Q9550 for bf3 worth it?

U

user0ne

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 13, 2004
Messages
83
I'm not sure if I can hold out for ivy, much less kepler, and would appreciate some opinions on bf3's bottom frame rate and a duo vs quad upgrade.
Current rig (circa 2007)
abit IP35 pro
e6750@ 3.38 on air, stock cooler.
2 x 2gb gskill ddr2 1k
10k wd raptor
I just rma'd an evga 8800 gts and received a gts 450.
crt died a few weeks ago and I picked up an asus 23" 120hz lcd

so in 1920x1080 with everything on low/off I can get 120+ fps inside and zoomed in, and around 55-65 outside moving around, dropping to about 35-45 when a lot of action is on screen. My goal is the bottom of the fps range, to never drop below 65-75 or higher, and having everything on low/off doesn't bother me much for now.

I am curious if a q9550 (with a healthy oc on air) in my system would render any more bottom end frames with this gts450.

what if I put a 570 or new 560 with 448 core in this old girl, would the quad help me enough to justify buying one? I cant see paying 260.00$ for such old tech and have been looking for a used one if anyone has one for sale :D

just not sure how much I would gain with the q9550 vs the e6750 for bf3, or if waiting for ivy is worth it.
 
Dumping a old quad costing $175 plus for a few months is not worthwhile in my opinion. Either build a new system from the ground up or get a Q6600 G0 and overclock it as a hold me over for Sandy.
 
Well BF3 is multicore aware. You will certainly get better performance on the CPU side using a quad core. However the GTS450 is not a fantastic card, its pretty good, but not a killer. You might get better performance from a 550Ti which cost about the same if you were to sell the 450gts card.

If you can afford to get a 2500K and board you can have them for about $230-250 at Microcenter if you have one nearby and that chip is more than enough for BF3.
 
The problem is that Q9550s have really held their value well - if you could find one for $100 or $150 it might be worth it, but they can run upwards of $200 - and at that price it isn't worth it. Save up for a new system instead - you can get a 2500K, Z68 MB and RAM for $400 or so and that would be much better than the Q9550 setup.
 
render.perfvisible 1 will show your CPU utilization and GPU utilization. This should help you figure out whats being taxed.

I'd guess your GPU is the cause for the slowdown but I could be wrong.
 
I would like to skip sandy and wait for ivy, and maybe the q6600 will help me do that.
I thought the 45nm with the q9550 might help a lot, but finding one cheap is not easy. I have seen threads showing even the i5 2500 hitting its limit playing bf3 in multiplayer on the render display graph in other forums.

I know putting a new gtx 570 or 560 488 core would really make my cpu a bottleneck, maybe a oc'd q6600 will get the bottom frames up enough to wait for ivy.

Thanks a lot for the input.
 
Wow, I checked ebay and some of the Q9x50 are going for crazy amounts of money... I should sell my Q9450.
 
dexvx said:
Wow, I checked ebay and some of the Q9x50 are going for crazy amounts of money... I should sell my Q9450.
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Yeah, give it consideration.

I sold my Q9550 partly because of its high resale value. They won't stay high forever so give it some thought.
 
user0ne said:
I would like to skip sandy and wait for ivy, and maybe the q6600 will help me do that.
I thought the 45nm with the q9550 might help a lot, but finding one cheap is not easy. I have seen threads showing even the i5 2500 hitting its limit playing bf3 in multiplayer on the render display graph in other forums.
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An ivy bridge cpu won't be much better than a SB. Maybe around 5% improvement at the same clocks...
 
the large performance dips are due to your CPU, a core 2 Quad is not likely to keep you above 60 fps, my Q8200 at 2.8ghz couldn't keep my 2x 560 Ti's at 1920 x 1080 in any setting above 60 fps in mutliplayer games i often saw dips into the high 30 FPS range on large maps.

don't waste 200 on an old slow CPU, if you hunt and wait you can upgrade to an i5-2500k for under 400 for everything, i got my cpu/mobo/ram (2500k/asus p8p67 pro/4gb to start in ram) for 360 out the door at micro center 3 weeks ago and it made a world of difference in my frame rates, after you upgrade that though you will want to look into a faster video card or SLI and i would eventually once you can spare the cash get another 4gb of ram because 4gb is just barely enough ram but will suffice to save a bit of cash on the initial upgrade.
 
On my q9550 Im getting about the same FPS you are 45 average @1920x1080 with all settings low / ambient occlusion is off, no motion blur etc etc.

Right now I'm currently running only a GTS250, so I cant imagine will be too big of a jump in FPS.

EDIT: This is on MP on 64 player maps btw forgot to add that.
 
On a good day, you can get a i7-920 for $130, and there are copious amounts of high-end X58 boards floating around for dirt cheap right now, so ~$230 (slightly more than the cost of a Q9550) will net you a Nehalem rig that is highly competitive with SB.
 
I would say your biggest boost would be a better GFX card. Not saying yours is horrible but that 128bit memory interface kills the performance especially in BF3.

Just remember the more powerful the graphics card is the better CPU you need to push info to it.

For instance with my 9550 clocked at 4ghz i can run a single GTX580 almost as well as a 2600k.

If i were to go to SLI i would most definitely want a 2600k......
 
Chris Lakies said:
I would say your biggest boost would be a better GFX card. Not saying yours is horrible but that 128bit memory interface kills the performance especially in BF3.

Just remember the more powerful the graphics card is the better CPU you need to push info to it.

For instance with my 9550 clocked at 4ghz i can run a single GTX580 almost as well as a 2600k.

If i were to go to SLI i would most definitely want a 2600k......
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Would that really be comparable to a 2600k? I ask because my Q9550 is at 3.8MHz, and it's bottlenecking my GTX580 in 32 player maps and I was thinking of upgrading to a 2600k at christmas.....
 
Camberwell said:
Would that really be comparable to a 2600k? I ask because my Q9550 is at 3.8MHz, and it's bottlenecking my GTX580 in 32 player maps and I was thinking of upgrading to a 2600k at christmas.....
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I guess my first question would be are you really running 6gb of memory on that board? If so that means your not running it dual channel. Get another 2 gig stick of the same memory so all 4 memory slots are matching. If you have 3 of the 4 slots filled your not running dual channel. Should improve your performance...
 
Chris Lakies said:
I guess my first question would be are you really running 6gb of memory on that board? If so that means your not running it dual channel. Get another 2 gig stick of the same memory so all 4 memory slots are matching. If you have 3 of the 4 slots filled your not running dual channel. Should improve your performance...
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It is indeed 6gb in dual channel, 2+1 and 2+1 (so 3gb per channel). Been running fine for a few years now....
 
Camberwell said:
It is indeed 6gb in dual channel, 2+1 and 2+1 (so 3gb per channel). Been running fine for a few years now....
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In order to take advantage of dual channel they have to be matching size per slot. Your not running dual channel right now. You will get double the memory bandwidth if you change to 2x2 or 4x2. (if im wrong someone can slap me ;))

Maybe im wrong?
 
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At any rate if u wish to jump to the 2600k then thats what id do also. Im not sure how much of an improvement u will see in game maybe 1-5%?
 
Chris Lakies said:
In order to take advantage of dual channel they have to be matching size per slot. Your not running dual channel right now. You will get double the memory bandwidth if you change to 2x2 or 4x2. (if im wrong someone can slap me ;))

Maybe im wrong?
Click to expand...

Channel A1 and B1 run 2gb each and Channel A2 and B2 run 1gb each. Boot POST and CPU-Z and Everest and pretty much any other utility tell me it's running dual channel.....they also tell me that BF3 is using a little over 4 out of the 6gb available.
 
user0ne said:
Thanks to Frito and his time for this thread
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1654043

The old quad's are just not worth the $ for bf3 imo. If I could grab one around 100$ maybe, but I cant see spending the 180-250$ they are going for when a 2500 and board can be had for a few dollars more. Now its down to 2500 vs 2600/HT, which has led me to read about HT vs non HT, here is a decent thread I found with some numbers.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2207167
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Thanks, that's some good info. I was looking at upgrading to a 2600k and an Asus P8Z68-V Pro Gen 3, especially because I can sell my Q9550 for a good price. However I think now I'll wait and see what Ivy Bridge brings (in terms of performance but also potential price drops for the 2600k). I thought that having a Z68 board that was also compatible with Ivy Bridge would be ok, but I now read some articles which say that to get the best out of IB you'll need the newer H/P77 chipset. Either way next spring should be interesting!
 
Chris Lakies said:
In order to take advantage of dual channel they have to be matching size per slot. Your not running dual channel right now. You will get double the memory bandwidth if you change to 2x2 or 4x2. (if im wrong someone can slap me ;))

Maybe im wrong?
Click to expand...

If I am not mistaken, it is called asymmetric dual channel.
 
If I knew how I would post a screenshot of my CPU-Z, it says 6144 MBytes, Channels # Dual, DC mode Symmetric.....
 
Camberwell said:
Thanks, that's some good info. I was looking at upgrading to a 2600k and an Asus P8Z68-V Pro Gen 3, especially because I can sell my Q9550 for a good price. However I think now I'll wait and see what Ivy Bridge brings (in terms of performance but also potential price drops for the 2600k). I thought that having a Z68 board that was also compatible with Ivy Bridge would be ok, but I now read some articles which say that to get the best out of IB you'll need the newer H/P77 chipset. Either way next spring should be interesting!
Click to expand...

Chipsets for these newest intel CPU's really cannot have much impact on the performance of the CPU because they literally do not do much of anything anymore that is related to system performance. the reason this is is because the CPU contains both the memory controller and the PCI-E controller that connects to the slots that you run your video card(s) on in the vast majority of motherboard designs. back before these more highly integrated CPU's chipsets could and did have impacts on system performance, usually in the RAM department due to updated memory controllers and bus controllers. that is now a thing of the past and comes with your CPU.

all newer chipsets can do is offer more/better/updated peripheral device controllers and storage controllers (USB 3.0, SATA 6/mb ethernet, and additional PCI-E lanes and legacy connections like IDE FDC and PCI etc.

ivy bridge from what i read recently is at least 4 months away and if it delivers significant performance increases it will be in the form of how well it should overclock. there are leaked charts of the models and their clocks already and they are not clocked any higher than current SB models and clock for clock they should be no more than 10% faster than SB and probably only at certain things not across the board.
 
I recently sold my Q9650 on Ebay for $325 after 7 days of bidding. I was quite surprised at this amount and the fact that the Q9xxx series hold their resale value as I made more than half back on the chip when I first purchased it 4 years ago...
 
The Cobra said:
I recently sold my Q9650 on Ebay for $325 after 7 days of bidding. I was quite surprised at this amount and the fact that the Q9xxx series hold their resale value as I made more than half back on the chip when I first purchased it 4 years ago...
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Nice, I sold my Q9650 (had it at 4.4!) about a month ago for $320, which is almost exactly what I paid for it in '09 as an upgrade for my Q6600. Now I'm back to using that same Q6600 in what is now my secondary rig. $320 in my pocket was worth the slight downgrade back to the Q6600 @ 3.6 in that rig :)
 
Pitbully said:
http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html

According to that, its much as I suspected. BF3, like most games, leans on the GPU(s) much more then the CPUs. It really doesn't make much difference, just if you have a Quad or a x2 CPU and even then, its very little. Bottom line, if you have a Quad, its not affecting your BF3 performance, the GPU is.
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It's been pretty well established that single player is much less CPU demanding than multiplayer, and since those tests were done with a very short test of single player, they don't tell the full story, at all.
 
Forceman said:
It's been pretty well established that single player is much less CPU demanding than multiplayer, and since those tests were done with a very short test of single player, they don't tell the full story, at all.
Click to expand...

Exactly. In 32 player MP my cpu runs between 90-100%, and my GTX 580 at 70-80%, so I will be upgrading to Ivy Bridge next spring....not just for this game though ;)
 
Camberwell said:
Exactly. In 32 player MP my cpu runs between 90-100%, and my GTX 580 at 70-80%, so I will be upgrading to Ivy Bridge next spring....not just for this game though ;)
Click to expand...

yeah in 64 player MP (conquest large) you will become even more CPU bound with that 580 i bet.

review sites have done a very poor job of discovering just how much CPU power matters in this game, my 2500k overclocked to 4.5 is still a bottleneck on my frame rates with 2x 560 Ti's and the right settings but when your getting 80-90 FPS at minimum its hard to complain and say i need a faster CPU. overclocking sandy bridges is a must though if you have the GPU power in these games, my benchmarks in a 64p metro server resulted in this

4 cores 3.4 Ghz.
Frames
34828
Time (ms)
300000
Min
72
Max
174
Avg
116.093

vs 4 cores 4.5 Ghz
Frames
40442
Time (ms)
300000
Min
83
Max
185
Avg
134.807

20 fps higher avg framerate is no small increase :) .

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1654043
 
yeah, i could defiantly see how multiplayer would be more taxing on the CPU. All I play at the moment is WOW and it doesn't take much to get solid 60fps everywhere in it. For now my Q9550 is fine for me, I'll upgrade when the Ivys come out. One of my best friends is a Regional Account Manager for Microsoft and good friends with the Intel rep. He gets free upgrades once a year from him and I get his old stuff for free, :) I guess I'll have to settle for a i-7 990x Extreme for my next system. But I won't bitch about the price.
 
Pitbully said:
yeah, i could defiantly see how multiplayer would be more taxing on the CPU. All I play at the moment is WOW and it doesn't take much to get solid 60fps everywhere in it. For now my Q9550 is fine for me, I'll upgrade when the Ivys come out. One of my best friends is a Regional Account Manager for Microsoft and good friends with the Intel rep. He gets free upgrades once a year from him and I get his old stuff for free, :) I guess I'll have to settle for a i-7 990x Extreme for my next system. But I won't bitch about the price.
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it will be a good upgrade even if its already outdated.
 
My Q9550 at 3.61 GTX 570 is doing really well.

I am ready to sell since i have for christmas this will give me time to setup a new system.. Plus i want to go SLI so i can see my upgrade to I7 costing about 700.00 If anyone is interested i am selling

Q9550 at 3.61 rock stable.
Asus P5q Turbo
8GB GSKILL
xigmatek heatsink and fan with motherboard mount.

Would rather sell as a package since i know my setup works at 3.61.

If you guys know anyone let me know ,
 
I feel really stupid right now. I had no idea the Core 2 Quads could get this much money nowadays. Makes me wonder if I should sell one of my quads. I have a q6700 that has been sitting in it's box for two and a half years. I could either sell that, or sell my q9950 for more money and put the money towards a new system. I never sold computer parts before, I had no idea you could get the amount of money that you can for this stuff.
 
Just wanted to thank everyone that posted. I tried finding a "cheap" q9550, but no luck. I thought about the q6600 (can be had for 55-100$ easy) but decided to put the $ on a new cpu/mb/ram combo.

i5 2500k
Asus P8Z68pro gen3 (last one in stock, thanks newegg :D)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131790

2x 4g Gskill sniper 1600 1.25 volt
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231461&Tpk=N82E16820231461

I thought about grabbing another 450 gts sc to sli with the one I have, but for 229$ shipped (after 20$ rebate) went with a 560 ti sc. I just hope kepler drops in 90 days from now!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130610&Tpk=N82E16814130610

and this is why I didn't go for a 448 core (taken from another thread I posted in)

"The card comes 900/1800/4212mhz, I wonder how much more I can get from it?
I plan to use the evga step up program, if you buy any evga card without a lifetime warranty (no 448 core comes with lifetime warranty btw) you need to buy an extended warranty from the vendor or from evga to use said card in the step up program. So after the rebate, not having to buy an extra warranty, and free 2 day shipping, I just cant see spending another 100$ for a 448 core, that's 570 money imo.

If kepler has not dropped by March the 7th, I can always step up to a 580 or 570. I hope with amd releasing new cards in January the 580/570's will have come down in price."

Thanks again to all the great people on [H] forums always ready to help out.
 
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AMD 7000 will be released in January 2012. Also, what do you mean by last one in stock? I saw there are plenty left
 
Chris Lakies said:
In order to take advantage of dual channel they have to be matching size per slot. Your not running dual channel right now. You will get double the memory bandwidth if you change to 2x2 or 4x2. (if im wrong someone can slap me ;))

Maybe im wrong?
Click to expand...

He is running at dual-channel - just not optimal. Optimal bandwidth *does* require matched sticks - mere dual-channel itself does not.
 
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