Upgrade of CPU?

[quadomatic]

I currently have a Pentium Dual Core E2200 @ 2.93ghz oc'd by 1066 BSEL mod+1.55vCore mod on an ECS 945GCT-M/1333 motherboard.

I was wondering whether or not I should pick up a new processor for cheap and do another OC (preferrably very cheap).

Would it make much of a difference for gaming? Would it be worth the money to do the upgrade? I'd probably have to buy a new motherboard since the only other significant mod I could do with this motherboard would be a 1066 BSEL mod on an E5200 to take it to 3.3Ghz, unless a 1333 BSEL mod is possible on this motherboard, which I'm not sure of since no one has successfully done it - the 1333 fsb support on this mobo is sketchy since it has to do some sort of OC to achieve that speed...if I could figure it out I'd be able to push past 4Ghz with the E5200 though. If I wanted to do any other sort of upgrade, I'd have to pick up a new motherboard.

Is my CPU fine enough for gaming on high settings, or should I be considering an option to pick up a new cpu and mobo (probably after nehalem comes out since then prices will fall like a rock, and nehalem isn't really much of an upgrade for gaming?)

 

[MarcVenice]

Your CPU is plenty fast for a 9600gso. If you've got money to spare, you should invest it in a faster videocard then a 9600gso, like one of those HEAVILY overclocked 9800gt's FTW editions, or even a HD4850.

 

[v8envy]

Which games are you planning on having low frame rates in? Looking at your current and future video card I'd say your CPU will be more than sufficient. My 8800GT + 3.2 ghz (most of the time less than that!) E2180 plays everything like a charm, and I play at *low* res (1680x1050). Unless your target is even lower resolution with all settings & effects turned off your CPU will not be the limiting factor.

 

[quadomatic]

I'm on a CRT monitor that has a max resolution of 1600x1200. Since it's enormous and good enough for me, I won't be buying a new monitor. I'd be happy with playing games at 1280x1024. I don't really know how fast my computer plays games yet...before this I had an Athlon 64 3300+, 768 MB of ram and the same X850 I'm currently using. I noticed quite an improvement in a lot of stuff, specifically lack of lag and being able to play 1080p video very well after the upgrade (768MB of ram was sooooo annoying). Games also got a large improvement. Bioshock, which I had been playing with a patch for shader model 2, ran quite a bit better after the upgrade. Half-Life 2 Episode Two also ran with much less lag and much less slowdown with the flashlight (shadow drawing on objects with flashlight new to episode 2). But, with games like Crysis, while I did see a noticeable improvement, I couldn't really compare since both systems were still fairly slow without a decent video card.

I'll be able to see how good stuff runs with the 9600GSO once I get it on Friday of next week (likely anyways that it'll arrive by then), which I bought since it was VERY cheap ($47 after rebate/s) and since it should oc to 8800GT performance. Also, volt mods have shown that OC's on 8800GS and 9600GSO can REALLLLLLLY push the card to new heights with the proper cooling. The dual slot cooler on the card is probably about as good as it'll get for air cooling. Someone with a Palit card was able to push it close to 9800 GTX speeds on a Devil May Cry 4 benchmark, but he was cooling with water, so I won't reach that height...but it'll still be good.

It just seemed like the CPU was limiting people since they were upgrading from E6600s to E8400s. I didn't really see the point, but is there one?

 

[v8envy]

There are certain games which demand lots of CPU. World in Conflict, Microsoft Flight Sim X being two off the top of my head. And of course Crysis. In some instances minimum frame rates are unacceptable if you don't have enough CPU oomph.

But aside from those there's very little that'll make a 3 ghz core2 cpu, even 2 series, chug. You'll be fine. Especially at 1600x1200 (which I also had and miss terribly). A 3 ghz core2 is about four times the cpu firepower of your single core athlon 3300+. And you gotta love that $3 HP ram, mine has been fantastic. Should have got all 4!

Your CPU was limiting even your 850PRO, you've cured that. Now you're also roughly tripling or quadrupling your video power -- end result will be very, very pleasant.

Welcome to the modern age!

 

[quadomatic]

Originally posted by: v8envy
There are certain games which demand lots of CPU. World in Conflict, Microsoft Flight Sim X being two off the top of my head. And of course Crysis. In some instances minimum frame rates are unacceptable if you don't have enough CPU oomph.

But aside from those there's very little that'll make a 3 ghz core2 cpu, even 2 series, chug. You'll be fine. Especially at 1600x1200 (which I also had and miss terribly). A 3 ghz core2 is about four times the cpu firepower of your single core athlon 3300+. And you gotta love that $3 HP ram, mine has been fantastic. Should have got all 4!

Your CPU was limiting even your 850PRO, you've cured that. Now you're also roughly tripling or quadrupling your video power -- end result will be very, very pleasant.

Welcome to the modern age!

I see, hopefully results will be good then!

 

[roid450]

i hope not to hijack this post but what do you all think of my current AMD Opteron 185 2.6ghz dual core and DDR400 OCZ ram? i got a gtx260 superclocked "aka BS" lol for some reason i feel im being bottlenecked. on assassins creed at 1600x1200 and all setgins high, itll get like 30~ fps when on top of building looking out into the city and soemtimes while in the city go to high 20s but never lower.

and crysis im getting 22-40 fps or more at the max.

on COD4 on "All Guillied Up" a very intense level, i get about 25~ or higher FPS while in theg rass areas. and 50+ inside buildings. but i feel like shoulda got more of a gain from 9600gt i had.

maybe its bad drivers for the GTX series as the performance got better since 177.41 drivers

 

[harpoon84]

roid450, lower the resolution and see if the frame rate improves. If it doesn't, then you're CPU bottlenecked. Though from your description it does appear you are CPU limited, which isn't surprising, an overclocked GTX 260 is a pretty fast GPU, ideally the best match for it would be a 3GHz+ C2D or C2Q.

 

[MarcVenice]

roid, you're very likely cpu bottlenecked, but there might be something else going on as well. Are you perhaps trying to run with maximum AA/AF ? 1gb of ram?

 

[scheibler1]

I'm in the same situation as roid. I've got a intel E2180 @ 3ghz that performs like a stock E6600 or E6700(2.6ghz). I lower the resolution and on't really gain any FPS.

It looks like me and roid both need a cpu upgrade. Now I guess we gotta decide between the age old question of a Q6600 @ 3.0-3.2ghz and a E8500 @ 3.6-3.8ghz

 

[Denithor]

Back to the OP:

Once you get your 9600GSO you'll see major improvements in games. Your x850 is just too slow for today's games to run correctly, the 9600GSO isn't the fastest card out there but it will certainly be quite an improvement from the x850.

You generally see bigger gains from GPU upgrades than from CPU upgrades, so if you've already seen some good improvement going from your A64/768MB to a C2D/2GB I would expect you to be very happy with what you're going to see with the new video card.