Who is still using intel Core 2 duo processors for gaming?

T

techtips

Gawd
Joined
Jan 3, 2011
Messages
530
Hey everybody, I have a desktop that I bought from my college a few weeks back and it was mainly used for CAD work. It has a 2.6 C2D processor and I've been thinking about either upgrading to an E8400 or a Q8400 and overclock it past 3.00ghz

Anybody still rocking the Core 2 duo processors for gaming here? or am I alone and has the majority moved over to the i-series processors?
 
I'm still on c2d 1.8ghz @2.6ghz 1333fsb. I need a better heatsink at 3.1 ghz i was getting to 80c and
thermal throttling.
2.2ghz seems to be the min for most games today. and 3ghz best for making sure your vid card isn't bottlenecked.

I wouldn't put a 7970 on it but a 7870 shouldn't be that bottlenecked.
Might have 15 min max fps lost on the pcie1.... but if its still playable who cares :D
 
Last edited:
I am still on the rig in my sig.
I am not a [H] gamer, but I still fire up an older game now and then "cod modern warfare", Fallout 3. I have a copy of skyrim also that runs fine for me on medium settings on my Samsung 22in monitor.

This P.C. has been running 24/7 since March 2007 and still going strong.
Now I mostly use in for web browsing, some vmware stuff for testing OS's and watching movies with a 32in tv I have hooked up to it as a second monitor.

Each year I say I'll upgrade this year then I talk myself out it because my current rig still does everything I need it to do with rock solid reliability.

However eventually I'll want usb 3.0 and a ssd OS drive and some more nifty stuff on the newer architecture that's coming out. And I might at some point want to do some video rendering when I finally update my stupid phone to a smart phone.

So I think I can get 1 more year out of the desktop that I have and then probably update when Haswell come out.

So "no" your not the only one but we are becoming the vast minority I think. Especially so for the more serious gamers, I think they moved on a while ago.
 
techtips said:
Anybody still rocking the Core 2 duo processors for gaming here? or am I alone and has the majority moved over to the i-series processors?
Click to expand...

my sig has a bit of life in it yet, BF3 with a mostly high settings 2xaa, when I pull some more money together I will upgrade ASAP
 
My GF is still using a C2D setup, it's the E8400 @ 4ghz in my sig. Pretty solid rig for gaming if your not wanting to max everything out.
 
My C2Q Q9550 with a 6870 does well with pretty much everything I through at it. My bother plays BFBC2 on it at max settings.
 
Although it's an i7, I play most games with 6 cores full up doing other things, and it runs fine. With a few exceptions (notably BF3) it doesnt make much difference, most games still only seem to use 1 or 2 cores.
 
I'm running as follows for now until I can get it sold and buy a laptop:

E6300
Gigabyte P965-DS3
2x 1GB Supertalent PC 6400
2x 2GB Corsair XMS PC 6400
Corsair Force 60GB SSD
Asus GTX 460 768MB TOP
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB

The system does fine for everything I have ever wanted it to do. Plays Skyrim fine at 1080.

Would I like to upgrade to SB? Sure.
Do I need to? Not a chance.
 
Still using system in sig!

C2D 6400
Asus P5Q Pro
XFX 4890 XT
OCZ 1066 (4gigs)
WD Black Cavair 640 gigs
Vista 64bit
 
Me me me me! Except im using it on a laptop ;)


My specs:
Intel Core2 Duo T6600 @ 2200MHZ
HP HDX Premium Series
3GB RAM
NVIDIA GT 130M GPU
General HD

It runs Skyrim at medium-low settings. Im building a new rig with a i5-3570k and GTX 670, so itll be a huge upgrade!
 
I am, and very happy with my system still. Sure I did go from a Q6600 to a Q9550 because I wanted the lazy upgrade, but it's still a C2D. PS without a good OC I would have upgraded long ago.
 
I have an e6300 in my Htpc. Clocked to 3.00 G. Has been running oc'd at that speed since release day!

Also a q6600 and q9450. I think I still have an e 6600 somewhere.

Still solid performance.
 
techtips said:
Hey everybody, I have a desktop that I bought from my college a few weeks back and it was mainly used for CAD work. It has a 2.6 C2D processor and I've been thinking about either upgrading to an E8400 or a Q8400 and overclock it past 3.00ghz

Anybody still rocking the Core 2 duo processors for gaming here? or am I alone and has the majority moved over to the i-series processors?
Click to expand...
core 2 duo is fine for many people, but i dont know if i can recommend upgrading from one core2duo to another core2 duo. (core 2 quad maybe, but i think i would still recommend upgrading the entire platform)

you mentioned overclocking the new cpu past 3.0ghz, why dont you just do that with your current cpu?
 
I found that a 32bit OS with limited memory was a bigger problem than the core 2 duo!!! core 2 duo is pretty good if you are doing normal stuff, not demanding stuff or power user stuff. 1080p games at medium settings or whatever.
 
I just upgraded from a Q6600 to a 3570k... to be perfectly honest, the Q6600 was holding up just fine - it's just that after nearly 5 years I was ready for an upgrade.
 
Well...

I have an E6600 2.4GHz CPU in my HTPC that I sometimes use to play games instead of on my primary rig. But the last games I've played on it were Fallout 3 and Mass Effect 2. It has a nVidia GeForce 9600GT.

My Q9450 will likely go into my HTPC after I upgrade to Haswell (or maybe Broadwell). Then again, I just might revamp my HTPC as well with an inexpensive Haswell (Broadwell) CPU and something comparable to a Radeon HD 7750 which has pretty good performance for the price you pay and low power consumption.
 
Thanks for the response's

The computer I picked up from school was $40.00 and here are the following specs:

Intel C2D E6750
Asus P5B motherboard
6GB Kingston PC2-6400 memory
ATI FireGL V7600 card
Antec Sonata plus 550
Antec TPQ-850 PSU

I was just thinking of getting a better processor for the 775 motherboard aswell as a better graphics card.

I'm not a HUGE gamer, but I'd like to play a few newer games. My friend has a E8400 with a 2gig video card and runs BF3 max without any issues.

The nice thing is if I purchase a better video card, I can use it in a future i5/i7 build
 
i'd say get a new video card, hold off on upgrading the CPU unless you want to upgrade to a new platform. Again, you can overclock your CPU. My e6750 overclocks to 3.2ghz. If you can get a super cheap quad somewhere maybe it's worth it (ebay, craigslist, from a friends, etc)
 
Relativist said:
I am, and very happy with my system still. Sure I did go from a Q6600 to a Q9550 because I wanted the lazy upgrade, but it's still a C2D. PS without a good OC I would have upgraded long ago.
Click to expand...

You're running a Core 2 Quad not a Core 2 Duo as are a couple other people who responded.

As to the OP's question. I'm not and never have run a C2D for a gaming machine. I went from a Socket 939 Athlon 64 X2 to a Q6600. I do have a couple C2D machines but they aren't used for gaming. Ones a home/media server and the other is doing duty as a HTPC.
 
I have a Pentium E5800 (wolfdale arch) @ 3.2 (stock). I just put a 6870 in it. I really hope it's going to be useful for steam/linux...
 
My HTPC/Work PC (its my personal PC I use at work) is packing a E6600 2.4ghz and it still games decently. Have it paired with a 512MB 4850 and this PC can play Crysis at 1280x1024 (4:3 CRT) at high/max settings at around 25-30fps.

It's weird though, because although I can play Crysis a nice levels something like Saints Row 2 has to be at ALL low settings and 1024x768 to even be playable...same with a lot of other games that I don't understand why they're so strenuous like a lot of new Unreal Engine 3 based games and the like.

How, at one time, could this PC be top of the line and play games like Unreal Tournament 3 maxed out but now I can't play Bulletstorm without it being a slide show...makes no sense!
 
I have an e6400, getting to the point wher eI can play some games even on low settings with my gtx 460. The CPU is OC'd to 3.2GHZ
 
mesasone said:
I just upgraded from a Q6600 to a 3570k... to be perfectly honest, the Q6600 was holding up just fine - it's just that after nearly 5 years I was ready for an upgrade.
Click to expand...

That's the way I feel about the two machines in my sig. I know my Phenom II might be just a bit more PC than the one the OP is running but I'm thinking they're fairly comparable. Comparing the Phenom II to my overclocked i7 I definitely notice a difference all around. (I know a lot of has to do with the SSD but even before that) The i7 is quicker and obviously much more of a powerhouse.

That being said, I too could easily get by with the Phenom II and don't doubt a Core 2 Duo would do it for me too.
 
Ive used core 2 duo's in laptops for gaming and if you can overclock them I think you'll be fine. There is certain titles that will choke. BF3, GTA, etc but the majority of games are dual core optimized and dont use more then two threads.

World of warcraft and starcraft 2 played excellent on my core 2 duo based laptop 1680x1050
 
My wife games on a Core 2 Duo. My gaming machine is still a single core...
 
My wife and step son both have Q6600 processors with 8GB of RAM and GTX260's.
 
i am using a c2q q6600@ 3.2 ghz with a EP45-DS3L, Radeon hd6950 and 4 gb ram. :)
 
Little reason to upgrade beyond C2D for most games IMO, but overclocking is called for. For almost anything you do on a PC - most games included - clockspeed+IPC are more important than #cores. And C2D is still reasonably fast per core, especially when OCed.
 
My daughters system, this machine is a c2d 6750 with a freshly installed 550ti to replace her 8800 gtx. on an Asus p5n32e-sli plus motherboard. It sits at stock clocks, because I never bothered to figure out the whole overclocking thing. I guess I could toss a quad core in it and get a bit more life from it, but I'm thinking I'll just replace the board and cpu soon anyways.
 
Liqq said:
My daughters system, this machine is a c2d 6750 with a freshly installed 550ti to replace her 8800 gtx. on an Asus p5n32e-sli plus motherboard. It sits at stock clocks, because I never bothered to figure out the whole overclocking thing. I guess I could toss a quad core in it and get a bit more life from it, but I'm thinking I'll just replace the board and cpu soon anyways.
Click to expand...

A few games will take advantage of a quad core over a dual core, but not many. You'd be better with most games overclocking than you would be going to a quad-core with equal-speed cores. Obviously a newer quad core would also be faster per core, but I think an OC'd C2D will last for games for probably another year or two anyway. GPU is a better upgrade for games. SSD is a MUCH better all-around upgrade. If you want to upgrade beyond those things then sure, you can consider new CPU/MB/RAM (assuming DDR2 currently, maybe not new RAM if already DDR3).
 
dandragonrage said:
A few games will take advantage of a quad core over a dual core, but not many. You'd be better with most games overclocking than you would be going to a quad-core with equal-speed cores. Obviously a newer quad core would also be faster per core, but I think an OC'd C2D will last for games for probably another year or two anyway. GPU is a better upgrade for games. SSD is a MUCH better all-around upgrade. If you want to upgrade beyond those things then sure, you can consider new CPU/MB/RAM (assuming DDR2 currently, maybe not new RAM if already DDR3).
Click to expand...

Hey thanks for the info...maybe one day I'll learn the whole overclocking thing and get more life out of this machine.
 
techtips said:
Thanks for the response's

The computer I picked up from school was $40.00 and here are the following specs:

Intel C2D E6750
Asus P5B motherboard
6GB Kingston PC2-6400 memory
ATI FireGL V7600 card
Antec Sonata plus 550
Antec TPQ-850 PSU

I was just thinking of getting a better processor for the 775 motherboard aswell as a better graphics card.

I'm not a HUGE gamer, but I'd like to play a few newer games. My friend has a E8400 with a 2gig video card and runs BF3 max without any issues.

The nice thing is if I purchase a better video card, I can use it in a future i5/i7 build
Click to expand...

Jesus that's a wicked sick deal. I'd have bought as many of those as the school was dishing out.

Talk about overkill on the power supply. lmao

The FireGL V7600 is analogous to the hd 2900gt I believe. The GT was the hated one in the series, although they all sucked. Might be able to fetch a bit of money for it though since it is still a FireGL (although I understand the Radeons could be softmodded)

What newer games are you trying to play and at what resolutions?

I'd imagine getting a more modern video card would be all that's needed.

The E6750 is 8x multiplier, and you'd be able to get it running at 8x400=3200 at stock vcore or less no doubt. The P965 may get a little finicky at higher fsbs when running four dimms like in your setup, but if your ram can handle it, some of those g0 chips could go into the high 3's.

I'd definitely run with the cpu for now until you can find a good deal on a kentsfield or yorkfield. And by good deal, I mean sub $100 and with a decent multiplier, so a q6600 is probably the only likely candidate. Otherwise, it starts getting to be not so worth it.

You could of course keep the case and psu and sell everything else. You'd get more than $40 easily to put towards a sandy/ivybridge.

Going from an e6400 to a q6600 was the best upgrade I've done. I've since migrated to sandybridge because the price was too good ($200 mc 2600k deal). Unnecessary, but good on power consumption.

The P5B was one of my favorites
 
That is indeed a sick deal, but no way in hell an e8400 is going to play BF3 without any issues unless your idea of smooth gameplay is 20 fps. It may just barely cut it in SP but no way is it going to have anything resembling decent frames in MP.
 
Last edited:
I have a E6750 OC'd to 2.93. It still runs the current games out there on low settings, barely but it's slow. I'm not happy with it. I keep thinking I'll upgrade but I'm unsure about the Ivy Bridge processor and its heat problems. Plus, I have an OEM license for Windows 7, so I cannot transfer it to a new build, unfortunately. Well, I might be able to. Something IS wrong with my BiOS, I can't access it for some reason and it takes a long time to post. Other than those nuisances, my computer works fine. I mainly play Halo (still), anyway, mainly because my computer doesn't seem to like anything else.

Maybe I'll upgrade when we see a video card that actually has big gains with PCI-E 3.0 over PCI-E 2.0. That is not the case, yet. The gain is very minimal, and in some cases, a loss.
 
I sold my E8500 about a year .5 ago and I really miss it now.

I will just say that BF3 is so demanding that I turned off all but 2 threads for BF3 using windows affinity controls and it was a horrible. That is on a 3930K @ 4.5ghz. Now keep in mind that was also in eyefinity 6100x1200 b corrected.

When I turned on two more threads suddenly BF3 came to life. When I turned on all 12 threads it didnt make a difference over 4 threads at all. Must be the insano IPC on the Sandy Bridge E.

So the point I am trying to make is.... even on the latest and greatest 6 core Intel chips even BF3 can run them into the ground with only 2 threads. The Core2's are no more that a really fast desktop moderate gaming processor by todays standard which is still extremely useful for a great number of people.
 
My old rig was:

E8400 @ 4.3GHZ
4GB OCZ 1066 Ram
Gigabyte EP45-UD3P
Radeon 4870x2 which after 3 years died, replaced with a Radeon 7770.

This setup with a heavily OCed C2D was more than adequate to play 99% of games @ 1920x1200/1080p maxed out with no issues (8xMSAA/16xAF). Yes, games like BF3 or GTA4 where more than two cores helped had issues but they were still playable with reduced settings.

It comes down to money and your ability to tolerate what you have vs the real world tangible benefits of a plush upgrade.
 
Thanks guys....

ziddey said:
.........
Click to expand...

ziddey, I've been thinking of picking up a Q6700, which is the 2.6ghz. Currently the E6750 is not oc'ed and at the default 2.6ghz. I thought about the Q6600 but it takes it down to 2.4ghz...wouldn't that be a bit worse off since you are down 200mhz and need to make them up via overclocking?


I've been playing BF3 on lowish/medium settings and its fine. I put in a spare BFG Geforce 9800GT card and its okay. I have come across some good prices for the i7-3770k but I think I might just get a better video card and a quad core into the LGA775 motherboard and enjoy it for a few more years(s)
 
techtips said:
Thanks guys....



ziddey, I've been thinking of picking up a Q6700, which is the 2.6ghz. Currently the E6750 is not oc'ed and at the default 2.6ghz. I thought about the Q6600 but it takes it down to 2.4ghz...wouldn't that be a bit worse off since you are down 200mhz and need to make them up via overclocking?


I've been playing BF3 on lowish/medium settings and its fine. I put in a spare BFG Geforce 9800GT card and its okay. I have come across some good prices for the i7-3770k but I think I might just get a better video card and a quad core into the LGA775 motherboard and enjoy it for a few more years(s)
Click to expand...

They'll both typically hit around the same maximum clocks. For the most part the only time you won't get as high clocks on the Q6600 is if your motherboard cant hit the required FSB, in that regard the Q6700 offers a bit more flexibility.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top