Quad significantly better than Duo for gaming?

[chess9]

10% to 30%. Is this about right? I'm going to run dual 4870 video cards, but I'm unsure about cpu and memory.

Can I save a little money on the cpu and not lose much bang? Hard to quantify this stuff at this stage.

-Robert

 

[hclarkjr]

do a search for quad vs dual core here and you will get lots of results. my opinion, go for the quad. i just went from a dual core E6600 to a quad core Q6600 and do not regret it

 

[chess9]

Thanks, but that link doesn't work.
I'll search....

-Robert

 

[hclarkjr]

hopefully when they move to the new forum software that will be thing of the past, i linked to a search for quad vs dual core but it failed

 

[chess9]

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...yword1=quad+versus+duo

That's a good one.

-Robert

 

[hclarkjr]

what chip are you running right now?

 

[chess9]

This is for my daughter's christmas gaming computer. I use a laptop. It appears there is a significant difference once you go to the 45nm. Also, more games are now quad core compatible and will be so in the future. So, I'm leaning towards the Q9450, which isn't too pricey. I'll put it in the Asus Extreme Formula motherboard. Only uses ddr2, however. Always something, eh?

-Robert

 

[DSF]

It depends completely on the game. Certain games will show an improvement, but most won't. I can't imagine any game currently improving more than 30% with a quad core. Current games, for the most part, aren't written to run that many threads.

What size monitor are you expecting to play on?

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: chess9
I'll put it in the Asus Extreme Formula motherboard. Only uses ddr2, however. Always something, eh?

Yeah, cos loads of games really benefit from DDR3.

Although it's possible your daughter plays one of the few games that benefit from multi/quad-cores.

 

[krnmastersgt]

The Q9450 is a pretty good chip, although like prior posts have said, the majority of games will not see any benefit. What kinds of games does your daughter play?

If it's an FPS game or something similar, a higher clocked dual core would be faster than a quad, I think UT3 is the only game that sees better performance with a quad but this is talking about framerates higher than LCD monitors can output anyways, so no real matter.

If it's an RTS game, the newer the game the more CPU heavy it is, SupComm is probably the best example of a quad beating down a dual core once you get into heavy scenarios.

 

[gramboh]

Honestly did not notice much of a difference going from E6600 to Q6700 both at 3.3GHz. Desktop/multitasking are a bit smoother but games feel largely the same (TF2, Crysis, Gears of War, GRID, Bioshock etc) they are probably faster but I didn't notice. I just did it because it was cheap and I wanted a quad core for the fun of it (Q6700 G0 used for $150, sell E6600 for $80).

If I was building a Crossfire 4870 machine today I'd rather have a 4.0-4.2GHz E8400 than a ~3.4 Q9450, which seem to both be achieveable overclocks on air.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: hclarkjr
do a search for quad vs dual core here and you will get lots of results. my opinion, go for the quad. i just went from a dual core E6600 to a quad core Q6600 and do not regret it

Really? What games do you play? Most games will show no difference from that change.

 

[aigomorla]

lol this topic is asking to get flamed. :X

In short, as of this moment, very few games will you notice a benifit from quadcore.

However give makers another year to 2 yrs or more possibly, and dualcores wont be able to keep up.

Some games which do use quadcores, dualcores cant keep up. However in most general aspect, you wont notice jack unless your very multi core intensive.

 

[chess9]

Originally posted by: betasub

Originally posted by: chess9
I'll put it in the Asus Extreme Formula motherboard. Only uses ddr2, however. Always something, eh?

Yeah, cos loads of games really benefit from DDR3.

Although it's possible your daughter plays one of the few games that benefit from multi/quad-cores.

I goofed. I meant the Asus Rampage Formula. It's DDR2. My mistake. But, you are right.



-Robert

 

[chess9]

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
The Q9450 is a pretty good chip, although like prior posts have said, the majority of games will not see any benefit. What kinds of games does your daughter play?

If it's an FPS game or something similar, a higher clocked dual core would be faster than a quad, I think UT3 is the only game that sees better performance with a quad but this is talking about framerates higher than LCD monitors can output anyways, so no real matter.

If it's an RTS game, the newer the game the more CPU heavy it is, SupComm is probably the best example of a quad beating down a dual core once you get into heavy scenarios.

Unreal Tourney is her favorite game. She likes the graphics in Crysis but says it's a bit boring. She plays some of the others as well, including Chessmaster. I'm sure she needs Chessmaster at about 3200 rating points to really get a workout. LOL!

But, what about future games? Aren't they all going to be quad oriented? Even if we have a depression?

-Robert

 

[chess9]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
lol this topic is asking to get flamed. :X

In short, as of this moment, very few games will you notice a benifit from quadcore.

However give makers another year to 2 yrs or more possibly, and dualcores wont be able to keep up.

Some games which do use quadcores, dualcores cant keep up. However in most general aspect, you wont notice jack unless your very multi core intensive.

Well, I don't want to spend all this money next year all over again, and besides, we have a whole new architecture coming don't we? The i7 boards are going to be a very different kettle of fish and uber costly.

-Robert

 

[dguy6789]

Right now, quads do not benefit gaming specifically very much. In the future, they will. The reason to go with a quad over a dual is for sheer productivity and general enjoyability of using the computer. For example, I don't have to shut down every little thing I am doing on my machine to play crysis or ut3 with acceptable performance, unlike dually users. I just open up a game and play it when I feel like I need a break from work or whatever.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Right now, quads do not benefit gaming specifically very much. In the future, they will. The reason to go with a quad over a dual is for sheer productivity and general enjoyability of using the computer. For example, I don't have to shut down every little thing I am doing on my machine to play crysis or ut3 with acceptable performance, unlike dually users. I just open up a game and play it when I feel like I need a break from work or whatever.

Hmmm... Ive owned E8400/Q9450/E8600, and ive never had to shut down anything to play a game. I traded my Q9450 @ 3.6 to the E8600 @ 4.3, and I couldnt be happier. Mind you, I mostly game, so I am not one of the people that benefit from the extra cores.

 

[Munky]

By the time many games benefit from quads, all the current cpu's will be ancient, and people will be debating whether or not to get an 8-core cpu. There's no point trying to future-proof anything.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Right now, quads do not benefit gaming specifically very much. In the future, they will. The reason to go with a quad over a dual is for sheer productivity and general enjoyability of using the computer. For example, I don't have to shut down every little thing I am doing on my machine to play crysis or ut3 with acceptable performance, unlike dually users. I just open up a game and play it when I feel like I need a break from work or whatever.

Hmmm... Ive owned E8400/Q9450/E8600, and ive never had to shut down anything to play a game. I traded my Q9450 @ 3.6 to the E8600 @ 4.3, and I couldnt be happier. Mind you, I mostly game, so I am not one of the people that benefit from the extra cores.

If you are playing a game that needs both cores to run well, you can't do anything even remotely cpu dependent at the same time without noticeable performance loss. Only time you can multitask(real multitasking, firefox or windows media player hardly count) on a dually while gaming is if your game uses only one core.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: dguy6789

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Right now, quads do not benefit gaming specifically very much. In the future, they will. The reason to go with a quad over a dual is for sheer productivity and general enjoyability of using the computer. For example, I don't have to shut down every little thing I am doing on my machine to play crysis or ut3 with acceptable performance, unlike dually users. I just open up a game and play it when I feel like I need a break from work or whatever.

Hmmm... Ive owned E8400/Q9450/E8600, and ive never had to shut down anything to play a game. I traded my Q9450 @ 3.6 to the E8600 @ 4.3, and I couldnt be happier. Mind you, I mostly game, so I am not one of the people that benefit from the extra cores.

If you are playing a game that needs both cores to run well, you can't do anything even remotely cpu dependent at the same time without noticeable performance loss. Only time you can multitask(real multitasking, firefox or windows media player hardly count) on a dually while gaming is if your game uses only one core.

I guess it depends on your usage. I don't do things like gaming while encoding a movie, and even if I had a quad, I probably wouldn't do it either.

 

[dguy6789]

I don't always do cpu intensive tasks, but I certainly enjoy the ability to open up and play a game with pretty much no regard to what I was doing on the pc prior.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
I don't always do cpu intensive tasks, but I certainly enjoy the ability to open up and play a game with pretty much no regard to what I was doing on the pc prior.

So maybe, sometimes, every once in a while, not having to click "Exit" on a program is worth the trade in raw speed and price for a quad?

 

[krnmastersgt]

Originally posted by: chess9

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
The Q9450 is a pretty good chip, although like prior posts have said, the majority of games will not see any benefit. What kinds of games does your daughter play?

If it's an FPS game or something similar, a higher clocked dual core would be faster than a quad, I think UT3 is the only game that sees better performance with a quad but this is talking about framerates higher than LCD monitors can output anyways, so no real matter.

If it's an RTS game, the newer the game the more CPU heavy it is, SupComm is probably the best example of a quad beating down a dual core once you get into heavy scenarios.

Unreal Tourney is her favorite game. She likes the graphics in Crysis but says it's a bit boring. She plays some of the others as well, including Chessmaster. I'm sure she needs Chessmaster at about 3200 rating points to really get a workout. LOL!

But, what about future games? Aren't they all going to be quad oriented? Even if we have a depression?

-Robert

Many games are going multi-threaded, however I must say most FPS games that aren't incredibly cpu heavy for intense physics like Crysis probably won't need more than a dual core until we're past Nehalem family cpu's. They'll be quad optimized, but won't really need it.

However if more games follow Crysis or are RTS like SupComm where there's a lot of AI and other things running in the background or lots of physics that isn't/can't be offloaded to the gpu, then you'll start to see quads pull away from duals again.

As it stands, I think your daughter would be fine with an E8400, maybe an E7200 even, and you can upgrade to a quad cheaper next year if her system is falling short in the games she plays.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: dguy6789
I don't always do cpu intensive tasks, but I certainly enjoy the ability to open up and play a game with pretty much no regard to what I was doing on the pc prior.

So maybe, sometimes, every once in a while, not having to click "Exit" on a program is worth the trade in raw speed and price for a quad?

You will most likely not notice the clock speed difference between a Q6600 and any dually you would buy in place of it. Considering that a Q6600 is really cheap these days, it's really a no brainer if you can afford it.