6MB vs. 12MB of L2 cache

[edplayer]

so I am considering possibly upgrading to a quad (from an E7200, usually at 3.2GHz)


I am looking at the Q9400 and the Q9550. How much of a difference should one expect for gaming (between the two quads, not the E7200)? Will there be a noticeable difference in minimum FPS? I only play COD4 right now but feel free to comment on any game because I will likely be keeping this setup for a few years.


and if it matters, I play at 1920x1080 on a 4830 currently (will replace it with a 4870)

 

[DrMrLordX]

You won't notice much difference except in games that are not GPU bound. Microsoft Flight Simulator X might be affected by L2. I forget what other games out there can be CPU-bound but there are a few.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: DrMrLordX
You won't notice much difference except in games that are not GPU bound. Microsoft Flight Simulator X might be affected by L2. I forget what other games out there can be CPU-bound but there are a few.

I think WoW is usually CPU-bound. Old graphics but complex calculations, especially when you're around lots of people.

 

[Markfw]

Well, in F@H, it makes a difference, but only about 10%, and thats the only place I see the diff.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: edplayer
so I am considering possibly upgrading to a quad (from an E7200, usually at 3.2GHz)


I am looking at the Q9400 and the Q9550. How much of a difference should one expect for gaming (between the two quads, not the E7200)? Will there be a noticeable difference in minimum FPS? I only play COD4 right now but feel free to comment on any game because I will likely be keeping this setup for a few years.


and if it matters, I play at 1920x1080 on a 4830 currently (will replace it with a 4870)

For F@H you should get a Phenom 2. It beats the Penryn series chips clock for clock by about 30%.


(just kidding)

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca

Originally posted by: DrMrLordX
You won't notice much difference except in games that are not GPU bound. Microsoft Flight Simulator X might be affected by L2. I forget what other games out there can be CPU-bound but there are a few.

I think WoW is usually CPU-bound. Old graphics but complex calculations, especially when you're around lots of people.

Their code is just showing age and doesn't scale as well. Or, it could be latency. My GPU and CPU should be more than enough for it, yet I would still only get 22-26fps in Dalaran; and my CPU was only running at 45-50% and lowering the resolution and effects didn't help any.

 

[Soulkeeper]

I went with the 12MB version about a year ago, because My main concern is distributed computing
the Q9450 has served me well since.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

http://anandtech.com/bench/def...3.44.45.46.47.48.49.50

Not much of a difference. You could see up to 10% (at worst/best however you look at it), but in more GPU-intensive scenarios the difference would be even smaller.

 

[exar333]

The difference won't be significant, but you may want the higher cache if you plan to keep the processor for the long-term.

I remember saying the same thing with dualies, and I do somewhat regret getting the lower-cache brethren because it became a bottleneck much more quickly than the ones with more. Just my expereience.

 

[edplayer]

Will not be doing any folding

I recall someone posting some benchmarks from a european site that compared Intel Core Duos with different L2 size at the same core speed. Anyone see anything like that but with Quads? Or any quad gaming benchmarks that show minimum FPS?

So far I'm thinking of getting the Q9400 because its only $180 at Microcenter and the cheapest I'm currently seeing the Q9550 around $270 (w $240 the lowest I've seen in the past on slickdeals)

 

[Big Lar]

I think the link your looking for was in the Video section, I remember reading the site and there was not much difference in fps.

Larry

 

[Denithor]

Q8x00 = 2 x E5x00
Q9x00 = 2 x E7x00
Q9x50 = 2 x E8x00

So the Q9400 would be like two E7300 cpus bolted together on the same chip.

If you OC to the same 3.2GHz:
-In games not optimized for quads, you will see basically no difference.
-In games optimized for quads, you will see fairly significant gains.

Note that more games support quads now (FC2, UT3, SupCom, GTA4) and this trend is going to accelerate going forward. Games today are mostly designed for the consoles and then ported to the PC. The consoles (PS3 & Xbox360) are multi-core so game developers are pushing to take advantage of that power by multi-threading their games for parallel processing as much as possible.