UPDATED, Part 4 of Benches out! E8400 vs Core i7 with my 5970,5870 and 5850

[Apocalypse23]

I upgraded just last week from an E8400 @3.6Ghz to an i7 860 @2.93Ghz (at the moment). I've noticed the exact same thing, the fps aren't radically better in most games but the overall experience is buttery smooth whereas the E8400 was choppy at times despite high in-game framerates.

Quad-core is definitely the way to go.

Yes this is very true, the E8400 is still a nice chip but to be honest does not have the horsepower needed to sufficiently run many of today's new titles. Enjoy your i7, you probably don't even need to overclock it any higher as the performance boost won't be very significant.

That case looks really nice!

I am so torn right now and have been for months on whether to upgrade or just wait it out until Sandybridge and the next round of GPU's.

My problem is Summer and the only game I really playing right now is WoW.

Thanks, the case overall is very wide, roomy and has a nice black inside layout and a fan controller. The downside is that fitting 3 big video cards may be a problem, I was only able to fit 2 video cards as the PSU got in the way with the third card occupying two slots.

Great work mate

Loving the 5850 overclock scores (and stock scores, in the vast majority!), further validation of my decision

Thanks!


On another note:
FYI (please note that these fan speed settings are vital for the cards to run properly)

Video Card Settings used:
Asus 5850 stock (725/1000) - @Overclock 1000/1150 - 1.312 or 1.299V - Gaming Fan speed 50%
Asus 5850 stock (725/1000) - @Overclock 1000/1175 - 1.312 - Gaming Fan speed 50%
Asus 5870 stock (850/1200) - @Overclock 1000/1300 - 1.300V - (Mild OC) - Gaming Fan speed 43% minimum
Asus 5970 stock (725/1000) - @Overclock 850/1200 - 1.162V - (Mild OC)
Asus 5970 stock (725/1000) - @Overclock 900/1200 - 1.274V - (Extreme OC)

 

[Apocalypse23]

There is a huge difference in performance between a 5970 paired with an e8400 and one paired with an i7. As I posted earlier, my 5970 (which is paired with an i7 860 @~3.8 ghz) is posting numbers over 40% higher than apocalypse's e8400. Why tri-fire, he might still be cpu bottlenecked, but we'll see. Looking forward to seeing the results.

Not sure when you last checked the newer benches, let me know how the numbers compare with yours.

Edit--Dirt 2 scaled with the i7 at 4 ghz on a 5970 with a 43% higher score than on a 3.9Ghz E8400.
BFBC2 scaled with the i7 at 4ghz on a 5970 with a 56% higher score than on a 3.9Ghz E8400.

So yes the dualy is a bottleneck.