Q8300 better than E8400 for gaming?

[Barfo]

I use the rig in my sig for some 1080p gaming. Mainly 2008-2010 games, plus some Starcraft 2, A LOT of BC2, planning to get BF3 when it drops a bit in price and I just bought GTA4 (haven't played it because I fear performance will be crappy with my dual core).

Would it be worth giving some single threaded performance and cache up in exchange for the 2 extra cores?
Would it be hard to OC the Q8300 to 3 GHZ? are the Core 2 quad CPUs much hotter than the duals?

Note, my only option is the Q8300 so please don't suggest other CPUs.

 

[Midwayman]

The older the game, the less chance it will use more than 2 cores effectively. Games of that era I would imagine you'd be better off with a higher clockspeed than more cores. Its only a few pretty recent games that the cpu really started being an issue.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

With new games, I think that you will see increased performance, but it will still be a side-grade. Wait it out when you can afford to build a new rig.

 

[nenforcer]

I'm in the same boat as you (LGA775), except with an E6600, and I generally prefer more cache + clockspeed in a dual core over a lesser quad core

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/89?vs=56

but you can clearly see in multithreaded benchmarks 4 cores is better than 2 cores. (naturally)

I am playing BF : BC2 w/ DX10 and it plays just fine with my dual core but I haven't tried multiplayer yet. It is suppose to be the first game that can really take advantage of a 4 core processor but I run everything on high @ 1600x1200.

I was only able to play BF3 beta on low settings with my 9800 GT in SLI, but this was more to do with my GPU's than it was my CPU.

If you are serious about BF3 then a quad core may be the way to go. Dual cores are currently being dumped en masse on places like eBay and the Core 2 Quad LGA775's are way overpriced for what they are, a 3-4 year old CPU.

I refure to spend $200+ on a used Q9650 when I can purchase a brand new Core i5 2500 or AMD FX 8 core for the same price. I'll have to settle for some chip less than $150 or so.

 

[Concillian]

In most games dual @ higher clockspeed is faster than quad @ lower clockspeed. Q8300 also has disadvantage of much less cache per core.

I would personally stick with the e8400. BF3 benches weren't bad with an i3-2100, which is probably about the same as a 3.5ish GHz OCed e8400. SCII effectively doesn't use more than 2 cores, so that would be a downgrade.

Consider purchasing a heatpipe tower cooler and OCing your e8400 as a middle ground.

 

[MustangSVT]

q8200 @ 3.2ghz currently from c2d @ 3.5ghz before.

Some games are much faster in c2q but not in sc2.

and reaching at least 3ghz should be do able. If you have to spend money to get q8200, i say save it for 2500k.

 

[Bman123]

gta is going to be bad on the e8400, the same with BF3. How much is the Q8300 you would get?

 

[Barfo]

gta is going to be bad on the e8400, the same with BF3. How much is the Q8300 you would get?

$90.

 

[lehtv]

I don't think that's really worth it, rather start saving money for upgrading the platform. LGA775 is dead upgrading-wise. For about $200 you could upgrade to an i3-2100, a H61 board and a 4GB stick of DDR3-1333. The i3-2100 beats Q8300 easily, and you can later upgrade it to a Quad Ivy Bridge as well as add another 4GB stick. OR for about $50 more you could either go with an ATX-size Z68 platform for Sata6/Usb3 compatibility and SSD caching, or with a quad SB. For about $350 you can get the whole shebang of i5 + Z68 + 8GB.

 

[LOL_Wut_Axel]

$90.

You're really not gonna do much better for the price. The only worthy upgrades are a Q9300 or a Q9450/Q9550, and those are at least twice the price.

The only thing really that most games today care about is two things: IPC or clock rate, and/or core count. Most games take advantage of three cores, with some taking advantage of four. The paltry 2MB/core cache of the Q8300 will hurt it in games from 5-15%, but you can also expect to gain that much from the third core. In newer games that can take advantage of four cores, it'll always be faster. If you overclock it to 3.2GHz, which pretty much all samples can, you won't lose any performance in comparison.

There's very few games out there (ironically, BF3 is one of them) that only use two cores. Most use three, and some use four. They also love IPC, though, which is often why you see a dual-core like a 2100 beat a quad-core Q9450. That's also another option to consider. It's more expensive, but it'd be more future-proof.

 

[ShreddedWheat]

I was in the same boat e5200 oced to 3.4 and looking on ebay for a 775 quad but the going price is way too high. Ended up getting an i5 2500k + mobo for $ 256 after rebate from microcenter. Still haven't built yet.

 

[toyota]

yeah at some point its just time to move on. the much faster new stuff does not cost very much and by the time you sell your old stuff, it makes buying just another old cpu look silly.

 

[alyarb]

You have a really nice motherboard and a nice CPU. I don't see why you can't get a $25 heatsink and clock your chip up to 3.6-4 GHz.

 

[Bman123]

clock speed isnt going to make up for less cores in bf3.

 

[toyota]

clock speed isnt going to make up for less cores in bf3.

surprisingly dual cores are hanging in there MUCH better than in BF 2. even a wimpy Athlon 2 X2 is almost right there with the big boy quads at 1920 and giving a good framerate.



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[alyarb]

lol, if regor is hanging in there I'm going to stand by the high freq penryn. Best value is for gaming is what you are already running.

 

[Concillian]

gta is going to be bad on the e8400, the same with BF3.

BF3 benches are available from multiple sources that indicate otherwise. Why would you spread misinformation like this?

Even most games that "can make use of quads" have very low % usage on the 3rd and 4th cores and primarily load only 1-2 cores. GTAIV is one of the worst, but it still can maintain acceptable framerates if video options are kept within reason;

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/balanced-gaming-pc-overclock,2625-11.html

That e8400 OC sure is chugging there at right around 60 FPS @1920x1200 for cards in his range.

Someone bit the "gamers need quads" hype hook line and sinker. Quads definitely perform better in some games, but good duals are usually at a performance point that's well above the threshold for smooth play. Meaning that duals will still provide a smooth experience. At least Intel duals that provide high enough clocks and IPC performance.

And the quad hype scared this guy off GTAIV. Such a shame.

 

[toyota]

BF3 benches are available from multiple sources that indicate otherwise. Why would you spread misinformation like this?

Even most games that "can make use of quads" have very low % usage on the 3rd and 4th cores and primarily load only 1-2 cores. GTAIV is one of the worst, but it still can maintain acceptable framerates if video options are kept within reason;

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/balanced-gaming-pc-overclock,2625-11.html

Someone bit the "gamers need quads" hype hook line and sinker. Quads definitely perform better in some games, but it's usally a performance point that's well above the threshold for smooth play. Meaning that duals will still provide a smooth experience. At least Intel duals that provide high enough clocks and IPC performance.

as someone who had an E8500 at 3.8, I can tell you that looking at average framerate is not always going to tell the truth about actual game results. GTA 4 would just tank in spots for seemingly no reason even though I could average just fine in the benchmark. putting the res at 800x600 made no difference in those spots at the settings I was using so it was all cpu causing the slowdown there. a fast dual core can still get the job done in most games but it is not the same playable experience in many newer games.

 

[Concillian]

a fast dual core can still get the job done in most games but it is not the same playable experience in many newer games.

I do not have experience with GTAIV, but I do have dual experience with plenty of other newer games.

You mention that a dual will not offer a playable experience in "many newer games". Can you elaborate on that? GTAIV is the only one I know of. I don't play much in the way of 'consoley' games, so there might be "many" I'm missing, but DAO, for example, despite favoring quads, still played very well on my i3 @ 4GHz (which should be roughly the same capability as an e8400 @ 4GHz)

 

[alyarb]

I'll agree minimums are definitely the number to look at but you can see similar bottlenecking in the low 50's in the very chart you posted. Looking at only Regor, Callisto, and Deneb on the chart, cache seems to be a more influential factor than threads and frequency combined. Sure there will be a few exceptions but I think the spread on your graph is very representative of most hi-res game scenarios. Yes GTA is a good exception but I'm not sure it's worth the $350.

 

[toyota]

I do not have experience with GTAIV, but I do have dual experience with plenty of other newer games.

You mention that a dual will not offer a playable experience in "many newer games". Can you elaborate on that? GTAIV is the only one I know of. I don't play much in the way of 'consoley' games, so there might be "many" I'm missing, but DAO, for example, despite favoring quads, still played very well on my i3 @ 4GHz (which should be roughly the same capability as an e8400 @ 4GHz)

well for one thing the E8500 is maxed out in some games so good luck if anything else needs any cpu usage. in games like Prototype the minimum framerate is very low at times with an dual core. in Red Faction Guerrilla, the framerate is super low at times during destruction which is calculated on the cpu. in Ghostbusters, the framerate would drop to basically unplayable in spots during heavy physics even with my E8500 at 3.8. even Splinter Cell Conviction had spots in low 30s and and a couple in the uppers 20s that were 100% the cpu. I could lower my res and repeat the same scene and get the same low dips. when you go from 50-60 fps down to 25-30 really fast it disrupts gameplay a bit. a quad would help in those spots tremendously and does impact playable results.

 

[peonyu]

A 4ghz+ Core 2 duo will probably manage till next summer I would imagine, I went from a 4.2ghz E8500 to a 5ghz 2500k and the difference is indeed massive...But the 8500 was still not unplayable at all. Infact if my system ever had trouble and I had to use the E8500 system for a week or so I wouldn't really be held back to much in most games that are out now [dial down some settings a tad though ? sure].

To OP - you have a E8400 @3ghz. You might aswell overclock it if your board allows you to, most E8xxx cpu's can do 3.8-4ghz effortlessly. You will notice a immediate fps boost doing that.


Also going from C2duo to Core-Quad isn't worth it imo. If you must have a quad, go for a Sandy bridge setup. Its worth the extra money. Until then, overclock your 8400.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I would go with the quad, it should be 'fast enough' in games that can only use one or two threads. It'll also be much faster in games that can take advantage of more than two cores.

 

[sm625]

If you use the dual you probably need to disable av and try to avoid running things in the background. It's annoying when windows does something in the background that causes a 300mS lag spike.

 

[Barfo]

Thanks guys, I was thinking this could be a better upgrade to hold me over until IvyBridge. I think I'm better off overclocking the E8400 and putting the saved money towards a full upgrade.