Q9650 for BF4?

[moonbogg]

Friend wants to play with me but has socket 775 or whatever the core 2 was on. I figure a 9650 with little OC plus a GTX 760 should get him medium @ 1200p. Agree? This is in CPU section so ignore GPU comment if you want. CPU is most important here.

 

[dmoney1980]

Here's a video of someone using that proc with a lesser GPU. The poster and game is in Polish (so am I!) and have confirmed the true settings as shown in the beginning and at the :23 mark. He's playing on high at 1680x1050, no MSAA, high fxaa, and HBAO. Not exactly apples to apples to your friend's setup, but it should provide some insight.

Looks like that combo you posted should be OK for your friend.

http://vidbuk.com/en/video/0e_KGQFinME/Battlefield-4-Q9650-ATI-HD6850-Test

 

[Skurge]

Make sure he has more than 4GB of ram and he should be fine.

 

[nwo]

Medium? Sure, why not. As long as by little OC you mean at least 3.5-4GHz.

Also, what Skurge said.

 

[Gikaseixas]

I agree, he will be able to run BF4 with a mild OC. 4GB would be ok but 8GB even better IMO

 

[Lat]

BF4 is likely too processor-intensive for the core2quads. Both my buddy and I had a Q6700 and Q9540 respectively, both heavily overclocked @ ~3.5 GHz - we ended up being bottlenecked significantly and stuck at <40-50 fps at low settings across the board.

Needless to say, we're both running Haswells now

 

[Arkaign]

BF4 is likely too processor-intensive for the core2quads. Both my buddy and I had a Q6700 and Q9540 respectively, both heavily overclocked @ ~3.5 GHz - we ended up being bottlenecked significantly and stuck at <40-50 fps at low settings across the board.

Needless to say, we're both running Haswells now

1 - Graphics settings have very little impact on whether a CPU can handle the game. If you had a Titan Black, you'd still be at 40-50FPS on Ultra as with low.

2- 40-50FPS is certainly playable. Haswell makes things better, but a Q9650 is workable for BF4 for sure.

 

[Arkaign]

More of an issue honestly is the ancient S775 mobos are prone to vdroop, and DDR2 is god-awful expensive (unless he has a rare P45/X48 with DDR3).

Probably better to sell what he's got, get a dirt cheap i5-750 + mobo + DDR3 used. It will be better in every possible way. Add in a cheap PCIe USB3 if wanted/needed, etc.

 

[Arkaign]

Okay, fresh check of Q9650 shows their used prices from $125-$150. Let's call it $135 to hit middle ground.

i5-750s are around $70, and good 1156 mobos are about the same if you're picky :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gigabyte-P5...287114468?pt=Motherboards&hash=item1c3d467ee4

So for about the same price as the 9650, one can get the superior i5 quad + mobo. 8GB of DDR3 is cheaper than 4GB of DDR2 these days. Whatever he's got is worth at least $50-$60 used I would guess, perhaps more. So sell current cpu/mobo/ram, get the i5 + DDR3 = golden.

 

[Lat]

1 - Graphics settings have very little impact on whether a CPU can handle the game. If you had a Titan Black, you'd still be at 40-50FPS on Ultra as with low.

2- 40-50FPS is certainly playable. Haswell makes things better, but a Q9650 is workable for BF4 for sure.

Graphic settings definitely do have an impact on CPU, especially mesh quality (affects drawing distance), effects quality, and so on so forth.

Granted, although I mentioned 40-50 fps (max), one of the issues with the older processors was actually microstuttering. Honestly, it depends on what your definition of "playable" is - to me though, the performance did negatively affect play significantly.

 

[Arkaign]

Generally the graphics settings have very little impact on framerate if you're CPU bottlenecked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGro3VTA2Ns

That's a 9550 OC with a midrange GPU playing like a boss.

If you did a fresh load of Windows with the Haswell upgrade, that has a much higher probability of being the cause of your stuttering issues (or memory limitations). I've seen BF4 running with a 7870 and a weaker CPU than a 9550, and there was zero stuttering. And on the flip side, I had a 4770K @ 4.5Ghz that stuttered like crazy with my old 670SLI 4GB setup (the only game to do so). It was early on in the game's release, and I still had Windows 7 Pro SP1. For whatever reason, no matter what core unparking/etc I tried, it would still hitch and overall be unsatisfactory. Installing 8.1 made everything godlike in comparison. Not every configuration would do the same, even with Wjndows 7. Just general BF4 weirdness for ya.

 

[ChronoReverse]

My old Q9450 @ 3.6GHz got <40FPS (and averaged more like <30fps) on 32 player servers during beta. I didn't even attempt a 48 or 64 player server after the first few tries yielded terribad results. GPU settings didn't matter because the CPU was the absolute bottleneck.

Convinced me to upgrade my CPU (now a 4700k and I get 60fps)

 

[parvadomus]

You can get an AMD videocard and bring life to that CPU specially on BF4 since you get Mantle. A 270X/280 should be the perfect match.

 

[nwo]

You can get an AMD videocard and bring life to that CPU specially on BF4 since you get Mantle. A 270X/280 should be the perfect match.

Agreed. 270X at $205 is a really good deal.

 

[MongGrel]

Q9650's a bit long in the tooth.

My wife uses my old one from years ago to do facebook and general things, lets put it that way.

 

[Arkaign]

My old Q9450 @ 3.6GHz got <40FPS (and averaged more like <30fps) on 32 player servers during beta. I didn't even attempt a 48 or 64 player server after the first few tries yielded terribad results. GPU settings didn't matter because the CPU was the absolute bottleneck.

Convinced me to upgrade my CPU (now a 4700k and I get 60fps)

What OS did you have? I set up a 3.2Ghz Phenom II with a 7790 for a guy, and he's playing BF4 64P very smoothly at 1600x900 all high with medium shadows and some AA, HBAO on. Win 8.1 Pro x64, 6GB DDR2-800.

And that PhII 3.2Ghz is definitely slower than a Q@3.6Ghz. I'm thinking the beta just worked like crap with your config. I had a terribad experience with a 4770K @ 4.5 and SLI 670 4GB for example, and it definitely wasn't because I was lacking in power.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Windows 8.1 Pro x64. But they improved a lot of things since beta.

Still, pre-Mantle, you shouldn't be able to get solid 60fps with a Phenom II although it might be possible now.

My standards for smoothness is solid vsynced 60fps when playing 1920x1200 though so someone willing to put up with tearing, some slowdowns and a few stutters might have a different opinion.

 

[Arkaign]

Yeah 60FPS is just out of reach for PhII/C2Q for sure. It runs quite nice with the right GPU and memory, but BF4 sure did go through some rough patches. It ran like absolute dog crap on my 4770K, and that was with 16GB DDR3-2400 and dual 670 FTWs. Every other game was as smooth as glass lubed with KY, but BF4 was a stuttery mess.

 

[nurturedhate]

Friend is running a q9550 at 3.4 w/ an oc 7850. Even with mantle he still is seeing 40s on average on 64 player servers with drops into the low 30s. Is it playable? Yes. Frustrating? Yes.