Wolfie or Q6600?

[edlemur]

I am upgrading my e6320. But I don't know which one performs best in Crysis. Should I go with a Wolfdale or the Q6600?
Thanks

 

[MarcVenice]

Your running the e6320 at stock speeds ? I'd overclock it a little and see what happens, but depending on the resolution you play at, you are most likely GPU limited anyways.

 

[edlemur]

thanks for the reply

I have my e6320 running at 2.33ghz, along with an 8800gt; but I am getting an 8800gts (g92). Right now, I am running Crysis at 1024x768. But I plan on getting a new monitor, then I'll be running it at 1280x720.

 

[RaptureMe]

You should go into bios and change FSB to 333-400 you can easily do 3.0Ghz and that will make a huge difference in gaming.
Your 8800gts extreme is fine for gaming you dont need to go upgrading just yet.
I would say just keep what you have for now..

 

[Amaroque]

Great replys. I'd wait for a wolf.

OC your CPU, as it can do much more even on stock voltage.

 

[MarcVenice]

For your resolution I wouldn't upgrade the videocard either. And if you can clock that e6320 a little higher a new CPU would be unnecesary as well, when it comes to gaming. I mean, your e6320 is pretty much equal to a 3.0ghz AMD X2, which can handle pretty much any game just fine, I mean, my x2 @ 2.6ghz can still handle any game pretty much still fine.

 

[phexac]

Eh both upgrades you are talking about sound dumb to me.

First of all, Crysis is most definitely GPU-limited, even at the resolutions you are talking about. You will definitely not see a difference between two slightly differently-clocked Core 2 Duos. If you really want something a little faster, just OC your chip somewhat.

Next is upgrading 8800GT to 8800GTS. Those 2 cards perform basically the same. GTS is a little faster and some people would buy it over the 8800GT when building a new system, but no one in their right mind would toss out 8800GT to replace it with 8800GTS.

You are basically about to spend $600 for a 2 FPS increase.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Your running the e6320 at stock speeds ? I'd overclock it a little and see what happens, but depending on the resolution you play at, you are most likely GPU limited anyways.

+1

Marc is correct.

and please dont start another war between the dualcore <3ers and quadcore <3ers.

If crysis is the only thing you use which you think is considered a "multi-threaded" application, overclock your processor, get another 8800GT gpu and sli since you have sli ability on your board.

that will give you more gains then upgrading processors.

 

[hennethannun]

no, don't listen to them OP. Buy your new 8800GTS and send me your now obsolete and useless 8800GT. I'll happily 'recycle' it!


but seriously, those upgrades aren't worthwhile right now. the E6230 is a bit slow now, but should have plenty of extra OC headroom if you feel the need for a bit more speed. And the 8800GT remains a very very good card. you won't see very much improvement for your $300 jumping up to a GTS.

 

[edlemur]

The main reason I am upgrading my GT to the GTS is mostly heat concerns. My GT easily goes over 90C under load :/

 

[krnmastersgt]

There's no reason why the GTS should run too much cooler than your GT is, the solution would be getting better case airflow or going with water-cooling, and if you do sli then airflow is an even larger concern since the heat output is quite large.

 

[hennethannun]

1)What's your current case/cooling setup?

2) 90C is pretty high, but is it really a problem? are you getting visual artifacts or other gpu errors? most GPUs are designed to run a whole lot hotter than cpus, and while 90 is at the upper edge I don't think it's necessarily beyond the pale (especially if you aren't have obvious heat-realted problems with your system)

 

[edlemur]

CPU intake from the side, exhaust fan on the top, powersupply fan taking in air from the top and releasing through the back. I also have a Vantec GPU Fan Card.

I've had no "major" problems. The worst that happened was a over week ago when playing COD4; the ghillie suit was there, but the twigs and vegetation on it were flickering.

I know its my GT because my 320 GTS wouldnt get past the low 70s. And I have read that the G92 GTS runs even cooler than the G80 GTS.

 

[hennethannun]

are those case fans 80mm or 120mm? are they stock or aftermarket fans? how much air do they move? any idea what your case temps look like? are you still using the stock CPU cooler? It sounds like your doing OK for case fans (especially if you have some high volume 120mms), but it's obviously hard to say without ever seeing your setup.

It just seems like $300 for a slightly better video card is a whole lot of money, especially if all you really need to do is buy a few $10-15 fans to improve your airflow.

I'm sure the G92s do run a bit cooler, since it is a is shrink of the G80. But, if you can sell that 8800 GT you can probably get back at least a large portion of the cost of your new GTS.

As for CPUs, I think waiting for wolf-dale is the way to go. it's cheaper and faster and games don't really take advantage of quad-cores yet. Plus the top-end games like crysis are way WAY more GPU bound now anyway.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: hennethannun
I'm sure the G92s do run a bit cooler, since it is a is shrink of the G80. But, if you can sell that 8800 GT you can probably get back at least a large portion of the cost of your new GTS.

An 8800GT is a G92. It just runs slightly slower than the G92 GTS, hence produces less heat. BTW, my 8800GT maxes @ ~60C, after a couple of hours of gaming.

 

[rgallant]

Originally posted by: edlemur
The main reason I am upgrading my GT to the GTS is mostly heat concerns. My GT easily goes over 90C under load :/

-you could tell them , if you go to the 8800 GTS it will be with the EVGA stepup or not and there is a time limit on the upgrade to the better card. I think it,s $60.00 ,could be wrong

-3.0g seems to be the min. for gaming with a CD2 and high end cards ,and not have a big bottleneck, you can do that by OC of your chip and a good cooler.

-also any heat problems can be solve for the 8800gt, if you look in the video card forums,
eg. card bios update (from EVGA) to change fan profile,use RivaTurner with a fan profile, after market GPU Heatsinks. and as others have said, a cool case lots of air flow. or you have a BAD heatsink, if all else fails and RMA it.

- and if you really want a upgrade, depending when you paid for the 8800gt ,you might hit the 9800GX2 in March.with the step up. when the time comes I'll look at it.
Lots more POWER,than a gts,But will need lots of power also, and comes with HEAT warnings on it.and could have a short surport from Nvidia,from what others have said.

 

[amenx]

The reason the 8800gt is slightly hotter than the other cards is that its a single slot card. Narrow fan blades obviously move less air than the bigger fans on dual slot cards.

The higher the res, the more GPU driven the game becomes. At 1024x768 (a shame to play Crysis on that res), the CPU will make a BIG difference. My own CPU at 3ghz gets around 4.6 FPS more than at stock speed (2.13ghz) in Crysis, and this at 1680x1050, so at 1024x768 it will be a noticably bigger difference.

My own advice, keep the CPU (but OC it) and GPU, and get a good 22" wide screen LCD at around $250-300. Crysis will be much more satisfying than on a lame 1024x768 res.

Cheers.

 

[edlemur]

My fans are 80mm . i would say they are aftermarket since my case is "aftermarket-type". And yup, I'm using my stock cooler (best stock cooler i've ever used) My case ambient temperature hovers around the high 30s to mid 40s. I'm certain i just need some artic silver on my GPU.

lulz right now im on a 17'' crt (hence the pathetic res). But I'm moving up to a 22''.

Im either doing the step-up or selling my GT, so i wont be spending more than $100 on my new GPU. And I'm also selling my e6320 and getting a Q6600 since they are selling on ebay for around $200.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Doesn't really matter what type the fans are, its all about the amount of air they can pull(assuming noise isn't too big a factor for you), whats the ambient temp in the room where your comp is? I'm lucky enough to have a room temp of about 8C during the winter

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: edlemur
The main reason I am upgrading my GT to the GTS is mostly heat concerns. My GT easily goes over 90C under load :/

The GTS is hotter.

90C is perfectly safe for a graphics card. They dont even throttle until over 120C.

For CPUs its a different story because the solder they use will melt at such temperatures.

The posters before are right, youre paying for upgrades that will not be worthwhile at all, i would save up and wait for the next generation of graphics cards on the way, or wait for a nicely priced 45nm quad core.

The upgrades you are suggesting will be completely un-noticable gains, crysis isnt threaded well enough to utilize quad core, and you wont get large gains from a cache or small mhz bump.

 

[Amaroque]

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
I'm lucky enough to have a room temp of about 8C during the winter

Huh? Did you forget to pay your gas bill, or is your computer in the garage? :shocked:

 

[hennethannun]

thanks myocardia. That was a pretty silly mistake on my part...

edelmur, I should have been more specific. when i said 'aftermarket' fans, I was thing of vantec tornados and other high-performance fans. As krnmastersgt said, the type of fan doesn't matter per se. When talking about cooling it's the amount of air the fan moves (usually measured in cubic feet per minute) that really matters.

30-40 case temp is relatively high, assuming your ambient room temperature is anywhere near the 'standard' 22C. I really think you should hold off on the upgrades and, if you are really worried about GPU heat, get some more efficient 120mm fans for your case to try and improve the airflow (maybe some cable ties too, if your pc has the typical snarl of power/IDE/sata cables blocking all the air that you case fans would otherwise be moving around).

 

[lopri]

You could also raise the fan speed of the GT via RivaTuner. Up to ~40% shouldn't be too noisy. Oh, and I've always thought that one should spend more on display than on GPU. Same goes for speakers and sound card. If you were to spend ~$300 on a video card, $200 monitor doesn't make a lot of sense, unless you're a professional gamer. 24" could be had for as low as $400 I think. (or even less if you're hard at finding)

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Nah, kick it up to 60%. And don't buy the 8800GTS. Just get something nice like the Accelero S1 + turbo module or the VF900 if you don't have the space.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Originally posted by: Amaroque

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
I'm lucky enough to have a room temp of about 8C during the winter

Huh? Did you forget to pay your gas bill, or is your computer in the garage? :shocked:

I leave my computer in my room or in the living room when I feel like taking it apart, personally I've adjusted to this temperature so the heater is actually not doing anything anymore besides I have a fleece blanket for when it gets really chilly at night