Wondering if I will see real time performance gain if I upgrade...

[scheibler1]

I am debating picking up another 2gb of ram, a new hd, and windows vista 64bit. However, I will only do this if a cpu upgrade will be worth it later this year when the e8400/e8500/q6600 prices drop.

Would I notice a significant increase in real time performance in gaming going from an intel E2180 @ 3ghz to a E8500 @ stock 3ghz or Q6600 @ stock 2.4ghz?

Which would be better for gaming? I am assuming the E8500 since games don't fully utilize 4 cores yet, but I will be really bummed if I get the E8500 later this year when Nehelm is released and then all games start to be optimized for quad cores or more!

 

[Jax Omen]

depends on what games. RTS is more likely to be using 4 cores far sooner than FPS, for example.

 

[scheibler1]

hmm well the only agmes I play seem to be FPS and then the Command and Conquer Series. I aslo have a 24" monitor so high resolutions are a plus.

I am leaning towards an E8400 or E8500. Wondering if these will be a noticable increase in performance or if I would need to overclock them to like atleast 3.6ghz

 

[Jax Omen]

without overclocking, the dual core upgrade wouldn't make MUCH of a noticeable difference in performance. With some OC, you'd definitely notice.

Don't forget the Q6600 is OCable as well.

 

[richwenzel]

there was an article about the value of cache....the conclusion was like 5% more cache going from 1mb to 4mb, the wolfdale has 6mb cache (not including the 8200)...it was either toms or anandtech that did it.

now, why bother asking such a silly question, if you dont OC the wolfdale, but you do OC the 2180...i mean you can OC both....on the same platform....your 8400 will hit 3.8 very easily...


btw, the 8500 is 3.16 the 8400 is 3.0....

 

[bryanW1995]

there is no way to justify the performance gain of going to e8400/e8500 unless you oc. the pentium e chips are effectively 200-300 mhz slower than the penryn duals, so your cpu at 3.0 should compare to about an e8200 @stock. If you have a good aftermarket cooler and good (ddr2 1066 or at least 4-4-4-12 ddr2 800) ram you should easily get to 4.0-4.2 on your e 84/8500 chips, however, yielding you about a 50 % actual performance increase. THAT would be worth it imho.

 

[Glavinsolo]

Go Nuts

 

[DSF]

Playing at high resolutions tends to make the graphics card more important than the CPU. What graphics card are you currently using? If there's room for improvement in that area it might be more effective than the CPU in most gaming cases.

I would run the games you normally play and check your CPU usage. If it's near 100%, a new chip would probably help. If it's not, then your upgrade might not make much difference. Also, try turning down the graphical settings in the games you play. If that increases performance then your bottleneck is most likely the graphics card, not the CPU.

On the other (third?) hand, if all of your games are currently running to your satisfaction, then why spend the money on an upgrade?

Edit: As others have said, a few MHz on the CPU isn't going to make a night and day difference anyway. To see much gain from your new hardware you'd likely have to overclock it too. (In fact, for a lot of games the stock Q6600 might even be a slight step backwards.)

 

[crimson117]

Save your money - you'd get "more" for your computing experience with a new monitor or video card or something than a cpu upgrade at this time.