Q8300 (2.5Ghz) still any good for gaming?

[tvfore]

I would like to play some of the latest games and I'm wondering if my older system can still do it well enough.

Here are my specs:

Q8300 staying at stock speeds
ASUS P5Q Pro Turbo
4GB RAM
Samsung 830 64GB SSD
Windows 7

I have enough cash to completely overhaul the system, but If I can get away with just buying a decent graphics card then that's what I would prefer to do. I am willing to spend up to $225 on a graphics card.

Thanks for any info.

 

[Soulkeeper]

That cpu is still good enough for modern video games
getting a new video card (ie: 7850 or nvidia equivalent) would be a nice refresh
also if you can overclock the cpu to 3GHz or so that could help out as well.

If you do this it would tide you over for awhile imo

 

[Eureka]

Overclock that baby, drop in a 7850 or 660, and call it a day. 7870 if you can find them cheap enough.

Alternatively, if you're on a budget look in the FS/FT, a 6970, 6950, or 570 might be worthwhile if you can find it under $150. If you can find it cheaply enough, the performance is very similar to a 7850/660 but for less.

 

[VirtualLarry]

should be able to just set FSB to 400, and set memory to 1:1 (800).

 

[tvfore]

Thanks for the responses.

The reason why I didn't want to overclock is because the last time I was overclocked one of my DIMM slots went bad. I have no idea what caused it, so just to be safe I went back to stock. I never tried overclocking the memory and I never even adjusted any voltages. I have a good PSU (Corsair HX620) so I figured maybe it could have been the overclock that killed my slot. Who knows, maybe it was going to go bad regardless. Luckily, I haven't had any other problems with my setup since (the slot died almost two years ago).

 

[blastingcap]

Your CPU at stock is on the weak side for games that demand high IPC, such as Starcraft 2. For multithreaded games it would hold up better. I would not get anything faster than a GTX 560 to pair with that CPU. If you oc'd it to 3GHz then maybe a GTX 560 Ti.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Drop your resolution with your current card and overclock that CPU and see how it is. if you don't like it then a faster GPU won't be the right path, IMO. I think a new platform would run you about 300$ or you could even get a generation older like SandyBridge, or even do the 1st Gen Core like the i7 920.

 

[tweakboy]

your good with what you have. But were asking you to OC that card a bit.

I had a Q6600 GO oCed to 3.7Ghz for 5 years...... thats 2.4 to 3.7 , were asking you to give it a free boost. free meaning you don't have to touch CPU voltage or other voltages. Just raise the bus speed If that chip of yours was in my hands I bet you I can do 4Ghz without a sweat. No reason why your RAM should give out. I think it was conicidence OR you forgot to take down the mem frequency when you OCed the bus. gl

 

[peonyu]

You could oc that chip to 3.5ghz pretty easily, the Q8000 series were overclocking beasts for their time [I had a c2d E8400 at 4.5ghz for a while]. The only downside to the Q8300 is its bus speed is already high out of the box, so the motherboard would give you trouble long before the chip does. If it wasn't for that then 4ghz would be another easy target.

 

[BrightCandle]

Clock speeds with efficiency have brought us about a 100% speed up since the core 2 days on a single thread. So while you have sufficient cores for a modern gaming machine the performance of the machine at stock is going to be quite a way from a modern processor. Over clocking could narrow that to 50% which while noticeable still would reduce the difference considerably.

There are sites now testing the influence of CPU on game performance and you will suffer lower average and minimum frame rates due to the CPU, but in terms of dollars for performance a GPU brings you more than a CPU upgrade, but doing both will bring the most benefit in the end.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I think that chip is very modest for gaming still these days,as long as you got a quad core at 2.4ghz or higher with a compatible card,it's gonna work.

Having tested out how a i5 2500 non k will run games below 2.4ghz,right about 2.2ghz even such a beast of a chip is dreadful for games at that speed and at as low as 1.8ghz forget your modern fps games like BF3 but at about 2.4ghz gameplay was relatively smooth and after 2.6ghz,i saw little to no difference between 2.6ghz and 3.3ghz with the 7850 in that benchtest.

 

[Denithor]

but at about 2.4ghz gameplay was relatively smooth and after 2.6ghz,i saw little to no difference between 2.6ghz and 3.3ghz with the 7850 in that benchtest.

That's because once you got above ~2.4GHz shifted the bottleneck from the CPU to the GPU and more CPU simply won't make up for a lack of GPU muscle.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

My Q8200 plays most games well, with most seemingly being bottle-necked by my GPU even at 1680x1050. It plays games decently at stock speed, but an overclock is needed for smooth, good framerates. Starcraft 2 is more than playable. BF3 usually hangs around 35-55fps even in 16-28 person multiplayer. If I go higher I do notice a minor slowdown.

Edit: A 3Ghz overclock is SO VERY EASY on a P45 board like ours. Just set the ram to a setting lower (DDR 800 to a 1:1 ratio) and set the FSB to 400. Lower voltage to about 1.2V (keeps temps and power consumption in check) and lock in all other voltages to their normal voltage settings. Keeping voltages on AUTO is the only place you an go wrong with it.

The P5Q supports 1600Mhz FSB out of the box, so overclocking will not strain the motherboard OR CPU. Not overclocking with a P45 is literally choosing to be slower. The motherboard support it. It's not like the P35 or earlier chipsets that require tweaking and going outside of the default operating speeds of the motherboard.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Back in the day my q9550 at 3.3-3.5 ghz got me poor fps and lag with the latest games back then. Going to a 860 stock solved all my issues. This was a few years back.

Your CPU can't be used for games later than 2008/2009 properly, irrespective of oc or gpu.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Back in the day my q9550 at 3.3-3.5 ghz got me poor fps and lag with the latest games back then. Going to a 860 stock solved all my issues. This was a few years back.

Your CPU can't be used for games later than 2008/2009 properly, irrespective of oc or gpu.

Thats a load of bunk. Hilarious at the minimum.

 

[chimaxi83]

Back in the day my q9550 at 3.3-3.5 ghz got me poor fps and lag with the latest games back then. Going to a 860 stock solved all my issues. This was a few years back.

Your CPU can't be used for games later than 2008/2009 properly, irrespective of oc or gpu.

Why do you continue to litter the forum with written feces? Go back to being banned.

 

[tweakboy]

You could oc that chip to 3.5ghz pretty easily, the Q8000 series were overclocking beasts for their time [I had a c2d E8400 at 4.5ghz for a while]. The only downside to the Q8300 is its bus speed is already high out of the box, so the motherboard would give you trouble long before the chip does. If it wasn't for that then 4ghz would be another easy target.

Ya that dual core OCes like crazy,, very nice 4.5Ghz

Quads ,,,, 8Q or 9Q you can OC to 4Ghz but must be under water or something..

 

[tweakboy]

Lol honestly, I went from a Q6600 @ 3.7Ghz stable which I used for 5 years to a i7 Sandy E and my COD mw3 went from 38 to 39fps at all times pretty much to now 43fps to 44fps So I gained like 5fps probably due to fact its PCIe 2.0 hehe giddy

 

[atomheart]

Back in the day my q9550 at 3.3-3.5 ghz got me poor fps and lag with the latest games back then. Going to a 860 stock solved all my issues. This was a few years back.

Your CPU can't be used for games later than 2008/2009 properly, irrespective of oc or gpu.

My old q6600 at 3.0ghz plays borderlands 2 on max settings (no physx amd gpu) with 45+ fps...nice try.

OP going from 2.4ghz to 3.0ghz on my q6600 made a huge difference in reducing the CPU bottleneck

 

[2is]

At default speeds, you'll certainly run into CPU limited performance in plenty of todays games. You're already considering a whole new system, so really there's no risk to overclocking even if you do mess something up, which is highly unlikely. The plus side is there's a very real possibily that overclocking will help extend the life of that platform for a while longer.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Even an i7 860 was a limit for me.

While there is a difference on need and want. A faster CPU sure would make a difference.

 

[SPBHM]

unfortunately the q8xxx series used to be somewhat limited for OC I think, lower default clock (multiplier) and the high FSB never helped, also it's the equivalent to 2 Pentium Wolfdales (2MB l2 per die), BUT at 3.5GHz or something I would expect it to be OK in most games, perhaps as good as a stock q9550 or slightly better (based on my experience with Pentium with 2mb l2 and the e8xxx)

 

[Bman123]

You could oc that chip to 3.5ghz pretty easily, the Q8000 series were overclocking beasts for their time [I had a c2d E8400 at 4.5ghz for a while]. The only downside to the Q8300 is its bus speed is already high out of the box, so the motherboard would give you trouble long before the chip does. If it wasn't for that then 4ghz would be another easy target.

The E8 and Q8 series were totally different. I had a E8400 that did 4.2ghz on air, I had a Q8400 that I could not get to 3.4ghz on air on the same board as the E8400 with the same ram. The Q9 series were the overclocking beasts of that gen.

Do you have a microcenter near by? If you do just upgrade the system. You'll see a huge improvement.

 

[Jacky60]

I retired my E8400 at 4ghz in 2009. At your stock speed you're probs good for some console ports but I wouldn't spend any money on that rig. You really want/need 4 cores for gaming these days.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I retired my E8400 at 4ghz in 2009. At your stock speed you're probs good for some console ports but I wouldn't spend any money on that rig. You really want/need 4 cores for gaming these days.

The Q8300 is a quad core...