E8600 vs. Q9300 (Both at stock speed)

[cbn]

Personally, I would start with DOOM 3 BFG edition as a test. It is $5 on steam/newegg. I would also wait a bit for all the reviews and testing to come out for both cards, assuming that freesync is not a make or break technology for you, and pick from there.

I think Doom 3 could definitely work at 4K.

From this Athlon 5350 review.

Next up I tried Doom 3 BFG Edition. I ran around that place with high settings, no AA, and a 1920x1200 resolution with again few performance problems. There were a few graphical glitches here and there, but nothing that would take away from the experience of not seeing demons jump out at the dark and owning me. I was again impressed by how this game played on a low power APU with limited memory bandwidth. Yes, this is a 2004/2005 title that was slightly hopped up a few years ago, but it is fun to see this type of performance on an entry-level, low power APU.

Keep in mind the Athlon 5350 has a iGPU with only 128sp at 600 Mhz (along with limited memory bandwidth and CPU), so 4x the resolution of 1080p (ie, 4K) would be no problem for a RX 550 which has 512sp at 1183 Mhz boost clock (plus a lot more bandwidth).

 

[cbn]

Regarding CS:GO at 4K here are some results (using Core i5 4460) with GT 1030 and RX 550 at 1080p low. (RX 550 = 178 FPS and GT 1030 = 160 FPS).

Assuming 4K low would cause those FPS to be divided in four that would work out to be 44.5 FPS for RX 550 and 40 FPS for GT 1030.

With that noted, CS:GO will be ported over to source 2 this summer. Not sure how this would affect performance? (NOTE: Team Fortress 2 will stay on Source 1)

 

[edcoolio]

Regarding CS:GO at 4K here are some results (using Core i5 4460) with GT 1030 and RX 550 at 1080p low. (RX 550 = 178 FPS and GT 1030 = 160 FPS).

Assuming 4K low would cause those FPS to be divided in four that would work out to be 44.5 FPS for RX 550 and 40 FPS for GT 1030.

With that noted, CS:GO will be ported over to source 2 this summer. Not sure how this would affect performance? (NOTE: Team Fortress 2 will stay on Source 1)

That is nice information to have, and very interesting.

As for Source 2 on CS:GO, it "should" require more from your CPU and GPU. A good Source 2 to check playability would be Dota 2.

 

[Valantar]

OP: What case will this be in? And with what CPU cooler? Is overclocking entirely out of the question? That Q9300 should quite easily match the stock speed of the E8600 with a semi-decent cooler like a Hyper 212 Evo (that's what I use to keep my Q9450 more than comfortable at 3.52GHz). Or at the very least, push it to 3-3.1GHz and pretty much erase the ST advantage of the E8600, while increasing the MT advantage of the Q9300. A 2c2t CPU doesn't have much going for it in 2017.