How does a Q9300 @ 3.0 (roughly a Q9650) stack up these days?

[VirtualLarry]

Always contemplating upgrades.

Built a friend of mine an i5-3570K system, mildly OCed to 4.0Ghz on all 4 cores. I think it was hitting maybe 56-60C in OCCT 64-bit linpack. 16GB of RAM. No GPU though, he's not into games.

I would have liked to have kept the system, but I owed him some money. I think it came out to like $850-900 total, including Win7 Pro. If it were mine, I would have dropped in two R9 270 cards, and cranked up the distributed computing.

I didn't run any benchmarks really, which is a shame. I'm a bit curious how a 4.0Ghz i5-3570K compares to a Q9300 @ 3.0.

Then again, I don't have $900 x 2 to upgrade both of my rigs.

Just curious how much slower my rigs are these days.

Would they be decent still to play any modern games, or are they really bad? They currently have HD4850 512MB cards, which I know would need to be replaced before playing any new games. I was looking at the MSI TF R9 270 2GB cards for $180 ea. I would need two, one for each rig. My boards are P35 chipset, which means that they don't overclock much over 400FSB, which means that 3.0Ghz is the practical limit for those Q9300 CPUs on these boards.

 

[nurturedhate]

Have a friend who just upgraded from a very similar system. He had a 9550 with a 4890. We initially replaced the 4890 with a 7850 and overclocked the 9550 to 3.2. It was functional in BF4 MP getting between 25-50fps. I think that is where you would be at with the 270, somewhere between functional and decent in a majority of game.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Have a friend who just upgraded from a very similar system. He had a 9550 with a 4890. We initially replaced the 4890 with a 7850 and overclocked the 9550 to 3.2. It was functional in BF4 MP getting between 25-50fps. I think that is where you would be at with the 270, somewhere between functional and decent in a majority of game.

Thanks. Seems that they might still have some life in them for gaming, if I upgrade the GPUs. I'm not a "60FPS or bust!" kind of gamer. I figure, as long as it's somewhat playable, it's OK with me. I used to play WoW on a 6150 NV IGP, got like 10-17FPS. It was pretty crappy, but at the time, that's what I had.

 

[MrPickins]

I noticed a large difference when stepping up from a Q9400 @ 3.2 to an I5-4670k @ 4.2.

Core 2 Quad is fine for basic tasks and light gaming, but is getting long in the tooth.

 

[2is]

I still have a Q6600 @ 3.2 around and while it can still game, there is a very noticeable difference in smoothness for more demanding games vs my 2600k or 3770k

 

[DigDog]

Would they be decent still to play any modern games

after a bit of snipping, this^ is the OP's question.

the answer is yes. Yes, you will be able to play most* modern games on decent settings with that CPU.

I played FarCry3, Crysis 2, something on the Unreal Engine 3, Bioshock, etc, on my E6600 @3.2Ghz. medium settings, mostly because the GPU otherwise would yell at me.

otoh, if you want top play MP BF4 or other games which are well known to demand a lot of CPu power, then it would be grossly underpowered.

the thing is, if the app you are using demands more grunt than you have, it feels like a brick. if it demands less, it flies.
between a CPu which has the amount needed and one which has lots more than the amount needed, the difference is little.

You really only see a big improvement in stuff like video editing and other work-intensive software.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Well considering a 4790K will go to 4.5 with ease and has a much higher IPC than an old core 2 quad, I would say the difference would be quite noticeable especially with the extra 1.5Ghz frequency.

 

[tweakboy]

Its a big difference. Youll be blown away. Get the CPU you want, good choice. Also put as much RAM you have, Also GPU working taking cpu shots..

With a i5 and OC and a 760 GTX... a try, gl

 

[Torn Mind]

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/49?vs=677

The Ivy Bridge i3-3220 is probably what your chip can match. Web browsing will still feel faster on the i3 because of web browsing tends to use one or two fast cores better than spreading out the math or logic among many cores.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I guess I've tentatively decided to upgrade to Z97 next month. At least one of the rigs. Going to fill it with a 20th Anniv. Pentium (unlocked), and OC it, hopefully to 4.5-5Ghz. Should be fun.

Build thread here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2387667

Edit: I've cancelled that idea. I'm instead going with a pair of IB and SB i3 pre-built PCs I purchased already. One has already been upgraded with a replacement PSU and a discrete GPU.

 

[n47h4n96]

Here's something that will supprise gamers!!
Before reading my computer spec, I AVG on Battlefield 4 med-low, no AA 30FPS:

-Intel Pentium Dualcore E5200 overclocked to 3.06GHz
-Standard Samsung 4GB DDR2 overclocked @980MHz (5-6-6-21)
-Gigabyte GA-G31m-ES2L Rev2.0
-MSI R9 270x HAWK series (2GB)
-CX430M

I will be upgrading to:

-I5 4440
-GSkill 2x4GB DDR3 @1600MHz CL8
-MSI H87m-G43

 

[psolord]

I have a Q9550 on my tertiary rig, which I often test even in recent games, just to see how it fairs.

I am currently running at 3.4Ghz since I plan to sell to a friend and I try to find a proper OC speed that will last and not torment the cpu.

I does run quite well, although it does show its age from time to time, especially in cpu heavy game. You will not see a steady 60fps in games like Far Cry 3, F1 2013 etc but it does keep 60fps in Rage, BF3 and so on.

BTW this is my now dormant Youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/toutagamon

I have uploaded quite a few videos of the Q9550 with various gpu configurations, but everything is at least 2 years old.

 

[tweakboy]

Its slower then a turtle , Ive had the Q6600. Dont bother get a recent CPU and you will see the jump in performance.. gl

 

[darkfalz]

I picked up a E8500 for $25 and 4 GB DDR2-800 for another $25 on eBay to breathe some life into my old PC, replacing an E6600. It's no golden sample as it requires 1.325 to get to 3.8 but it's a big improvement over my E6600 @ 3.0. For some reason tweaking my old PC with some budget parts has been more fun than playing with my main rig.

 

[chrisjames61]

I guess I've tentatively decided to upgrade to Z97 next month. At least one of the rigs. Going to fill it with a 20th Anniv. Pentium (unlocked), and OC it, hopefully to 4.5-5Ghz. Should be fun.

Build thread here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2387667

Edit: I've cancelled that idea. I'm instead going with a pair of IB and SB i3 pre-built PCs I purchased already. One has already been upgraded with a replacement PSU and a discrete GPU.

That Pentium may be fun but its going to perform like a dog.

 

[2is]

I picked up a E8500 for $25 and 4 GB DDR2-800 for another $25 on eBay to breathe some life into my old PC, replacing an E6600. It's no golden sample as it requires 1.325 to get to 3.8 but it's a big improvement over my E6600 @ 3.0. For some reason tweaking my old PC with some budget parts has been more fun than playing with my main rig.

You're not alone. The other day I scrounged up some spare parts consisting of an Athlon II X4, compatible board, 4GB DDR3, 650 Ti, and a 250GB Intel 520 SSD that works fine but is nearing the end of its life so I don't use it for anything important. Installed windows 8.1 preview, hooked it up to my TV and downloaded all my steam games that are controller friendly. Last night I played Sleeping Dogs on it for about 5 hours which is the single longest gaming session I've had in quite some time.

 

[escrow4]

I picked up a E8500 for $25 and 4 GB DDR2-800 for another $25 on eBay to breathe some life into my old PC, replacing an E6600. It's no golden sample as it requires 1.325 to get to 3.8 but it's a big improvement over my E6600 @ 3.0. For some reason tweaking my old PC with some budget parts has been more fun than playing with my main rig.

I don't why you'd spend $50 on obsolete used parts. I have some low end LGA 1155 crap I can't shift even fairly cheap. I know someone on a Core 2 who was mentioning their 4GB 2007 era box (the 5400RPM didn't help) was getting really slow and crap. The solution? They bought themselves a brand spanking new i7 | 16GB box. Unless you are really stuck with it old crap belongs in the trash.

 

[SPBHM]

I don't why you'd spend $50 on obsolete used parts. I have some low end LGA 1155 crap I can't shift even fairly cheap. I know someone on a Core 2 who was mentioning their 4GB 2007 era box (the 5400RPM didn't help) was getting really slow and crap. The solution? They bought themselves a brand spanking new i7 | 16GB box. Unless you are really stuck with it old crap belongs in the trash.

old C2D with 2GB+ of ram is still fine for web browsing and some MS word.

I assume your example was using the C2D for high end gaming, rendering of something for the C2D to be that bad and an i7 +16GB make any sense.

 

[VirtualLarry]

old C2D with 2GB+ of ram is still fine for web browsing and some MS word.

I assume your example was using the C2D for high end gaming, rendering of something for the C2D to be that bad and an i7 +16GB make any sense.

Old C2Q @ 3.0 and 8GB of RAM is even better.

Maybe not so great for games, or high-end rendering or video editing, but still more than fine for web browsing. If only the power consumption wasn't so high.

My IB i3-3240 w/8GB DDR3-1600 and a 1TB HDD and a 7790 1GB GDDR5 card, under full distributed-computing load, shows as high as 171W at the wall, but most of the time, around 131W. That's with the 24" IPS LCD monitor too, and it lists 80W power draw on the box. (Which seems high, my 26" KDS TN LCD monitor, before it died, took 63W according to a KAW.)

 

[darkfalz]

I don't why you'd spend $50 on obsolete used parts. I have some low end LGA 1155 crap I can't shift even fairly cheap. I know someone on a Core 2 who was mentioning their 4GB 2007 era box (the 5400RPM didn't help) was getting really slow and crap. The solution? They bought themselves a brand spanking new i7 | 16GB box. Unless you are really stuck with it old crap belongs in the trash.

I was going from 2GB to 4GB which makes a big difference for general browsing and so on. The E6600 @ 3.0 also ran hot and I think idled at about 110 watts. The updated runs much faster (also larger L2 cache), cooler and idles about 90 watts.

It's my wife's computer in the downstairs area and it's nice to be able to fire up a game if I'm down there while keeping an eye on the cooking etc.