What would be faster?

[MBrown]

A Q9650 @ 3.6Ghz or a i7-930 @ 2.8 for mainly gaming?

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

i7 930 hands down

 

[Sp12]

Q9650 hands down.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/49?vs=47 And at 3.6 it'd be about 20% faster than in those benches. Nahalem wasn't really a significant step up in gaming performance.

Now, if you overclock the i7 it'll be faster, but not appreciably so. In fact, I'd say the Q9650 at 3.6 won't be appreciably faster in gaming seeing as games are GPU dependent to the point that a Phenom2 offers the same experience.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Why is the i7 not being overclocked?

If I had to choose between the two I'd definitely choose the Q9650 @ 3.6GHz over the i7 930 @ 2.8GHz.

The only wins or close calls by the i7 will be in the most heavily threaded games, which - unfortunately - are still relatively rare.

Whilst in most cases a Q9650 @ 3.6GHz would beat an i7-930 @ 2.8GHz, I've noticed that some of the newer (and more CPU bound) games favour the i7 architecture considerably...

For example, Starcraft II and Arma II run a lot better on i7 compared to a C2Q.

The first bench is misleading as the only C2Q series CPU they test is the now archaic Q6600, and they only test up to 3GHz. A Q9650 @ 3.6GHz not only has a faster clock rate, its faster clock for clock and has an appreciable amount of extra cache.

In the second benchmark, the stock Q9650 is certainly slower than most of the i7s, coming in right behind a stock i7 920 as the 5th fastest CPU they benched, however the QX9770 @ 3.5GHz (keep in mind, slower than a Q9650 @ 3.6GHz) weighs in between the i7 950 and i7 920 as the 3rd fastest CPU tested for that ArmA2 bench, so we could assume its at the very least on par with the i7 930 in a game supposed to favor the i7s...

At any rate, like you said, those games might favor i7 architecture but that's not necessarily indicative of all games.



So again, if we cannot consider overclocking the i7 930 then it doesn't make sense to choose it over the Q9650. The games that favor the i7s just cannot make up for the clock rate difference. However if we do consider overclocking, then the i7 930 realistically only needs to achieve a modest 3.2-3.4GHz to win just about across the board.

 

[MBrown]

Why is the i7 not being overclocked?

If I had to choose between the two I'd definitely choose the Q9650 @ 3.6GHz over the i7 930 @ 2.8GHz.

The only wins or close calls by the i7 will be in the most heavily threaded games, which - unfortunately - are still relatively rare.



The first bench is misleading as the only C2Q series CPU they test is the now archaic Q6600, and they only test up to 3GHz. A Q9650 @ 3.6GHz not only has a faster clock rate, its faster clock for clock and has an appreciable amount of extra cache.

In the second benchmark, the stock Q9650 is certainly slower than most of the i7s, coming in right behind a stock i7 920 as the 5th fastest CPU they benched, however the QX9770 @ 3.5GHz (keep in mind, slower than a Q9650 @ 3.6GHz) weighs in between the i7 950 and i7 920 as the 3rd fastest CPU tested for that ArmA2 bench, so we could assume its at the very least on par with the i7 930 in a game supposed to favor the i7s...

At any rate, like you said, those games might favor i7 architecture but that's not necessarily indicative of all games.



So again, if we cannot consider overclocking the i7 930 then it doesn't make sense to choose it over the Q9650. The games that favor the i7s just cannot make up for the clock rate difference. However if we do consider overclocking, then the i7 930 realistically only needs to achieve a modest 3.2-3.4GHz to win just about across the board.

Its been a while since I looked into what CPUs are OCing to these days and I was browsing around my upgrade options. I already have a q6600 @ 3.0Ghz and I was trying to see if buying a whole new computer is worth it over just upgrading my CPU to a Q9650 and getting it to 3.6Ghz. I'd be looking at a 600MHz upgrade pretty much. How high would a i7-930 OC to?

 

[dguy6789]

A Q9650 @ 3.6Ghz or a i7-930 @ 2.8 for mainly gaming?

At those speeds the Q9650 would demolish the i7 in every single performance metric you could measure it by. That said, why not overclock the i7? If you throw overclocking into the mix it's a completely different story.

 

[Sp12]

Its been a while since I looked into what CPUs are OCing to these days and I was browsing around my upgrade options. I already have a q6600 @ 3.0Ghz and I was trying to see if buying a whole new computer is worth it over just upgrading my CPU to a Q9650 and getting it to 3.6Ghz. I'd be looking at a 600MHz upgrade pretty much. How high would a i7-930 OC to?

Q6600 at 3? I would say wait 2 months for Sandy Bridge.

 

[GundamF91]

If you already have Q6600, I assume then you have all the legacy support systems such as LGA775 board and DDR2 memory. To me it would not make sense to ditch them all just for one tick-tock cycle. I'm on the Q9450 3.6Ghz right now, and it does everything I ask it to do. Getting Q9650 will be similar as well, but I dont' know if that's much of a leap from Q6600. Your Q6600 at 3 should be powerful enough to do most things, and should suffice for gaming when paired with a capable GPU. If you're only looking at gaming, the GPU is probably more of a your bottle neck, at least in the frame rate useful for actual gaming.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I would prefer the i7 even if the Q9650 was faster at those clocks. That's not saying the i7 is faster at those clocks but once you experience both processors, i'd bet you'd go with the i7 also.

 

[Gikaseixas]

at those speeds the Q9650 wins but in some newer games the i7 would match it

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Its been a while since I looked into what CPUs are OCing to these days and I was browsing around my upgrade options. I already have a q6600 @ 3.0Ghz and I was trying to see if buying a whole new computer is worth it over just upgrading my CPU to a Q9650 and getting it to 3.6Ghz. I'd be looking at a 600MHz upgrade pretty much. How high would a i7-930 OC to?

i7s can easily clock just as high if not higher than C2Qs as long as you can keep them cool (which is not an easy task, particularly the Bloomfield 900 series). The i7s won't be held back by motherboard chipsets as much as the Core 2s can be, because intel finally started integrating former northbridge components such as the memory controller into the i7s.

However I would agree with what others have said, your Q6600 @ 3GHz should be enough to get you by until we see more options in the near future. Also, if you had to stop at 3GHz on the Q6600, I'm not so sure 3.6GHz would be a done deal on the Q9650. To get your Q6600 to 3GHz you have to overclock its native 266MHz FSB to 333MHz FSB, which is the native FSB of the Q9650. So unless you know fore sure your motherboard can push the 400MHz FSB required to get a Q9650 to 3.6GHz there's no guarantee even though the chip should be able to do 3.6GHz.

I would prefer the i7 even if the Q9650 was faster at those clocks. That's not saying the i7 is faster at those clocks but once you experience both processors, i'd bet you'd go with the i7 also.

That sounds like a load of crock...sounds like you're trying to say "even if it isn't faster the i7 will feel faster" which is a load of rubbish. With a Q6600 @ 3GHz the biggest upgrade he can give himself is likely a new GPU or SSD. A shiny new SSD made my 3.2GHz Q9450 feel just as snappy as my 4GHz i7 930.

Point taken, although 45nm C2Qs are typically only 5 - 6% faster per clock than 65nm C2Qs.

Here is another Starcraft II CPU bench, this time including the 45nm C2Qs.

Comparing i7 to 45nm C2Q clock for clock:
i7 860 @ 2.80GHz 32fps AVG / 22fps MIN
Q9550 @ 2.83GHz 23.7fps AVG / 15fps MIN

The i7 minimum framerates are almost as high as the C2Q average framerates. Even at 3.6GHz a C2Q won't catch the i7, but like many others I'm also confused why one would be comparing an overclocked C2Q to a stock i7? 😕

At any rate my original point was the i7 will only flex muscle in very few instances. So unless he's playing SC2 and he's playing it super serial then its effectively an outlier and can likely be ignored.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

i dont know but i would get the i7 either way

 

[Cogman]

depends on the application, hands down.

 

[Face2Face]

+1 for an SSD.

 

[xd_1771]

Do keep in mind the i7 930 can OC much farther than 3.6Ghz in most cases 🙂