How long is Core 2 Duo going to be relevant?

[Smartazz]

Hi all, I really want an excuse to upgrade my laptop which has a T9300 Core 2 Duo 2.5GHz but it's very difficult justifying. Anyone else having trouble justifying an upgrade such an old chip? I have an SSD in the laptop and it's still pretty fast for what I need it for which is basically just web surfing and office work.

 

[philipma1957]

well a bigger ssd at a low cost can't hurt. other then that you don't have much to do to it worthwhile.

A better cpu a 3.06 c2d or a better gpu if you can but only if the parts are close to free.

 

[Centauri]

Edit: Nevermind

 

[pc999]

Slower CPUs than that are probably still quite fast for anything but "higher end" gaming or content/multimedia production.

The thing that PCs are most used for have had all the power they need for a few years already IMO.

BTW if you want to get faster and do mostly websurfing office you should consider getting linux (Ubuntu or Linux Mint are really good, but some other built for speed, like X/Lubuntu or Mint XFCE/LXDC, will fly even on a netbook).

 

[Cerb]

You could put >4GB in most newer laptops, whereas most C2D ones tended to be limited to 4GB. If you have a 8GB max DDR3 C2D, and an SSD, you're stuck for awhile, as far as good excuses go .

 

[Smartazz]

Unfortunately it uses DDR2 memory which is really expensive.

 

[Centauri]

I couldn't be happier with my DDR3/SSD'd 2GHz C2D notebook. Shocked at how well it holds up to modern everyday usage. Never owned a primary comp of any kind for 4 years, let alone a laptop. May bump it to the max 8GB soon, just for the heck of it - the stuff is cheap.

 

[Smartazz]

My only complaint is that the battery barely lasts 3 hours with a new 9 cell battery. It also runs quite hot. Other than that this Dell Studio has really held up well. I'm wondering how long I can hold onto it.

 

[Cerb]

My only complaint is that the battery barely lasts 3 hours with a new 9 cell battery. It also runs quite hot. Other than that this Dell Studio has really held up well. I'm wondering how long I can hold onto it.

3 hours? That's um...awesome? New ones could get a little more, but...

If it's a Studio 1500 or similar, you'll probably be able to make use of it for another few years. Those things were made very much like their business notebooks.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

My only complaint is that the battery barely lasts 3 hours with a new 9 cell battery. It also runs quite hot. Other than that this Dell Studio has really held up well. I'm wondering how long I can hold onto it.

3 hours is quite a while.

 

[Smartazz]

3 hours is quite a while.

It is? Ultrabooks get way better battery life.

 

[nforce4max]

Core 2 era laptops are already dead as for current gaming is concerned while the desktop platform is really long in the tooth. Core 2 is painful even as a quad but for general and basic use it will hold on for another few years. As for keeping ancient stuff going I got an old DX33 486 dos rig next to me, imagine only 8mb of 70ns ram.

 

[Centauri]

A Core 2 Quad is painful?

 

[Smartazz]

A Core 2 Quad is painful?

He meant for gaming. For everyday tasks I've found that Core 2 is still more than enough. Before I got a Phenom II X3 at work I had an Athlon X2 and that was a little too slow for office work.

 

[Borealis7]

as long as we keep getting new DX9 games, it lives on! *looks at his E8400*

 

[jumpncrash]

I no longer use my e8400 for gaming but ti runs fine as my home server.

One of my friends however is still running an e2180 as his main PC, I can imagine that is getting kinda slow.

 

[Smartazz]

I often run my laptop at 1.2GHz to save power and it still doesn't feel that slow most of the time. I guess SSDs help that much?

 

[aaksheytalwar]

For hardcore gaming anything lower then first gen core i5 or second gen core i3 is already irrelevant.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Honestly, my Alienware m11x R1 (C2D ULV @ 1.7GHz, GT335M) is more than sufficient for most tasks and quite a bit of gaming. Pretty portable and has good battery life to boot (~5-6 hours).

 

[Avalon]

If you've got an SSD in there already that's pretty much all you'll need for your use case. My wife has a similar system with a slightly slower Core2 and an SSD and it does what she needs it to do. I imagine we won't need to change it out for a couple years.

 

[inf64]

Wait, C2Q is bad at games all of a sudden?? What constitutes "bad" exactly in your humble opinions ?

 

[minitron]

For hardcore gaming anything lower then first gen core i5 or second gen core i3 is already irrelevant.

Not really. Some people run DOTA2 on C2D and 9800 GTs and can rape your face.

 

[blastingcap]

Not really. Some people run DOTA2 on C2D and 9800 GTs and can rape your face.

Nice, uh, word choice?

A fast CPU and SSD (to stave off low minimums) is more critical for playing FPS's imho. A slow CPU will not hurt you as much if you play at low graphics settings or if you play turn-based games.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Not really. Some people run DOTA2 on C2D and 9800 GTs and can rape your face.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

i still use a bunch of c2d's that i use everyday. i could get newer stuff, but why? c2d is still good for most things