SLI leaving me disappointed

[lopri]

The OP has one of the fastest CPUs the board supports. And I would advise against overclocking Q9550 on ANY 780i board.

OP, my sincere advice is to forget SLI. You've been playing games with a SLI setup. Now, try taking one card out and play the same game with a single card. You will likely never think about SLI again.

 

[Firestorm007]

No game should be CPU limited. Games run mostly on GPU power.

Only things like huge multiplayer battles are CPU intensive so you can rule out CPU in 90% of games.

You certainly wont double your FPS

Lol. What. Sorry you are wrong. CPU power does matter in many games, especially in min fps. Take bf3 for example on a 64 player map. When I went from a 2500k to a 2700k with HT, the difference was profound.

 

[slightlyhuman]

man i am behind the times=] thanks for the knowledge. i definitely knew i was behind compared to modern CPUs(ie. i5 and i7) but not THAT bad i have a good cooler and excellent cold air(i live in a shop house) that stays nice and cold.

i just bought this rig(used on here) a month ago just to dabble in dayz. i know dayz isn't a great benchmarker but the only games i have installed are the two mentioned and quake 2(which i play weekly)

i was wrong in my upgrade and thought 2 gpus would increase my fps but as you guys stated, my cpu is holding me back. damn you technology. back to the drawing board!


also... i JUST got this silvertone 600w PSU. it had great reviews. i don't have that much to power. surely i'm not getting close to 600w. i read an anandtech article that an SLI 560ti machine used a hair over 500w.

any one want to chime in? thanks for the replies :beer;

 

[amenx]

Not only the CPU, but the board is ancient. Despite it being an Nvidia chipset, I dont think the 780i was meant to handle all SLI cards optimally and indefinitely into the future.

 

[tviceman]

No game should be CPU limited. Games run mostly on GPU power.

Only things like huge multiplayer battles are CPU intensive so you can rule out CPU in 90% of games.

You certainly wont double your FPS

LOL wut?

http://www.techspot.com/review/615-far-cry-3-performance/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/436-deus-ex-human-revolution-performance-test/page7.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/608-hitman-absolution-performance-benchmarks/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/577-borderlands-2-performance/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/522-tribes-ascend-performance-test/page5.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/507-mass-effect-3-performance-test/page5.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/467-skyrim-performance/page7.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/440-hard-reset-performance-test/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/405-the-witcher-2-performance/page8.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/379-crysis-2-performance/page8.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/305-starcraft2-performance/page13.html

You make some of the most blatantly, factually wrong comments on this forum.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

No game should be CPU limited. Games run mostly on GPU power.

Only things like huge multiplayer battles are CPU intensive so you can rule out CPU in 90% of games.

You certainly wont double your FPS

Wrong, and especially wrong for a dual card setup.

 

[Termie]

man i am behind the times=] thanks for the knowledge. i definitely knew i was behind compared to modern CPUs(ie. i5 and i7) but not THAT bad i have a good cooler and excellent cold air(i live in a shop house) that stays nice and cold.

i just bought this rig(used on here) a month ago just to dabble in dayz. i know dayz isn't a great benchmarker but the only games i have installed are the two mentioned and quake 2(which i play weekly)

i was wrong in my upgrade and thought 2 gpus would increase my fps but as you guys stated, my cpu is holding me back. damn you technology. back to the drawing board!


also... i JUST got this silvertone 600w PSU. it had great reviews. i don't have that much to power. surely i'm not getting close to 600w. i read an anandtech article that an SLI 560ti machine used a hair over 500w.

any one want to chime in? thanks for the replies :beer;

The psu sounds solid. You actually needed it to dabble in SLI since you shouldn't run a psu at full capacity, but don't need that much psu for a single card. Either way, no reason to change it out now. Truth is that if you try out some modern games, like battlefield 3, the dual cards will come in handy even with your cpu. It's old but can still run the game reasonably well.

 

[Fx1]

Lol. What. Sorry you are wrong. CPU power does matter in many games, especially in min fps. Take bf3 for example on a 64 player map. When I went from a 2500k to a 2700k with HT, the difference was profound.

Seriously. Learn to read.

Look at my post again.

See the bit about multiplayer

 

[Fx1]

Wrong, and especially wrong for a dual card setup.

I think people such as you get all caught up in the latest and greatest CPU's

In games its not as important as GPU. Dual card setups are likely to remove all GPU bottlenecks this is why it shows a CPU's limits but those limits will likely be in the 80+ FPS range and not even matter

 

[Fx1]

LOL wut?

http://www.techspot.com/review/615-far-cry-3-performance/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/436-deus-ex-human-revolution-performance-test/page7.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/608-hitman-absolution-performance-benchmarks/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/577-borderlands-2-performance/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/522-tribes-ascend-performance-test/page5.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/507-mass-effect-3-performance-test/page5.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/467-skyrim-performance/page7.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/440-hard-reset-performance-test/page6.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/405-the-witcher-2-performance/page8.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/379-crysis-2-performance/page8.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/305-starcraft2-performance/page13.html

You make some of the most blatantly, factually wrong comments on this forum.

10 FPS between 2.5ghz and 4.5ghz ? This is exactly my point. Both are over 60 FPS the limit of the monitor. In Far Cry 3.

A Quad core Q6600 running at 3.6 ghz will NOT be half the FPS of a 4.5ghz i7

 

[lilvaratep]

No game should be CPU limited. Games run mostly on GPU power.

Only things like huge multiplayer battles are CPU intensive so you can rule out CPU in 90% of games.

You certainly wont double your FPS

DayZ and CS:GO are both online with multiplayer battles... both have a wide vector of objects that need to be processed by the CPU.

 

[Fx1]

DayZ and CS:GO are both online with multiplayer battles... both have a wide vector of objects that need to be processed by the CPU.

CS GO? LOL what are you talking about. i have that game maxed out and im running 180 FPS nearly all the time. Please dont use a game with 1999 engine quality as the basis of an argument on CPU power.

Day Z has nothing to do with Mulitplayer and CPU limits. Day Z isnt EVEN A GAME. Its a Mod.

This is why the engine sucks at what Day Z trys to do with it. This is why its being rebuilt for standalone. Heck the Engine was made back in the C2D days

 

[blackened23]

 

[blackened23]

As the above graphs indicate, CPU type and speed matters little in all games. Its also nice to know that DayZ isn't even a game.

 

[Fx1]

As the above graphs indicate, CPU type and speed matters little in all games. If you say so.

Show me the picture where a Q6600 is compared to a modern i5 or i7. (just found one where the clock rate is 2.4ghz lol)

A Q6600 can hit 3.6ghz very easily and thats fast enough to get games to 60 fps with ease.

 

[blackened23]

Show me the picture where a Q6600 is compared to a modern i5 or i7.

A Q6600 can hit 3.6ghz very easily and thats fast enough to get games to 60 fps with ease.

So the argument went from "cpu makes no difference" to overclocking old cpu's? Your original statement was as follows:

No game should be CPU limited. Games run mostly on GPU power.

Only things like huge multiplayer battles are CPU intensive so you can rule out CPU in 90% of games.

I believe many here will agree that you're not correct. Anyway, if you're switching to the overclocking argument - new CPUs can overclock as well, and CPUs do affect gaming performance in varying degrees. You may find games that are heavily GPU limited such as metro 2033 at 2560x1600, in which a 3770k and a 2500k perform virtually identically - however that is a far cry from a comparison to a Core 2 processor. A c2q would easily be outperformed by a modern i7 in probably....all games by a sizable margin.

 

[Firestorm007]

Seriously. Learn to read.

Look at my post again.

See the bit about multiplayer

I did read, and my point stands. You still don't have a clue, but my all means, carry on. You're comparing ancient CPU multi vs. a modern one. Not even close. You may want to learn up on some modern benchmarks though.

 

[Fx1]

So the argument went from "cpu makes no difference" to overclocking old cpu's?

You're not making much sense here. New CPUs can overclock as well, and CPUs do affect gaming performance in varying degrees.

The point was that a Q6600 can perform perfectly well to play games on.

Anand has a benchmark where a Stock Q6600 is hitting 90 FPS on Crysis Warhead. @ 2.4ghz !!!!!

Batman on a E8600 Dual core 170 FPS!

E8400 Fallout 3 80 FPS

Yes a newer CPU benches higher but 60 FPS is all that matters

 

[Fx1]

I did read, and my point stands. You still don't have a clue, but my all means, carry on. You're comparing ancient CPU multi vs. a modern one. Not even close. You may want to learn up on some modern benchmarks though.

My point was multiplayer needs a powerful CPU.

So your point is invalid given you used BF3 64 player as a need for powerful CPU.

Read it again genius

 

[Fx1]

So the argument went from "cpu makes no difference" to overclocking old cpu's? Your original statement was as follows:



I believe many here will agree that you're not correct. Anyway, if you're switching to the overclocking argument - new CPUs can overclock as well, and CPUs do affect gaming performance in varying degrees. You may find games that are heavily GPU limited such as metro 2033 at 2560x1600, in which a 3770k and a 2500k perform virtually identically - however that is a far cry from a comparison to a Core 2 processor. A c2q would easily be outperformed by a modern i7 in probably....all games by a sizable margin.

I never said it wasnt faster to own an i7. Lol.

I said a Q6600 can play games just fine. Games generally arent CPU limited. Especially since most are based on console ports.

The exception was large multiplayer games like planetside 2

 

[Firestorm007]

My point was multiplayer needs a powerful CPU.

So your point is invalid given you used BF3 64 player as a need for powerful CPU.

Read it again genius

You just compared warhead and new Vegas as you argument that a powerful CPU doesn't matter. How old are those games again?

 

[Fx1]

You just compared warhead and new Vegas as you argument that a powerful CPU doesn't matter. How old are those games again? Try again genius. You make me laugh.

Those are the benchmarks i can find on Anand.

Most games are console based and they will run fine on a Q6600.

Heck Skyrim couldnt even use more than 2GB ram and 2 threads when it launched. Its based on Xbox power.

 

[darkfalz]

That's just completely untrue

Completely true. With turbo an Ivy i5 would be nearly 1 GHz faster and performance wise, nearly 2x faster. Memory bandwidth on the Core 2s was also pretty bad. The OP's Core 2 would bottleneck those two 560s in a lot of games, heck, my Core 2 (clocked higher, but dual core) bottlenecked just one.

If something isn't threaded properly, remember it needs to do sound, AI etc. and then what is left over CPU wise can be used for rendering. This really exaggerates speed differences between different generations of processors.

 

[DerekZ06]

I just upgraded from a Q6600 @ 3.2GHZ to a 3770k @ 4.3GHZ. Both systems with an HD7770 because I carried the card over to my new system.

Show me the picture where a Q6600 is compared to a modern i5 or i7. (just found one where the clock rate is 2.4ghz lol)

A Q6600 can hit 3.6ghz very easily and thats fast enough to get games to 60 fps with ease.

A Q6600 can not hit 3.6GHZ easily. It will do about 3.0 - 3.2 easily, after that you will need to be tweaking a lot of system voltages, ratios, timings, and other bios settings. Cooling also gets more difficult at that point.

There is a substantial difference in gaming between these two CPU's as well. With the Q6600 there was a lot of microstuttering that made games unplayable. Also, a frequent problem I was encountering, was that I would set the in game settings for a playable FPS when I first installed games (When there was no action) and as soon as the going got tough and there was a lot of action the FPS would drop to unplayable levels.


With my new i7 3770k @ 4.3GHZ. I can play games at frame rate I use to consider unplayable (24-35) and it's butter smooth!!! I have no problem playing single player games at 24FPS now, there is no microstuttering or lag! The Q6600 could play a game at 40-60FPS and not be this smooth. It felt like it was dropping frames all the time and stuff, just jerky and laggy even tho the frames were high. It didn't even really matter what graphics settings I used, it was always "shitty," no matter what the FPS was and I thought it was always my graphics cards fault. With the 3770k here, I now realize it was the Q6600's fault games played shittily.

You know how like, you would turn a corner real quick or enter a new area and there would be that split-second "freeze?" That little "freeze" that doesn't allow you to correctly position your crosshairs on an enemy so it gets you killed? It's a thing in the past now.

 

[Lonbjerg]

No game should be CPU limited. Games run mostly on GPU power.

Only things like huge multiplayer battles are CPU intensive so you can rule out CPU in 90% of games.

You certainly wont double your FPS

You should look into the Real Virtuality engine (that powers ARMA2 and DayZ):

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,687620/ArmA-2-tested-Benchmarks-with-18-CPUs/Reviews/

ArmA 2 CPU benchmarks: Conclusion
ArmA 2 needs almost more CPU than GPU power and is scaling surprisingly well with higher frequencies and additional cores - nevertheless a single core is too slow. Intel's Core i7 family is dominating the competition with the Core 2 Quad models about 20 percent behind them. The latter ones are about 20 percent faster than equal Core 2 Duos running at the same clock speed. While AMD's Phenom and Athlon 64 processors are able to compete with the Core 2, the Phenom II line is too slow in comparison - although this is obviously caused by the game itself.

It's no crappy console engine....it a true multicore beast...and we need more engines like that.