Intel q9450 bottleneck for newer graphics cards?

[PrincessFrosty]

I went from a Q9450 @ 3.6Ghz to a 2600k and definitely had better experiences in at least a handful of games, BFBC2 and GTA IV are 2 typically high CPU usage games which were most noticeable.

It's limited to a handful of games though so it depends what you play most, if you can overclock the Q9450 it will perform quite well in a lot of games, some will certainly struggle a bit but remain fundamentally playable.

If you want to max everything, and have rock solid FPS in all possible games, you'll definitely need an upgrade, the Q9450 is a great chip but showing its age for sure.

 

[Triglet]

Rocking the rig in my sig -- just upgraded to a 680 and I'm seeing around 80-85% processor load when the vid card is maxed out at 100% (in BF3 anyway).

I'm also at a lower res (19x12), so if you're driving more pixels that'll help your cause. 3.2 Ghz may hold you back a little bit, but probably not the end of the world if you want to save the cash.