currently have 2GB DDR-2 800MHZ HyperX Kingston and it seems to be pretty fast...

Cheers!

Intel are already changing to socket 1366, and upgrading to DDR3 will require a new motherboard; despite this it provides little advantage at the moment.

Not going to notice much with quad core, but if you do buy a new CPU you'd be daft not to get a quad, as when games thread properly you'll get so much more benefit from them.

ATI 4870 has to be best bang for buck/ future proofed at the moment, would get much more benefit from that than a new CPU.

btw, I noticed a few days ago that Football Manager 2008 utilises four cores extremely well. Maxing out all four cores of a Q6600@3.4GHz whilst calculating matches (under Vista x64 - but shouldn't make a difference)

Well in a slight divergence to what I have said previously maybe the is benefit from getting a faster processor see this review http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=770&p=0

But you have to remember that they are using the fastest single graphics card you can buy in the majority of cases (I would guess anything less than a 4870X2) you will probably still be GPU bound.

As an interesting point quads seem to fair better than duels (at the same clock speed and at much reduced clcok speeds as well) contrie to what has generally been accepted.

EDIT: Having looked at the results a bit closer in the five games a stock clocked Q6600 (2.4GHz) would give the same performance as a E8600 (3.33GHz) in everything except Supreme Commander, considering the price difference (£50 in favour of the Quad) I would go for the quad every time.

Ok, so I bought the:
Intel Core 2 Quad 9550 (s775/2,83GHZ)
Cache Memory L2 12MB
FSB1333 MHz
45 nmicron

The CPU was recognized properly by my motherboard and the FSB was set to 1333MHz. (as shown in the Bios info)
How ever, in the Bios DRAM Frequency menu, I can now only choose from the following frequencies: DDR-2: 667MHZ, 833MHZ, 1000MHZ, 1111MHZ, 1333MHZ
My current DDR-2 is the KINGSTON KHX6400D2/1G HYPERX 1GB PC6400 800MHZ, (2GB)
http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.554789
but the 800MHZ is not even listed in the menu, so I have downgraded it by selecting the 667MHz. “DRAM Frequency: Auto” & “CPU Frequency: Auto” if the AI tuning is set to manual, then the PCU frequency is set to 333.

Also, in the CPU settings menu:
“Ratio actual value: 8.5”
“CPU Ratio Settings: Auto”

Also, in CPU-Z 1.47 tool, in the memory timings menu the FSB : DRAM is 1:1

Is there a way to set my DDR-2 to 800MHZ?

If not, I was thinking about upgrading the Ram to this DDR-2 and set it to 1000MHZ in the Bios, in order to have the most out of it.
CellShock Ram 2GB Kit DDR2 1000MHZ 4-4-4-12
http://www.plaisio.gr/product.aspx?p...727&catalog=20
The timing 4-4-4-12 is better than my current 5-5-5-15.

However I noticed that this Ram’s Operating Voltage is 2,20V, where as the Supply Voltage of my current Kingston 800MHz DDR-2 Ram is 1.95V. So I’m not sure if it will work on my M/B?!

Any help will be appreciated!
Thanks in advance

Just set your current RAM to run at 833MHz should be able to handle that easily.

Just to check is your motherboard BIOS the latest revision? As I would have expected you to have been able to set a divider for 800MHz and 1066MHz

Finally your motherboard should have DDR2 voltage control somewhere check what the options are if they state +0.1v +0.2v etc then the starting voltage is 1.8v so if you needed 2.1v for example you would choose the +0.3v option.

Yeah I have updated the M/B Bios to the latest revision, but I have not been able to set a divider for 800MHz and 1066MHz...
Not sure what's the correct ratio to set it to...?!

I checked the DDR2 memory voltage control and my board supports: 1.80v, 1.90v, 2.00v & 2.10v.
However most of the newer DDR-2s 1066MHZ seem to require 2.2v, so my guess is that they wont work on M/B?
For example: KINGSTON KHX8500D2/1G HYPERX DDR2 1GB PC8500 1066MHZ
http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.553808

As for the CellShock Ram 2GB Kit DDR2 1000MHZ 4-4-4-12, it is rated to run 4-4-4-12 at 2.1-2.3v
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/464/2/
So, I'm not sure how it will work on my M/B?

You can find plenty of 1066MHz RAM that runs at 2.1v

My OCZ flex 1150MHz runs at 2.1v :)

The corsair Dominator at least the 4GB (2x 2GB kits) require 2.1v http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=849755

So does the OCZ Platinum 4GB kit http://www.ocztechnology.com/product...n_dual_channel

I would expect that the older memory will require higher voltages and also memory with lower timings are going to require more.