Intel Core 2 Quad 9450 Gaming upgrade path – CPU or GPU ?

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poofyhairguy

Lifer
Nov 20, 2005
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Food for thought: The 9600GSO and 8800GT (same GPU chip), were contemporaries of the Core2Quad CPUs. That's how old they really are. (The 8800GT is pretty-much ancient in GPU terms.)

Woah. And I thought my friend playing current games on his GTX 460 was crazy.

Honestly I only care to use this PC for very basic Windows tasks and CS :Go. It does both perfectly. I never dropped below 80 at native monitor resolution and everything cranked.
 

ibex333

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2005
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Its rubbish. A modern i3 would obliterate it.

Yes, it would. But how is that relevant? What I said was, my CPU can run any game an i3 can, and then some. And if it's not any game, it's definitely 99% of them or so.


Any 2015 AAA game even at 1080p would bring your system to its knees.

But that is not true! That is simply not true. Which exact game are you referring to?
 

skipsneeky2

Diamond Member
May 21, 2011
5,035
1
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Wish i had my Q6600 rig still,extensive benching of my 770 would have made for some interesting results i think.

Circumstances ended up with me getting a free rig with a i5 2500 and a 770,the Q6600 rig i gifted to my cousin for his birthday.It became his first computer.:)
 

escrow4

Diamond Member
Feb 4, 2013
3,339
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Yes, it would. But how is that relevant? What I said was, my CPU can run any game an i3 can, and then some. And if it's not any game, it's definitely 99% of them or so.




But that is not true! That is simply not true. Which exact game are you referring to?

GTA V, Witcher III, Phantom Pain, upcoming Fallout 4. Even Mad Max. They would die on that old Core 2. You won't get 60FPS solid, I doubt you'd get 30FPS consistent.
 

fourdegrees11

Senior member
Mar 9, 2009
441
1
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A true quad core seams to make a big difference. Maybe not completely relevant but playing NWN2 with an i3 4360 (3.7 ghz) on the system in my sig, framerates could bog down to the low 20s/high teens with lots of stuff on screen and the load times around 10-12 seconds. Swapping to the 4690k frames never drop below 75 and load times are about 2-3 seconds. That is a massive difference.
 

MongGrel

Lifer
Dec 3, 2013
38,751
3,068
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Wish i had my Q6600 rig still,extensive benching of my 770 would have made for some interesting results i think.

Circumstances ended up with me getting a free rig with a i5 2500 and a 770,the Q6600 rig i gifted to my cousin for his birthday.It became his first computer.:)

My sister in law still uses one of my old Q6600 gaming rigs and the wife uses an old gaming Q9650.

They still are pretty viable for general purpose things.
 

Hi-Fi Man

Senior member
Oct 19, 2013
601
120
106
GTA V, Witcher III, Phantom Pain, upcoming Fallout 4. Even Mad Max. They would die on that old Core 2. You won't get 60FPS solid, I doubt you'd get 30FPS consistent.

I gave my little cousin a Dell SSF Optiplex 380 with a GeForce GT 740 2GiB, 4GiB DDR3 and a 3GHz Xeon E5450 with 6MiB of L2 per die (essentially a C2Q Q9650). That thing plays games better than his Xbox One, MGS5 comes to mind specifically, if you take a look at the requirements for these games a high clocked C2Q can do 30fps easy and if you lowered some settings 60 as well.
 

SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
5,056
409
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I gave my little cousin a Dell SSF Optiplex 380 with a GeForce GT 740 2GiB, 4GiB DDR3 and a 3GHz Xeon E5450 with 6MiB of L2 per die (essentially a C2Q Q9650). That thing plays games better than his Xbox One, MGS5 comes to mind specifically, if you take a look at the requirements for these games a high clocked C2Q can do 30fps easy and if you lowered some settings 60 as well.

MGS5 runs locked at 60FPS on the Xbox One and PS4, if it's anywhere near 30FPS that's a lot worse.
 
Oct 16, 1999
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I finally gave Shadow of Mordor a go on my 3GHz Q6600 & Radeon 7850 machine and it runs perfectly well on medium. I could probably crank a few settings higher if I spent more time tweaking it but that means less time playing. :)
 

TheELF

Diamond Member
Dec 22, 2012
3,967
720
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I finally gave Shadow of Mordor a go on my 3GHz Q6600 & Radeon 7850 machine and it runs perfectly well on medium. I could probably crank a few settings higher if I spent more time tweaking it but that means less time playing. :)
How many fps, and how steady, is "runs perfectly well" ?
Just curious.
 

skipsneeky2

Diamond Member
May 21, 2011
5,035
1
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My sister in law still uses one of my old Q6600 gaming rigs and the wife uses an old gaming Q9650.

They still are pretty viable for general purpose things.

I was more then content with the Q6600 rig and would have had a 750 in there now if i hadn't gotten that other rig.:)

I used to own this i5 2500 rig,i sold it to a buddy of mine who sold it to some kid my cousin knows.His family screwed it up beyond repair pretty much with viruses and he said if i fix it just to keep it as he prefers the PS4 experience.No complaints here.:)

Malwarebytes picked up over 2,000 viruses beyond other things on this thing,cleaning it up still left it such a mess a fresh format and reinstall was all i could do.
 

MongGrel

Lifer
Dec 3, 2013
38,751
3,068
121
I was more then content with the Q6600 rig and would have had a 750 in there now if i hadn't gotten that other rig.:)

I used to own this i5 2500 rig,i sold it to a buddy of mine who sold it to some kid my cousin knows.His family screwed it up beyond repair pretty much with viruses and he said if i fix it just to keep it as he prefers the PS4 experience.No complaints here.:)

Malwarebytes picked up over 2,000 viruses beyond other things on this thing,cleaning it up still left it such a mess a fresh format and reinstall was all i could do.

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

That's a lot of bugs, I remember walking into a local mom and pop computing store years back and a guy ahead of me was picking up his business computer.

The owner pretty much told him the same thing, there was so much malware on it when he brought it in was almost unusable.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
126
:thumbsup::thumbsup:

That's a lot of bugs, I remember walking into a local mom and pop computing store years back and a guy ahead of me was picking up his business computer.

The owner pretty much told him the same thing, there was so much malware on it when he brought it in was almost unusable.

Yeah, I've worked on PCs like that...
 

skipsneeky2

Diamond Member
May 21, 2011
5,035
1
71
:thumbsup::thumbsup:

That's a lot of bugs, I remember walking into a local mom and pop computing store years back and a guy ahead of me was picking up his business computer.

The owner pretty much told him the same thing, there was so much malware on it when he brought it in was almost unusable.

I saw a attack once on a buddies computer that was so bad,all the incoming threats that flooded the firewall pretty much tore BitDefender apart and somehow it simply crashed and failed to even work after that then of course the computer crawled to a halt and that was about it.The threats remind me of the flood of those bot dealios in Matrix 3 i swear to god,never ending and intent on ruining everything.

Have you or anyone even seen such madness?A attack so bad the anti-virus crashes beyond repair and a computer pretty much freezes cause it has had it?
 
Oct 16, 1999
10,490
4
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How many fps, and how steady, is "runs perfectly well" ?
Just curious.

It's usually pegged close to 60fps with the very occasional drop to 40's. It's really smooth. A fair bit more so than Sleeping Dogs: DE on this hardware, which I would rate at "runs moderately well." :).

Edit: Correction, I've been playing Shadow of Mordor on high, not medium. I'm probably going to try tweaking it higher today.
 
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Hi-Fi Man

Senior member
Oct 19, 2013
601
120
106
MGS5 runs locked at 60FPS on the Xbox One and PS4, if it's anywhere near 30FPS that's a lot worse.

I am aware of that, MGS5 does indeed run 60fps on that hardware. I was referring to other more demanding games in regards to the 30fps comment.
 

2is

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2012
4,281
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I am aware of that, MGS5 does indeed run 60fps on that hardware. I was referring to other more demanding games in regards to the 30fps comment.

Highly unlikely considering the best example you came up with was MGS5 which does the exact opposite of your claim. If the system you're talking about runs MGS5 significantly worse than XB1, what kind of sorcery are you performing to it that will make even more demanding games suddenly leapfrog it?
 

AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
14,000
3,357
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Highly unlikely considering the best example you came up with was MGS5 which does the exact opposite of your claim. If the system you're talking about runs MGS5 significantly worse than XB1, what kind of sorcery are you performing to it that will make even more demanding games suddenly leapfrog it?

The system only has a GT 740 , its severely GPU limited and still runs MGS5 at 60 fps.
The more demanding games like the Witcher 3 will run at 60fps with a faster GPU.
 

2is

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2012
4,281
131
106
The system only has a GT 740 , its severely GPU limited and still runs MGS5 at 60 fps.
The more demanding games like the Witcher 3 will run at 60fps with a faster GPU.

That isn't my problem. He said that system runs games better than current consoles and the simple fact is it doesn't. "if this" and "if that" are talking about systems that he wasn't talking about and is speculative.
 

AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
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3,357
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That isn't my problem. He said that system runs games better than current consoles and the simple fact is it doesn't. "if this" and "if that" are talking about systems that he wasn't talking about and is speculative.

Well what he said was that the system with the Core 2 Quad + GT 740 plays the MSG5 at 60 fps and the rest of the more demanding games at 30fps or higher if he will lower the IQ settings.

And that really shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor for those games but the GPU. Obviously if you install the GTX980Ti or Fury X you will have a CPU bottleneck but you will be more GPU limited up to the R9 380/GTX 960.
 

ibex333

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2005
4,086
119
106
GTA V, Witcher III, Phantom Pain, upcoming Fallout 4. Even Mad Max. They would die on that old Core 2. You won't get 60FPS solid, I doubt you'd get 30FPS consistent.


Well, Fallout 4 is not out yet so lets not talk about that.

Mad Max, I'll test. I have it.


Witcher III and GTA V probably wont run well, but it's such a handful of games, in a sea of other games one can play... I'll test them out too when I get them.
 

2is

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2012
4,281
131
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Well what he said was that the system with the Core 2 Quad + GT 740 plays the MSG5 at 60 fps and the rest of the more demanding games at 30fps or higher if he will lower the IQ settings.

And that really shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor for those games but the GPU. Obviously if you install the GTX980Ti or Fury X you will have a CPU bottleneck but you will be more GPU limited up to the R9 380/GTX 960.

He did not list a single example of a game that runs better on that system then it does on XB1, which was his claim.
 

AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
14,000
3,357
136
He did not list a single example of a game that runs better on that system then it does on XB1, which was his claim.

Ahh you are talking about that, i cant say anything about that claim, i dont have the data.

But with a faster GPU im sure the C2Q will be at least equal to the XB1/PS4 if not better(higher IQ)
 

ibex333

Diamond Member
Mar 26, 2005
4,086
119
106
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I want to come back to our very interesting discussion.

I ran Cinebench and Passmark tests and came to a conclusion that my overclocked e6300 @ 3.2GHz is about equivalent in performance to an e8400(stock) which in turn is equivalent to an i3-3220(stock, slightly faster).

I am running Fallout 4, at 1440p with a Radeon 6950, and I am getting anything from 13fps to 33fps or so. Average fps is about 26 to 31. May not be what most people prefer, but playable.

This is confusing to me, because the minimum requirements for Fallout 4 are:

Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
Intel Core i5-2300 2.8 GHz/AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0 GHz or equivalent
8 GB RAM
30 GB free HDD space
NVIDIA GTX 550 Ti 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or equivalent


and I have...


Only 4 GB RAM, much slower CPU and video card.

so...



Are my comparisons completely wrong? Am I missing something?

People told me many times that my CPU would be a bottleneck, but it seems like the only bottleneck is my video card. My CPU does get to about 98% load in task manager while game is running. And MSI afterburner often shows 100%. Yes, it is indeed a max load, but I am not sure if it's an actual bottleneck.

I will run the game at lower res and check...
 
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