Is my CPU old news now?

[Twista]

I play Team Fortress 2 which is very CPU aggressive. When things get busy the FPS drops into the 30's-40. I brought a 450 GTS then i brought a 460 GTX and didn't notice a increase in FPS.

So now im wondering if my computer needs an upgrade.
Specs:
4gb DDR2 677 Ram
Win 7 64Bit
460 Gtx 1 gb
q9300 quad

If so, lets say. I have $150-160 to spend on a new cpu. What would you recommend from newegg? I want something that plays TF2 well and WOW. Both are cpu intensive.

Thanks

 

[titan131]

If I were you I would save up some more money and get a 2500k with a z68 mobo and 8gb of ddr3 ram. Alternatively you could save up for a q9550 or q9650 but I personally don't think it would be worth it because iirc they are still quite expensive.

Edit: I think this is especially true since you have overclocked your q9300, I doubt a q9650 would OC too much higher than a q9300 (I could be wrong) but a 2500k on the other hand... is an overclocking monster. Maybe you should OC your 9300 some more while you save for a 2500k?

 

[Twista]

If I were you I would save up some more money and get a 2500k with a z68 mobo and 8gb of ddr3 ram. Alternatively you could save up for a q9550 or q9650 but I personally don't think it would be worth it because iirc they are still quite expensive.

Edit: I think this is especially true since you have overclocked your q9300, I doubt a q9650 would OC too much higher than a q9300 (I could be wrong) but a 2500k on the other hand... is an overclocking monster. Maybe you should OC your 9300 some more while you save for a 2500k?

Thanks for the reply. The q9300 is only @ 2.8ghz now. I doubt i could get 3.1 like my sig stated. I did before, but since then that motherboard died that did 3.1ghz.

I see the 2500k is $219. Is there anything in the AMD lineup that would stack up against the 2500k for cheaper. I know AMD use to be cheaper but had great performance.

 

[titan131]

Thanks for the reply. The q9300 is only @ 2.8ghz now. I doubt i could get 3.1 like my sig stated. I did before, but since then that motherboard died that did 3.1ghz.

I see the 2500k is $219. Is there anything in the AMD lineup that would stack up against the 2500k for cheaper. I know AMD use to be cheaper but had great performance.

I don't think it is worth going the amd route because clock for clock the phenom II isn't any faster than your q9300. The phenom II 1100T is their flagship cpu atm and it has six cores but games rarely use more than 4 and the 2500k beats it hands down for gaming, especially overclocked.

 

[mfenn]

Nothing at $150 would be a significant upgrade to what you have.

It's interesting to me that you are seeing CPU limitation on those games (neither are terribly demanding). Can you run a perfmon trace of your CPU activity?

 

[goobernoodles]

I don't play TF2, but TF2 is a source game... Your rig should be eating it up IMO. I have a hard time believing this is hardware related. When was the last time you reformatted?

I would uninstall everything video card driver related and install the latest drivers for starters.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Maybe do a clean install of windows

 

[mfenn]

I don't play TF2, but TF2 is a source game... Your rig should be eating it up IMO. I have a hard time believing this is hardware related. When was the last time you reformatted?

I would uninstall everything video card driver related and install the latest drivers for starters.

Yep, my thoughts exactly. Maybe there are a bunch of background processes eating CPU and RAM?

 

[gmaster456]

My old 2004 laptop with a 1.6Ghz Pentium M, played TF2 fine. Something is wrong with your system. There is no need whatsover to upgrade from what you have for said games or 98% of other games for that matter. Heck, even the main desktop in my sig tears up all the source games maxed out with great FPS. Never below 35 even on the newer ones such as Portal 2. See if you have multi core rendering on in the settings. That might help take advantage of your CPU. Also check your GPU drivers.