AMD 4800+ x2 Vs Q6600 (or similar)

[adamwb]

My rig has the amd 4800+ x2 in it, and I'm feeling the itch to upgrade.

I never get the best, always go for best bang for the buck, and it seems the Q6600 is highly regarded as it.

Am I going to see a siginificant different changing out the CPU for the Q6600 or should I wait? (Obviously I will have to get a diff mobo but that's not the question).

PC is mostly used for gaming and school-work.

My vid card is a 3850. (I plan to get a new vid card soon, but with the new stuff just coming out I'm waiting to see how it all pans out).

 

[DaveSimmons]

For gaming, the E8400 3.0 GHz dual-core is a much better choice than a 2.4 GHz quad-core.

Go to the CPU tab on the main anandtech website and look at the Phenom tri-core review to compare dual-core, tr-core and quad-core CPUs in gaming. Short answer: cores 3 & 4 are worthless.

The 2.4 GHz intel quad will only be as fast as an X2 6000+ (3.0 GHz) AMD for gaming, while an E8400 will be ~20% faster. (And more than 50% faster than your 4800+)

 

[adamwb]

My bad, it's a 4600+ x2, not a 4800+.



If I do get something like the E8400, will my system be completely bottlenecked by my 3850, or will I still see significant improvement in games?

 

[DaveSimmons]

I suspect you'll still be bottlenecked, when I looked at this in 2006 even an X2 4200+ was fast enough to max out a 7900GTX at resolutions of 1024x768 and up.

You might be better off buying a ATI 4850 now instead and upgrading the CPU later.

 

[Moobox]

Yes I've read that in many cases a video card upgrade would give the most increase in performance for gaming, even though that's not the best of processors. My upgrade from a GeForce 5200 to an ATI 9600xt was phenomenal, but that was years ago. (still using it)

 

[adamwb]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
I suspect you'll still be bottlenecked, when I looked at this in 2006 even an X2 4200+ was fast enough to max out a 7900GTX at resolutions of 1024x768 and up.

You might be better off buying a ATI 4850 now instead and upgrading the CPU later.

Well in most of my games, the FPS isn't all that bad. The trouble I'm running into is the load times and alt+tabbing while playing to check the forums or something, it's just so sluggish.

I just bought Age of Conan and although I really like the game, the load times are really killing me, and you can forget about alt+tabbing to check something online. Once I'm in the game, the FPS isn't all that bad, so I'm thinking the 3850 can last me until we see what these new cards hold.

 

[Moobox]

Needs more RAM?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Moobox
Needs more RAM?

Right, if you have only 1 GB, try moving up to 2-3. The 32-bit versions of XP and Vista can only "see" 3.2 - 3.5 GB max so no need to move to 4 unless you already have 2 GB and want to buy another matched pair.

A second hard drive might help too, placing Windows on one drive and your game installs on the new, faster drive. How old is your current drive?

 

[adamwb]

I currently have 2GB's of RAM.

I have 2 500gig 16mb cache WD's I bought at best buy about a year ago. And yes Vista is installed on it's own partition and games on another etc.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Is your stepping F2 or F3 on the X2 4600+ ???

What motherboard do you have?

More ram is always better (if you have DDR2 800).

Your sweet spot is a cpu clock of 240MHz (a 20% OC) or 2.88GHz overall. At this speed the 400-->333 ram divider will run DDR2 800 at spec. With an F3 stepping it's a safe bet ...

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: adamwb
I currently have 2GB's of RAM.

:laugh: LoL :laugh: My WATCH has 2GBs of RAM! :laugh: