Next Step: Upgrade CPU for gaming (Just bought 9800 GTX+)

B

blayez

New Member
I am still using a Pentium D 950 3.40 GHz.

Just bought an EVGA 9800 GTX+ and I am looking into getting a newer CPU to avoid bottlenecking.

The two I see most gamers using is the:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (for those who choose quads)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (for duos)

I am not sure, but I think that either of these will out perform my Pentium D in newer games by a very large margin.

If I choose to go with the Quad, it will be to make my computer more "future proof". I understand that not many games have been optimized for 4 cores yet, but they are getting close. I really want price for performance whichever I choose.

I need to check my motherboard and see if it is even compatible with the newer processors (sorry, I'm at work at the moment and can't access my serial number).

Hopefully, I will be able to use either. What are your thoughts?:D
 
Either of those will definitely outperform your Pentium D by a very large margin. I would go for the Duo, because there are currently no games where you will notice a difference between similarly clocked dual-core and quad-core with the same architecture. In fact, benchmarks have shown that a Quad will (marginally) under perform the Duo. I believe that we are still a couple of years away from fully utilizing quad cores in gaming, and by that point you would want to upgrade again anyway, so I would recommend going with the higher clocked Duo for now.

And you will definitely want to check your mobo's compatibility before purchasing, as there is a distinct possibility that it will not support a Core processor... in which case you may want to look into upgrading your mobo as well.
 
Keep your CPU.

I got a pentium 4 Cedar mill (overclocked) and it still plays games fine, although not as good as a decent duo.
 
If your picky, the Duo will pull about 10-15 more fps in most games.

I do a lot of photoshop, premiere, recording, ets, so I went quad, as gaming is about the lowest on my to-do list.

Both will perform very well. Due jsut has an edge in gaming, while quad has an edge in multiple tasks.
 
jdbennet said:
Keep your CPU.

I got a pentium 4 Cedar mill (overclocked) and it still plays games fine, although not as good as a decent duo.
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To be honest, it's not as good as any Duo, not by quite a bit. The Pentium line is dated (with the exception of the new Pentium Dual-Cores which are basically the Celerons of the Core lineup).

Here is a side by side benchmark comparison of your current processor and the E8400:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2008-q1-2008/compare,398.html?prod[1267]=on&prod[1299]=on

As you can see, there is a very significant difference, MUCH more than 15fps. On many benchmarks (especially those related to gaming) there is over 100% improvement.

EDIT: Sorry, misunderstood. I thought you were saying that there would be only 15fps difference between the Pentium D and the Duo, not between the Duo and the Quad. Still, the above information should show that the upgrade is definitely worth it.

Here is a comparison of the two potential upgrades and your current CPU:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2008-q1-2008/compare,398.html?prod[1267]=on&prod[1275]=on&prod[1299]=on

As you can see, the Quad does out perform in some instances, but not in gaming, and not even in most applications.
 
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To be honest, it's not as good as any Duo, not by quite a bit.
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Pentium D's are actually quite good processors. They will destroy any Pentium/Celeron Dual-Cores, and will actually outperform many of the lower-end Core2Duos. It takes a newer 45nm C2D to soundly beat that CPU, even at stock speeds.

I would try overclocking the D, as they are fairly good at it, you may be able of squeezing a fair bit of performance out of it.
 
Exactly. Some Ds and some later P4s are still very good

I got a P4 Cedar Mill (663?) 3.6ghz stock clockspeed , overcloked to 5.5 using air cooling.

Runs games sweet.
 
hackapelite said:
Pentium D's are actually quite good processors. They will destroy any Pentium/Celeron Dual-Cores, and will actually outperform many of the lower-end Core2Duos. It takes a newer 45nm C2D to soundly beat that CPU, even at stock speeds.

I would try overclocking the D, as they are fairly good at it, you may be able of squeezing a fair bit of performance out of it.
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I'm not sure why people keep on disagreeing with me with no evidence. I am not trying to insult anyone's particular computer setup or mislead anyone, I am simply stating facts.

That being the case, you are indisputably WRONG. Here is a side by side comparison of the lowest end Core 2 Duo (E4300), and the highest end Pentium D (960):
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2008-q1-2008/compare,398.html?prod[1256]=on∏[1300]=on

Please take some time to look this over. Now, the Pentium D has 2 x 2MB L2 cache, while the C2D has a single shared 2MB cache, which does lend the Pentium D a very slight advantage in a few applications, however overall, it is clear that the C2D is the better processor. In most of the instances where the Penty D bests the C2D there is less than a 5% difference. There are two or three instances where the Penty might beat the C2D by 20%, however in about 1/3 of the benchmarks the C2D trumps the Penty by around 20%.

As for overclocking, well, you really shouldn't have brought that up. Sure, you can knock the Penty D up to around 4Ghz, probably even 4.5 without too much trouble, but the Core architecture is so vastly superior to Netburst that you can double the clock speed of the E4300... quite easily.

Keep in mind, again, that I am comparing the worst C2D with the best Pentium D. If we were to take a single step up from the E4300, which would be the E6300... well, I'll just say that comparing the E6300 and the E4300 is a bit like comparing the E4300 and the Pentium D 960, if you can discern what I mean. If you can, then you'll understand how ludicrous it is to claim that the Pentium D is better than "many" of the C2Ds.

Finally, just to tear one more hole in the hull of your Titanic of a post, which has already sunk down to the icy depths of the ocean of FAIL: the Pentium D isn't even the best of the early Pentium series... the Pentium EE is.
 
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I am not trying to insult anyone's particular computer setup or mislead anyone, I am simply stating facts.
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Calm down, neither am I ;)

That being the case, you are indisputably WRONG. Here is a side by side comparison of the lowest end Core 2 Duo (E4300), and the highest end Pentium D (960):
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KEWL, KEWL, I was misinformed. No need to thrash me, save me from that, please :P I'm a human being, prone to making errors and being wrong. I wasn't trying to attack anyone's opinion here, I was saying what I though was right.

Finally, just to tear one more hole in the hull of your Titanic of a post, which has already sunk down to the icy depths of the ocean of FAIL: the Pentium D isn't even the best of the early Pentium series... the Pentium EE is.
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Thenagain, I never claimed it was.

If someone is wrong, it's enough if you prove them wrong. No need to start attacking anyone... now I would understand this if I started PC eyeing around, claiming that the benchmark scores were skewed by extra-wide IDE cables, USB drivers thrashing windows installations, and trying to prove that I'm right when I'm clearly not, but when someone simply posts information that doesn't hold true, all you need to do is to correct them... non-aggressively.
 
hackapelite said:
Thenagain, I never claimed it was.
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It was very deeply implied.

hackapelite said:
If someone is wrong, it's enough if you prove them wrong. No need to start attacking anyone...
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You're right, I was more aggressive than what was called for. However, a huge pet peeve of mine is when someone has the audacity to correct me without even taking the minimum effort required to double check their facts. In my defense, I've been up for over 24 hours, and for the last few I've been cramming for a calculus exam, so I'm a little on edge. Also, your statement was just soooooooooo wrong (:P) that it was easy to get carried away.

hackapelite said:
if I started PC eyeing around
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Excellent phrase.
 
It was very deeply implied.
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Where :confused: I did state they're still good, but I by no means tried to imply they actually are the best of the line-up...

However, a huge pet peeve of mine is when someone has the audacity to correct me without even taking the minimum effort required to double check their facts.
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Thanks to certain family members' habits on the internet, the 6GB download quota was reached some time ago, and now I'm speedlimited to dial-up speeds - it took 2 minutes to load up the page you linked, not to mention that I had to reload it again because the layout & fonts were all messed up. Trust me, looking for stuff at these speed is a pain, I really couldn't be bothered googling for any benchmarks. Also (just for the pity :P), I'm suffering from a flu and I'm really pissed for getting sick on school holidays...

Also, your statement was just soooooooooo wrong () that it was easy to get carried away.
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Well, they still beat the newer celeron dual-cores and pentium dual-cores, meaning that I got at least something right, no?
 
get the e8400. check for motherboard compatibility before though.

actually, the e8200 would be a LOT faster than your processor, and it's only clocked at 2.66ghz. netburst is just a lazy architecture, it really didn't perform a lot of work per clock.

the e8400 would be the best choice for right now, as quad's are better for multi-threaded apps and by the time they make games multi-threaded your rig will need another upgrade anyways.

imo get dual core right now if you won't utilize quad core with video conversion or running many apps at once.
 
Looks like I started World War 3 =D

Anyways, thanks for the advice. The first thing I plan to do is try out the new card in my current system... and see how it runs. Then I'll have to go into my BIOS and enable overclocking on XPS 700 (luckily I have that feature, many prebuilt PC's lack the ability to overclock I have learned).

I should be able to get the CPU from 3.4 stock to at least 3.8 via air.. but we'll see..

If I still can see a huge bottleneck, I'll most likely purchase a good quality Dual Core. I'd like to future proof my rig with the Quad, but 200 dollars in another 2-3 years will not be that big of a deal considering the performance gain I will get now..

Oh.. and I will try to post my motherboard Serial # very soon (im sure its an Nvidia chipset)... hopefully someone can check and explain the compatibility for me then.
 
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