Old Quad or new Dual?

funkydmunky

funkydmunky

2[H]4U
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Hey guys.
I'm making a dedicated gaming system. It is mostly for emulators and some retro PC and a few Steam games that are not the latest and greatest, more classics or party friendly titles.
I have a Celeron G3930 2.9GHz 8GB DDR4 2133. And a Phenom 2 940 3GHz 8GB DDR2 1066.
GFX will be run by a HD 7950.
Now the important part. I will be using my 800p LED projector. So I will likely not be GPU limited at that rez. I only want to build this once.
Which system is going to give me the best longevity? To me it is a toss-up, so i am asking for some advice.
 
Celeron by far IMO. You have the option to upgrade it in the future as well. Plenty of power for retro and steam games, it'll use less and generate less heat as well. Much better single thread performance as well which can be key in old games at low rez.
 
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funkydmunky said:
Hey guys.
I'm making a dedicated gaming system. It is mostly for emulators and some retro PC and a few Steam games that are not the latest and greatest, more classics or party friendly titles.
I have a Celeron G3930 2.9GHz 8GB DDR4 2133. And a Phenom 2 940 3GHz 8GB DDR2 1066.
GFX will be run by a HD 7950.
Now the important part. I will be using my 800p LED projector. So I will likely not be GPU limited at that rez. I only want to build this once.
Which system is going to give me the best longevity? To me it is a toss-up, so i am asking for some advice.
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No contest. Celeron.

This is because the G3930 is of the very recent Kaby Lake generation of Intel processors while the Phenom II x4 dates way back to 2009 (and is, as such, already long obsolete). This means that as Windows gets updated more and more, eventually Windows itself will cease supporting legacy DDR2-era platforms completely.
 
You didn't specify which OS. If you plan on using Windows 10 for some reason, I would be very hesitant to go with a dual core regardless of how fast it is.
 
FlawleZ said:
You didn't specify which OS. If you plan on using Windows 10 for some reason, I would be very hesitant to go with a dual core regardless of how fast it is.
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Lol, what?

I run a g3258 at 4.4 on Windows 10 and there aren't any issues at all. Not entirely sure why 2 cores are a poor choice for 10.
 
auntjemima said:
Lol, what?

I run a g3258 at 4.4 on Windows 10 and there aren't any issues at all. Not entirely sure why 2 cores are a poor choice for 10.
Click to expand...

I can only assume he's thinking of a laptop "Celeron" that's really just an Atom. These are full Core architecture, and are beefy.

Windows 10 is pretty slow on Atom laptops because it seems to always be running the virus scanner whenever you wake it.
 
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auntjemima said:
Lol, what?

I run a g3258 at 4.4 on Windows 10 and there aren't any issues at all. Not entirely sure why 2 cores are a poor choice for 10.
Click to expand...

I second this. Dual core Kaby Lake runs fine on Windows 10 and will do a much better job than the Phenom overall.
 
FlawleZ said:
You didn't specify which OS. If you plan on using Windows 10 for some reason, I would be very hesitant to go with a dual core regardless of how fast it is.
Click to expand...
Actually, it's the opposite way around, in this particular case:

The Celeron G3930 and other Kaby Lake platforms effectively require Windows 10 just to run properly. You see, Microsoft has officially frozen CPU compatibility for older versions of Windows, such as Windows 7 and 8.1, to Skylake and earlier generation CPUs by prohibiting PCs powered by Kaby Lake and newer CPUs from accessing the Windows Update site for any purpose outside of an upgrade to Windows 10, and thus officially bans these legacy versions of Windows from ever being updated on these newest platforms. Although there have been workarounds to circumvent this lock, they are not sanctioned at all by Microsoft.

On the other hand, the Phenom II x4 940 may not work properly on anything newer than Windows 7 because it is a dead-end platform, and even CPU manufacturers do not like to support anything that's more than three years old. And tha't not to mention that a Phenom II x4 940 performs about the same as a 10-year-old Core 2 Quad CPU (which is still significantly slower than even a six-year-old dual-core Sandy Bridge i3, let alone a quad-core Kaby Lake i5).
 
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E4g1e said:
Actually, it's the opposite way around, in this particular case:

The Celeron G3930 and other Kaby Lake platforms effectively require Windows 10 just to run properly. You see, Microsoft has officially frozen CPU compatibility for older versions of Windows, such as Windows 7 and 8.1, to Skylake and earlier generation CPUs by prohibiting PCs powered by Kaby Lake and newer CPUs from accessing the Windows Update site for any purpose outside of an upgrade to Windows 10, and thus officially bans these legacy versions of Windows from ever being updated on these newest platforms. Although there have been workarounds to circumvent this lock, they are not sanctioned at all by Microsoft.

On the other hand, the Phenom II x4 940 may not work properly on anything newer than Windows 7 because it is a dead-end platform, and even CPU manufacturers do not like to support anything that's more than three years old. And tha't not to mention that a Phenom II x4 940 performs about the same as a 10-year-old Core 2 Quad CPU (which is still significantly slower than even a six-year-old dual-core Sandy Bridge i3, let alone a quad-core Kaby Lake i5).
Click to expand...

I suppose it's all relative to the actual purpose of the machine. For me, if I'm building a retro or emulator gaming box, the last thing I'm concerned with is Windows updates. Just because Windows can't update beyond a base install wouldn't stop me from using it the system and installing my favorite old games and emulators. And if your someone who fears using a non updated or patched system, this type of setup doesn't even need internet access. The OP stated it's a "dedicated gaming system" that is"mostly for emulators and retro PC."

There's really no reason this system should even run Windows 10 and in fact it may prove to be more headaches than it's worth trying to run a lot of legacy software.
 
E4g1e said:
Actually, it's the opposite way around, in this particular case:

The Celeron G3930 and other Kaby Lake platforms effectively require Windows 10 just to run properly. You see, Microsoft has officially frozen CPU compatibility for older versions of Windows, such as Windows 7 and 8.1, to Skylake and earlier generation CPUs by prohibiting PCs powered by Kaby Lake and newer CPUs from accessing the Windows Update site for any purpose outside of an upgrade to Windows 10, and thus officially bans these legacy versions of Windows from ever being updated on these newest platforms. Although there have been workarounds to circumvent this lock, they are not sanctioned at all by Microsoft.

On the other hand, the Phenom II x4 940 may not work properly on anything newer than Windows 7 because it is a dead-end platform, and even CPU manufacturers do not like to support anything that's more than three years old. And tha't not to mention that a Phenom II x4 940 performs about the same as a 10-year-old Core 2 Quad CPU (which is still significantly slower than even a six-year-old dual-core Sandy Bridge i3, let alone a quad-core Kaby Lake i5).
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
FlawleZ said:
I suppose it's all relative to the actual purpose of the machine. For me, if I'm building a retro or emulator gaming box, the last thing I'm concerned with is Windows updates. Just because Windows can't update beyond a base install wouldn't stop me from using it the system and installing my favorite old games and emulators. And if your someone who fears using a non updated or patched system, this type of setup doesn't even need internet access. The OP stated it's a "dedicated gaming system" that is"mostly for emulators and retro PC."

There's really no reason this system should even run Windows 10 and in fact it may prove to be more headaches than it's worth trying to run a lot of legacy software.
Click to expand...
Actually, the "headaches" come from trying to run any legacy software on any 64-bit system, including Windows 7. In other words, if it won't run properly on 64-bit Windows 7, it won't run properly on Windows 10. (Or, if it won't run properly on Windows 10, it may not run properly or at all on Windows 7 x86-64.)

With that said, I'd actually recommend a separate, non-Internet-connected system (which means an old, obsolete PC running an old version of Windows that's no longer supported by Microsoft that's permanently disconnected from the Internet) just for running such legacy software - and leave the newer system for newer stuff or surfing the Internet. This is because running both old and new software on the same system is an invitation to serious compatibility and/or stability headaches, and also because I favor security above compatibility (anything that's EOL, whether it's an OS or antivirus software, leaves your system wide open to malware and hackers that steal personal information more quickly than you have a chance to delete it).
 
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acascianelli said:
Celeron.

Most if not all the games you'll be running will only be using one thread/core, and in that case the Celeron's single thread performance is much faster than that Phenom.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2957&cmp[]=367
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Thanks for the nice link acascianelli. The P2 does have a higher CPU number overall, but I know that is multi-thread slanted. When I checked the single thread rating it proves out what everyone has been saying. G3930 - Single Thread Rating: 1660 / P2 - Single Thread Rating: 1025
So that is around %60 faster. The only reason I was considering the P2 was a few of the newest emu's use up to 3 cores. But I am guessing the third core use is minimal, and the two main cores of the G3930 combined should give a %120 boost theoretically.
 
E4g1e said:
Actually, the "headaches" come from trying to run any legacy software on any 64-bit system, including Windows 7. In other words, if it won't run properly on 64-bit Windows 7, it won't run properly on Windows 10. (Or, if it won't run properly on Windows 10, it may not run properly or at all on Windows 7 x86-64.)

With that said, I'd actually recommend a separate, non-Internet-connected system (which means an old, obsolete PC running an old version of Windows that's no longer supported by Microsoft that's permanently disconnected from the Internet) just for running such legacy software - and leave the newer system for newer stuff or surfing the Internet. This is because running both old and new software on the same system is an invitation to serious compatibility and/or stability headaches, and also because I favor security above compatibility (anything that's EOL, whether it's an OS or antivirus software, leaves your system wide open to malware and hackers that steal personal information more quickly than you have a chance to delete it).
Click to expand...

Hi E4g1e. I am not going that far retro. All of the modern emulators/front-ends will work well with win7/10 64bit. And as far as legacy PC goes, I mean not the latest and greatest. But nothing archaic. Nothing that I know my old P2 940 3GHz/HD7950 couldn't handle on my steam library :)
 
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