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silly question about old cpus

G

GodOfGaming

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 9, 2012
Messages
163
Im doing a pretty specific build and not quite sure which CPU to pick for it. The build will be used exclusively for playing old 2001 to 2009 DX9 games under Windows XP and nothing other than that, at resolution of 1600x1200 @100Hz (CRT), using Evga GTX 285 FTW. The two motherboards I have my eye on are Gigabyte EP45-DQ6 and Gigabyte P55A-UP7. The 4 CPUs Im having trouble deciding between are Core 2 Duo E8600, Core 2 Quad Q9650, Core i5-655K and Core i7-875K (or their Xeon equivalents)

If we were talking modern games the i7-875K is the obvious clear winner here, but since we're not I'm not quite sure what to do. Im having trouble finding conclusive data about this online. E8600 and Q9650 have more cache per core and are likely more overclockable too, also I have some nostalgia for DDR2 ram, but the i5-655K and i7-875K likely have better IPC? I also don't know if 2 cores are sufficient for those games or 4 cores would allow for better performance even in such old games. Now that modern day performance testing includes frametime analyzis showing that average framerates are not everything, it makes it even more unclear if any old benchmarks I manage to dig up hold any relevance. But if 2 cores are enough to reach the max potential of those games, I'd rather go with that because of lower power consumption and heat output and possible higher achievable overclock.

To begin with I have no idea if I'll be in GPU-bound or CPU-bound scenario here to begin with. If it's GPU-bound and I get the same performance with all 4 CPUs, I'd much rather go with the E8600 than any of the other three. But it feels like there's no way to find out other than actually buying all 4, doing some testing myself, and then trying to sell the ones that lost.

BTW ignore DX9 games that require DX10 for max graphics like Crysis, only pure DX9 games are what interests me here.

Does anyone here have experience with those 4 CPUs in this specific use scenario?
 
hyperthreading will work in xtreme crap mode under WinXP so neither of those "core i" will work properly unless you decide to disable hyperthreading on the 875K and then it will blow the ass of the Q9650.. it's overall a faster platform and will work nice with the GTX 285 as some older games require very high Single core IPC specially those coded for 1 and 2 cores, on those older games CPU was King you may find games where you will be CPU bound even with a high clocked modern CPU. so the i7 875K With Hyper Threading disabled would be the logical choice.
 
How does the 875K compare in single threaded performance to the i5-655K? The 655K has only 2 cores but is 32nm while the 875K is 45nm, the i5 is higher clocked by default and probably overclocks higher too? Also, are there any pre-2010 DX9 games that can use 4 cores?
 
GodOfGaming said:
How does the 875K compare in single threaded performance to the i5-655K? The 655K has only 2 cores but is 32nm while the 875K is 45nm, the i5 is higher clocked by default and probably overclocks higher too? Also, are there any pre-2010 DX9 games that can use 4 cores?
Click to expand...

655k will OC much better, around 4.5 GHz with a bit of luck. 875k will top out at 4 GHz. i serioulsy doubt that you will see any noticeable IPC gains. the higher possible clock speed is what matters.
 
Games have been gpu limited since the introduction of s3 Virge 3D and 3dfx Vodoo.

For the times you list, 1600x1200 was a pretty high res

I'd just do a core 2 duo with an overclock. That should take care of it.
 
If you go the 775 route, consider the 771 mod. You can get a quadcore slbba x5460 and pinmod sticker for <$20, mod the bios to include the xeon microcode, and hit 3.8ghz+ easily.

That said, nehalem would still smoke it. You didn't mention the x58 platform, but x5650s are also dirt cheap now (<$20 vs $50-60 last year). You'll get a nice 32nm 6core that'll do 4ghz+ easily. Perhaps overkill though and x58 boards are pricey indeed. Compound that with the question of how threaded those old games are, and it might not be the best choice.

If you can somehow go nehalem on the same budget, go for it.
 
Yeah, I already mentioned "or their Xeon equivalents" when I mentioned the CPUs I'm interested in, that included the 771 Xeons as well. BTW isn't E5450 better than X5460? It's as fast as Q9650 but has only 80W TDP, I don't know if it's better binned or just undervolted by default, but that seems impressive considering all Core 2 Quads are 120W+.

Money is not really the issue here, I just want to build the most optimal winXP gaming machine, that has the best possible performance AND compatibility and feature set. Like, for example the reason I didn't pick sandy bridge or ivy bridge that are definitely faster, is because their motherboards don't have a native PCI slot provided by the chipset and instead use a bridge chip for that, which might cause some issues with sound cards I presume, also they don't have IDE and Floppy connectors, which would also be useful to have in a WinXP machine. I don't remember why I decided against the X58 chipset too, I remember I found something about it during my research but forgot what it was. At any rate the P45 and P55 chipsets seem to be the most suitable for the task, I just don't know whether to go for 2 cores or 4 cores, and whether to go for core 2 or nehalem. I'm not aware of any pre-2010 DX9 games that can utilize 4 threads, but perhaps there are some? If there's none, 2 cores should be better - lower power consumption and heat output, better overclockability.
 
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Maybe not anymore, but the x5460 was the best priced model with a decently high multiplier of 9.5x. The E0s are definitely the ones to get (search ebay by sspec, e.g. slbba). Mine does 9.5x400=3800 at stock 1.25v (might go lower but bios doesn't support undervolting and I haven't tried throttlestop on it).

edit: just took another look. Looks like the E models top out with the 5450, with only a 9x multiplier. The x5470 has the highest multiplier (10x), but costs twice as much as the x5460.

All in all, I'd imagine they're really all the same. If you wanted less power consumption and had a motherboard that could set lower vcores or used throttlestop or similar to set lower vids, it should be doable.
 
lol, 3800 at 1.25v? That's amazing, I thought my old E5300 I had back in the day was a good overclocker for being able to go 3.5ghz at 1.35v, and undervolt down to 0.9v stable at stock 2.6ghz, but this is on whole different level, looks like those xeons are definitely better binned
 
yeah the E0s really are something. The abit ip35-e has some pretty atrocious droop too. 1.25vid ends up being around 1.15v under load.
 
so, I take it even at 4ghz, Core 2 is still slower than the average Nehalem? In single threaded? Even though the Core 2 has more cache per core?
 
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Yeah but moving the memory controller probably helps more than anything else. When talking new-age gaming, a nehalem can play overwatch decently well. But no matter how high I clock my x5460, it's just a terrible experience.

Also, what specifically was the difference between the x58 vs the p55 that ruled it out? The p55/x58 were the first generation to go pch, but I believe they both still have native pci support (wiki doesn't seem to mention this?). As well, if it's native pci you're after, perhaps even later gen platforms could work.

According to this post, business class sandy/ivy platforms as well as x79 hedt support pci, although I'm not sure how well XP would work otherwise.

It's been far too long, but I even wonder if there are any games that wouldn't fare as well. As far as a platform goes, the 775 definitely falls within XP's realm.

Here's an interesting thread from the way back machine: https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/why-nehalem-for-games-is-not-better-than-yorkfield.44382/
 
ziddey said:
Also, what specifically was the difference between the x58 vs the p55 that ruled it out?
Click to expand...

I don't quite remember to be honest, it was a while ago that I did my research. I remember that I did find a good reason to rule out x58, but I dont remember what that reason was...

Gotta ask though, is there even any reason why I need X58 instead of P55? If I'm not mistaken gaming performance is the same on both of them, and the extra cores are meaningless for such old games too?
 
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