E4400 upgrade?

[tomster2300]

Hello,

I am in the middle of upgrading my gaming rig and was wondering if I would get a significant boost in fps by going from a E4400 to either a E8400, E8600 or a Q9550. I'd like to keep my current P35-DS3R mobo, so I'm going to need to stay with the 775 socket (especially since i7 is so new and expensive). I've always kind of wanted a quad core, but they originally never were on par gaming wise than dual cores, and they were always expensive. The 9550 is now only $220, and is extremely tempting.

My current specs are -

Intel C2D E4400 -- Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R -- Corsair xMS2 2GB (2 X 1 GB) DDR2 800 -- Sapphire HD 4870 1GB -- Fortron Source 500 watt psu -- WD SATA 3.0 gb/s 320 GB HD -- Lite-on DVD-DL burner -- Thermaltake SopranoRS black case -- Windows Vista Home Premium - 32-bit

Vista 64-bit has been ordered and is being shipped to me (I did the free option through Microsoft), plus I plan on adding another 4gbs of ram (2x2gb DDR-800) for a total of 6gbs.

My problem is I'm getting <20 fps in the Sims 3 while zoomed in to the town...this shouldn't be happening with a HD 4870 1gb! Is this solely due to the CPU's lack of L2 cache? (The E4400 only has 2mb max). I get 60+ fps in Bioshock, although I'm sure it's GPU intensive and doesn't stress the CPU. The sheer number of things on screen at once in the Sims 3 makes me think the CPU is having trouble processing everything.

Thanks for any and all help in advance!

 

[BolleY2K]

Did you overclock the E4400 already? My E4300 @ 3,1 GHz is a little bit faster than a friends stock E8400 - benched with same graphics card. I achieve that frequency at stock voltages, so I would give it a try, if I were you.

Quad Core makes no sense for only gaming right now in my opinion.

 

[yh125d]

Yeah it'd be pretty easy to OC that E4400 to ~3gHz while still staying pretty mild, if you want you could push it even to 3.4 or so if you got a good chip. Do that, switch to 64bit, add the ram, then see how things go before you upgrade the CPU

 

[happy medium]

If you don't overclock, go for the q9550. Quad core will be implemented in most new games.

 

[Denithor]

Add the memory and upgrade to 64-bit (to use the extra memory) and overclock your cpu to ~3GHz before spending any cash on a Q9550.

You may not need a new cpu - just a faster dual and more memory may do the trick.

BTW - the cpu cache has minimal impact on performance once you are at 2MB or higher. You will see very little (at best) improvement going from e4400 -> e8x00. I went from an original e6400 @ 3GHz to an e8400 @ 3.6GHz and the biggest difference I saw was cooler temps. Game performance was a wash between the two chips.

 

[tomster2300]

Thanks for the info guys. Vista 64-bit came in the mail yesterday, so I'm kind of anxious to get some new hardware to go with it. What do you guys think about the new i7 line of processors? The 920 + mobo + ram would be incredibly expensive, but would it be worth it to upgrade now, or should I continue to wait? I'd hate to buy another 775 socket cpu and DDR2 ram for $300 when I could pay more and become a bit more future proof.

The flip side is I bought into the 775 two years ago so I could be future proof, and two years later here I am talking about the i7. I bet if I were to buy the i7 now, two years in the future I'd be talking about the next line of processors....

See my dilemma?

 

[yh125d]

I'd wait a couple months to see how the upcoming i5/i3 lines pan out

 

[aigomorla]

try overclocking the E4400 b4 u go hardware shopping.

you'd be suprised at how much a difference a simple overclock can do to your system.

 

[soccerballtux]

Yeah try overclocking.
Also take a look at this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?ItemList=Combo.209473
That's the best bang for your buck right there. You could sell your current motherboard and CPU on ebay for probably $115. Go for 8GB of RAM, and either get a great cooler and overclock to 3.8Ghz.

 

[tomster2300]

I was reading the review of the Phenom II X4 955 today, and they said it compared very well to the Q9550. This would be an easier decision if the i7 wasn't putting up such crazy benchmarks.

I pretty know nothing about overclocking...can you guys point me in the right direction on how to do it? Or, point me to a quality guide that shows me how?

 

[Sylvanas]

At the top of this forum there are guides to overclocking, have a browse. It makes no sense to 'upgrade' to another Dualcore as Quads are performing better than duals in many recent multithreaded games- UT3, Arma2, Empire: Total War, Farcry 2 just to name a few- theres only going to be more in the near and distant future aswell. For now, overclock that E4400 and see if it does anything for you, it probably won't as no amount of overclocking will makeup for a large deficit like 20fps in Sims but it may help. If you are still unsure you can go a few ways. In terms of future proofing, socket 775 is coming to the end of it's life, Core i5 and i3 will be here soon to take it's place at the midrange. You also should consider AMD as their AM3 socket is destined to last for a long while yet and the X4 955 is comparable to Q9550 performance (I have a thread on my 955 + overclocking it somewhere on this forum should you want to check it out). Then there's the high end X58s + i7 which IMO you won't need but it will be here for a while aswell.

I don't like the waiting game, as there always something better and more awesome ' a few months away' and youll be waiting forever so IMO best to get something today as whatever you do, Q9550, X4 955, i7/i5/i3, you'll notice a difference over that E4400. Since you mentioned Sims3, here is a benchmark of current CPUs and how they compare in this game. Unfortunately it doesn't include the i7 but you get the idea.

EDIT: Just notice you order some more Ram, if that's the case I'd go X4 955 or Q9550 to make use of that DDR2.

 

[tomster2300]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
At the top of this forum there are guides to overclocking, have a browse. It makes no sense to 'upgrade' to another Dualcore as Quads are performing better than duals in many recent multithreaded games- UT3, Arma2, Empire: Total War, Farcry 2 just to name a few- theres only going to be more in the near and distant future aswell. For now, overclock that E4400 and see if it does anything for you, it probably won't as no amount of overclocking will makeup for a large deficit like 20fps in Sims but it may help. If you are still unsure you can go a few ways. In terms of future proofing, socket 775 is coming to the end of it's life, Core i5 and i3 will be here soon to take it's place at the midrange. You also should consider AMD as their AM3 socket is destined to last for a long while yet and the X4 955 is comparable to Q9550 performance (I have a thread on my 955 + overclocking it somewhere on this forum should you want to check it out). Then there's the high end X58s + i7 which IMO you won't need but it will be here for a while aswell.

I don't like the waiting game, as there always something better and more awesome ' a few months away' and youll be waiting forever so IMO best to get something today as whatever you do, Q9550, X4 955, i7/i5/i3, you'll notice a difference over that E4400. Since you mentioned Sims3, here is a benchmark of current CPUs and how they compare in this game. Unfortunately it doesn't include the i7 but you get the idea.

EDIT: Just notice you order some more Ram, if that's the case I'd go X4 955 or Q9550 to make use of that DDR2.

I appreciate all of that, especially the link to the sims 3 test - I had been wondering about that for awhile. That explains the stuttering that occurs when I zoom in and out.

I have not bought any ram yet - I meant to say that if I were going to get another 775 then I would just stay with DDR2 800. If I get an AMD chip though, then I could probably get something more powerful.

Do you guys think the Phenom II is the way to go? They're not as powerful as Intel's lineup, but with the A3's just coming out a transition now would be cheaper, and may last longer.

Do you guys think that AMD will be able to compete with the i7 while staying with the A3 socket in the future, or do you think they'll have to change sockets to make something comparable?

EDIT: I found this article which tries to answer my question. What do you guys think?

 

[soccerballtux]

I found AMD the way to go as far are performance / price. I already had 8GB of DDR2 ram and a cooler when I upgraded, made no sense to ditch all that and get a core i7.
I'm very happy with mine.

Given that we're in a recession I'd do the financially prudent thing and spend just enough to get what you want, and save the rest.

 

[tomster2300]

Just bumping this to get a few more replies. Thanks so much for the info so far. Does anyone else vote AMD?

 

[tomster2300]

Just to give an update, I took advantage of Microcenter's recent i7 920 sale and went the i7 route. It was definitely an expensive upgrade, but I feel good about my purchases. It just didn't make sense to buy into an aging technology, or a currently inferior product that is only slightly less expensive.

So, while I wait for the PC Power and Cooling 750w psu to arrive Tuesday, the rest of the build looks like the following:

i7 920
Gigabyte EX58-UD3R
6gb Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1066
HD 4870 1 gb
22" Vizio HDTV (via HDMI)
19" Samsung LCD

Thanks to everyone for all their help in the rebuild! BTW, I setup my old computer for my brother and surprised him with it as he came back from camp today. That made it worth the cost.

 

[BolleY2K]

Nice rig, but I am a little bit disappointed that you didn´t even try to OC the E4400. You / your brother should, it really helps a lot...

 

[tomster2300]

I still want to try this in the future, but I was really afraid of damaging it. I think I might put together a cheap computer in the future to practice on. I still have some really old parts lying around that I could test it on.