How much longer will Core 2 Quads be powerful enough for games?

[Rubycon]

I still play Sam and Max Hit The Road, circa 1993 when time permits. I had a P3 450 Win9x/Dos box for that purpose. :laugh:

I'd like to play with VM's particularly with DOS and 32 bit extenders but I don't have that much free time.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
There is no cpu that exists that can power mind games.

Holy crap, I think you're my wife. Donna, what are you doing on AT???

I still play Sam and Max Hit The Road, circa 1993 when time permits. I had a P3 450 Win9x/Dos box for that purpose.

I'd like to play with VM's particularly with DOS and 32 bit extenders but I don't have that much free time.

I looked at doing that with an older pc but use dosbox now, instead. RISK ftw!!!

 

[vshah]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
I still play Sam and Max Hit The Road, circa 1993 when time permits. I had a P3 450 Win9x/Dos box for that purpose. :laugh:

I'd like to play with VM's particularly with DOS and 32 bit extenders but I don't have that much free time.

play monkey island while you're at it

 

[Nemesis 1]

Originally posted by: n7
So few games really utilize quads well today that i'm pretty sure anyone with a decently clocked quad will be good for a pretty decent while.

It takes the software side of things a while to catch up, so while i'd hope that in a few years every game out there is putting every core to good use, i highly doubt that's going to be the case anytime soon.

The end of 2010 should prove very interesting with Sandy Bridge doubling FP, + I would say with sandy 2 cores in a notetbook be equal to nehalem .

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: vshah

Originally posted by: Rubycon
I still play Sam and Max Hit The Road, circa 1993 when time permits. I had a P3 450 Win9x/Dos box for that purpose. :laugh:

I'd like to play with VM's particularly with DOS and 32 bit extenders but I don't have that much free time.

play monkey island while you're at it

LOAD "GORILLAS.BAS
:laugh:

Ok that's a little too far.

Where's my CP/M boot disk? 8" floppy should not be hard to find. :laugh:

 

[phexac]

So few games even utiliza quads at this point, that you're going to be fine with even a Core 2 Duo for quite some time. Would not worry about upgrading the CPU for gaming.

 

[Nightsilencer]

Originally posted by: phexac
So few games even utiliza quads at this point, that you're going to be fine with even a Core 2 Duo for quite some time. Would not worry about upgrading the CPU for gaming.

My point exactly.

Why worry about Quads, if Duos will still be capable of gaming for at least another 2 years?

Maybe even more if you've got a good, solid Duo (Intel E8x00).

 

[Nemesis 1]

Dual cores be around for awhile longer. But not for reasons stated. After Larrabee gaming going tochange alot. Where Multi cores are everthing. But For ALL games up to that point and some after. 2 cores be more than enough . Even when games are opt. for multi core. The 2 core sandy will be = or > than same clocked 4 core Nehalem in FP.Since games are FP intensive the outcome be about =. But the C2D no I think it has limited life. After sandy . The old tech does not apply where games are concerned. Sandy Changes the cpu alot. So C2D dies when Sandy released. About 19 months. Or If AMD releases Bulldoozer with FMA another game changer for FP intensive programms.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Agreed people get way too crazy about fps and cpu's. I have a P4 620(?) and it still games reasonably well. We all get too obsessed with the number, load the game and see if it looks good and runs well then assume everyting is fine.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Originally posted by: Fanatical Meat
Agreed people get way too crazy about fps and cpu's. I habe a P4 620(?) and it still games reasonably well. We all get too obsessed with the number, load the game and see if it looks good and runs well then assume everyting is fine.

I once was in that boat, but then most games i tried to play with my old s939 4200+ just didn't play very well. Even when it was overclocked to 2.4ghz, it still kinda sucked in newer games.

On absolute low settings (EDIT: In DiRT)and res i got 35-60fps in single car races, and still sub 30fps in multi-car races with drastic slowdowns. Same GPU and the upgrade to my current CPU at stock settings i got 80-140fps in single AND multi-car races. At a my maximum resolution and 2xAA all maxed out i get 45-70fps.

 

[lopri]

I'm still waiting for Alan Wake. :moon:

 

[poohbear]

Originally posted by: Scholzpdx

Originally posted by: Fanatical Meat
Agreed people get way too crazy about fps and cpu's. I habe a P4 620(?) and it still games reasonably well. We all get too obsessed with the number, load the game and see if it looks good and runs well then assume everyting is fine.

I once was in that boat, but then most games i tried to play with my old s939 4200+ just didn't play very well. Even when it was overclocked to 2.4ghz, it still kinda sucked in newer games.

On absolute low settings (EDIT: In DiRT)and res i got 35-60fps in single car races, and still sub 30fps in multi-car races with drastic slowdowns. Same GPU and the upgrade to my current CPU at stock settings i got 80-140fps in single AND multi-car races. At a my maximum resolution and 2xAA all maxed out i get 45-70fps.

so, u noticed a difference between 60 vs 140fps? cause the human eye can't register the difference and assuming your LCD is @ default 60hz it wouldnt even display the difference. very hard to believe u went from 35fps to 80fps w/ just a cpu upgrade @ 1680x1050 on a 4830, i've never seen results like that in any cpu benchmark when researching for possible upgrades from my current rig.

 

[alkalinetaupehat]

Just to add to the muddle of opinions, my (gasp) 6-yr old 2.6Ghz P4 rig with a 7800GS and 1.5GB of RAM regularly runs Left 4 Dead for my friends at about 60FPS. Most settings are turned down, but the funny part is that I can game just fine on it, even in some intense versus. TBH I really think leaving it on a CRT is a saving grace, since there's virtually no lag between the video card and screen, so the situations where frames do dip is partially counteracted by lack of monitor lag.

I will stress heavily though that maxing out your RAM if fiscally possible is a very wise move. L4D runs like crap (on the P4) with less than 1.5GB of RAM and gets noticeably better with 2+. On the rig in the sig, I average 175fps with max settings @1680x1050 and frequently see bumps into the 200fps range. The lowest I've reached since moving to 8GB during gameplay is ~120fps.

Also as expenditures allow, upgrading your GPU will extend the lifetime of your system as a gaming machine. Moving to a GTX285 has been worthwhile because of the resale value of the GTX260 at the time I sold it and the price of the GTX285, in general framerates have increased 25% in most games, and F@H does better as well. There is a point of diminishing returns with GPU upgrades, a friend of mine has hit that point from his move to SLI'd 8800GT's with his X2 4400+ being unable to really feed them. He's going to 8GB himself, and from there it seems that picking up a Phenom is next.

The upgrade cycle is mostly dependent on what you want from your computer. To really figure out how long C2Q's will be relevant, we'd need to know what level of performance you need in games. Someone I know upgrades as soon as he can't play a game at max settings with 70+fps, his brother hasn't upgraded in four something years. About two months ago his brother got a 650i, E6000 series dual core, 4GB RAM, and a 7950GT for about $165. He's been fine with reducing settings, he just needs it to somehow produce smooth framerates. Again though, the RAM became crucial in maintaining smooth gameplay. It was much smoother after moving from 1GB to 4GB in anything, on a bare XP installation.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Originally posted by: poohbear

Originally posted by: Scholzpdx

Originally posted by: Fanatical Meat
Agreed people get way too crazy about fps and cpu's. I habe a P4 620(?) and it still games reasonably well. We all get too obsessed with the number, load the game and see if it looks good and runs well then assume everyting is fine.

I once was in that boat, but then most games i tried to play with my old s939 4200+ just didn't play very well. Even when it was overclocked to 2.4ghz, it still kinda sucked in newer games.

On absolute low settings (EDIT: In DiRT)and res i got 35-60fps in single car races, and still sub 30fps in multi-car races with drastic slowdowns. Same GPU and the upgrade to my current CPU at stock settings i got 80-140fps in single AND multi-car races. At a my maximum resolution and 2xAA all maxed out i get 45-70fps.

so, u noticed a difference between 60 vs 140fps? cause the human eye can't register the difference and assuming your LCD is @ default 60hz it wouldnt even display the difference. very hard to believe u went from 35fps to 80fps w/ just a cpu upgrade @ 1680x1050 on a 4830, i've never seen results like that in any cpu benchmark when researching for possible upgrades from my current rig.

There is a big difference between getting 60fps and 140fps. You aren't taking into account that you might get 3 or 4 frames in the matter of a few milliseconds and then have a huge gap (30-150ms) And instead of feeling that 60fps, you are really at 10-15 for a moment. At higher FPS (60+) these jitters are quite minimized. Yes, you can really notice it.

Also, those figures were from absolute low settings (640x480 all low) so its just the CPU being stressed. I did that so the GPU wouldn't be a factor. Like i said, i get 45-75fps with high settings at high res, not 80-140.

And if you really want to debate it, compare s939 K8 Athlon "Manchester" (which is memory as well as clock speed limited) to a Core2 Quad, go ahead. Double the memory bandwidth, much higher FSB and a much more advanced architecture. Not to mention the said application is multithreaded, yeah, its that much better.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

Even today, most game devs are scratching their heads trying to figure out what to do with the 3rd and 4th core on quad procs, and while a lot of games claim multi-core support, very few actually benefit from having more than 2 cores.

I think we'll be good for awhile .

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
There is no cpu that exists that can power mind games.

It takes women to do that

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: PlasmaBomb

Originally posted by: Rubycon
There is no cpu that exists that can power mind games.

It takes women to do that

and no overclocking is required.

However no power button or CMOS reset is present either.