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Worth it to replace E8400 with Quad?

I think my dual core athlon 2 is my biggest bottlekneck in BC2. I would love to put a quad in there, but my motherboard doesn't support it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, go quad.
 
Selling your 8400 for a new/used quad is a cheap upgrade. The cost of which will be minimal compared to a whole new i5/i7 setup.
A C2Q is a good intermediate upgrade for the time being.
 
well first figure out if the game even uses 4 cpu's i think a overclocked e8400 will kill a quad with moderate overclock, with that said i only use quads for my main boxes clocked at 3.4 ghz but i do have a gaming box with 4.8 ghz e8500 it kicks ass still no need for anyone that games to use i5 i7 i10 or anything like that check reviews games dont do shit and most of all its memory and gfx cards that are bottlenecks, tho maybe somoene can point me to a review that shows diff and ill build a i9 2marro. with 12gb ram, i been dieing to build one but really have not seen a use, ill double check reviews, if your not encoding dont worry about it. Overclock that e8400 to 4ghz and call it a day, get a nice cooler and nice case. Can use those with every build forever so money well spent.


ok just checked reviews.. unless you are TRI SLI or crossfire then c2d actually beats a i7 with faster clock speed.. http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article/2008/11/05/intel_core_i7_gaming/2

so not sure why someone would recommend you go with i5 id say i5 is shit. But id be happy if someone proved me wrong
 
I'd keep the 8400. I doubt a quad would make any difference in gaming.

Save the money for a new i7 in the fall. :)
 
Met-AL said:
Is it worth it to replace my E8400 at 3.7Ghz with a Core 2 Quad?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ption=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=
Click to expand...

Not for those prices. Do you happen to live near a Microcenter? Q9550 for $170 is a better deal. Or are you willing to buy those CPUs used?

You're better off spending your money on a AMD Phenom II or Core i7 setup as BC2 is multi-core and multi-threaded.

Check out this review:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/battlefield_bad_company_2_tuning_guide,7.html

The X2 555 performs the same as the E8400. As clearly evident, a quad-core CPU would help out tremendously in this game.
 
an e8400 is still a rock solid chip. i'd say try and overclock it to 4.0-4.2 ghz if you have good cooling and are able to.

if not, then just plan to go i5 and sell your current mobo ram and cpu.
 
If you can find a Q9550 for $180 or so, get that, overclock it, and never look back. I shudder to think of a dual core in BF BC2.
 
ordovician said:
If you can find a Q9550 for $180 or so, get that, overclock it, and never look back. I shudder to think of a dual core in BF BC2.
Click to expand...

I agree...I wouldn't pay full price, but if you can get a used chip off of someone who is upgrading, it would be worth it.
 
I had a E8400 setup and went to Microcenter and got a Q9550 for $179.99. Its great chip, and I have not looked back other that nostalgic reasons. Make an ad, sell the E8400, and a few other things that you have laying around like I did to break even. The i5/i7 build can wait for later, or just stack some cash. The Turbo mode with the i5 is great, and dig into that stacked cash a little later for a good Video card. But to sum it up, I would do the Quadcore upgrade, if at all possible.

http://www.microcenter.com/shopping_bag/shopping_bag.phtml?action=delete
Corporation Core 2 Quad Processor Q9550 Boxed SKU: 846980
If your in the Tx area. . . .
 
Danny Bui said:
The X2 555 performs the same as the E8400. As clearly evident, a quad-core CPU would help out tremendously in this game.
Click to expand...
That is very true and is why I am here asking... upgrade my old stuff or do a complete new build.

NoForgiveness said:
It does in BC2.
Click to expand...
Very much so.

tanderson said:
an e8400 is still a rock solid chip. i'd say try and overclock it to 4.0-4.2 ghz if you have good cooling and are able to.

if not, then just plan to go i5 and sell your current mobo ram and cpu.
Click to expand...
I can't get it to go past 3.75Ghz 100% stable. That 750mhz overclock though almost doubled my FPS in BC2 though. Both cores still are pegged at 100% load while running that game.

I/O said:
I had a E8400 setup and went to Microcenter and got a Q9550 for $179.99. Its great chip, and I have not looked back other that nostalgic reasons.

http://www.microcenter.com/shopping_bag/shopping_bag.phtml?action=delete
Corporation Core 2 Quad Processor Q9550 Boxed SKU: 846980
If your in the Tx area. . . .
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. The 9550 is "the" quad to get then?
 
NoForgiveness said:
Most definitely. If you don't want to change your platform the Q9550 will give you performance kinda close to that of a core i5.
Click to expand...

Mine hit 3.8Ghz with a decent air cooler and low voltage. At that speed, I saw no reason to upgrade to a different platform.
 
NoForgiveness said:
And I'd be happy to prove you wrong. i5s are like 0.5-3% slower than i7s. Proof: http://www.techspot.com/review/193-intel-core-i5-750/page7.html (compare the 920@2.66 to the 750@2.66, also look at the other benchmarks and see how i5 flies @ =>4GHz)
Click to expand...

HAHA nice to bad you didnt include my whole quote.. do i see a i5 QUADCORE 4ghz vs e8400 DUAL CORE @ 4ghz benchmark FOR GAMES? not some random quad core i5 overclock vs stock i7 thats not even what i was saying i was saying for games. I guess BC2 does Use 4 cores thats cool.

i5 isnt going to be my first choice ever but it is a quad core for less than 200 bucks, if ddr3 prices drop soon i might consider a iX but i already have Shit loads of ddr2 each system has 6-8Gb ddr2 for 80-100$ for 8gb ddr2 1066
 
$285 for a q9550? holy shit. last sept newegg was selling them for $209. i know other stores had them for less, but they were just loss leaders.
 
vanilla_guerilla said:
$285 for a q9550? holy shit. last sept newegg was selling them for $209. i know other stores had them for less, but they were just loss leaders.
Click to expand...

It's hard to find them very cheap at all. eWiz is the cheapest place I could find at $239.99.

What about a Q8400.. is that one worth the time.. 4MB Cache only. But it's quite a bit less at $169.99 at places.
 
I'd get a Q9400 before a Q8400 personally. They are somewhat cheaper than the Q9550.
 
kirbyrj said:
I'd get a Q9400 before a Q8400 personally. They are somewhat cheaper than the Q9550.
Click to expand...
Anandtech reported only a 6% gain over the Q8400, but if you can get the Q9400 close to the price of the Q8400 then go for it. These chips run cool and overclock with little effort making them a great upgrade or sidegrade.
 
Well the FSB is 1333mhz on the Q9XXX, so you need a board capable of a high FSB to get high OC's. My old Q9300 would have to run at 450mhz on the FSB to max out the chip, and I'm not sure my board didn't limit me before the CPU did.
 
I can handle a pretty decent FSB on my motherboard, but not that good. I will run some tests to see just how high of a FSB it can handle.

E8400.JPG


At that FSB.. I would only be running 3.3Ghz with a Q8400. That low multi might be a pain in the butt.
 
Haha, it would probably be better to ask "Worth it to replace E8400 with Quad if you don't live near a Microcenter or Fry's?"
 
all this bc2 talk ima have to play a few a hour now great was going to get some cleaning done. will test diff speeds / cores on if it matters with midrange gfx cards 4890 ..
 
Yeah older chips actually go up in price when they're running scarce.
 
Met-AL said:
It's hard to find them very cheap at all. eWiz is the cheapest place I could find at $239.99.

What about a Q8400.. is that one worth the time.. 4MB Cache only. But it's quite a bit less at $169.99 at places.
Click to expand...

i would stick with the e8400, unless you were going to go for the i7. i dont think you will see much of a bump, if any, with a q8400. it has a miniscule multi, so it wont overclock very high. for gaming, you are not going to get very much more out of your machine with a cpu upgrade, at this point.
 
I messed around with my overclock tonight alot and lookie what I did

4ghz.jpg


I haven't done extensive stability testing yet, but I did play MW2 and BC2 all evening without a single crash.

LOL, MW2 isn't much of a load though.. 30% on one core and 25% on another while it was running.. but BC2 is full load both cores.

I am force feeding it 1.45 volts to get it done.
 
Met-AL said:
Is it worth it to replace my E8400 at 3.7Ghz with a Core 2 Quad?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ption=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

Or should I just plan on a whole new i5/i7 build?

Biggest use is Gaming, particular Bad Company 2 right now. Other than that... surfing and Hulu.
Click to expand...

My Q9650 were close to 95% utilized (all four cores). You're playing the same game as I am and if you want a CPU upgrade for Bad Company 2, it will be an i7. Granted my i7 is close to 50% utilized with HT enabled. But the game is much more responsive (could be the CAT 10.3b drivers, I upgraded my system on the day when 10.3b went live).

If you love FPS and source games, you can't go wrong with an i7.
 
Well I can only respond with my system I built 2 weeks ago.

I went from an e8400, which was originally at ~ 4.2 GHZ, but since I upgraded to 8gb of ram, I lost a ton of overclocking potential. Id make the assumption that the ram was having a hard time overclocking.

I previously had an e8400 @ 3.6ghz with 8gb of ram. I currently have an i7-930 @ 4.2ghz with 6gb of ram.

Was it worth it? I still don't really know. Is it faster - yes.

Would I recommend you doing it - it depends.

Answer this question for me:
Would you be pissed off if Intel released a "mainstream" hex core next month that was around $300? This imaginary processor seemed to overclock to around 4GHZ and directly compared to an i7-930 in performance at around 4GHZ. The only difference would be the 8 thread- 12 thread comparison.

We have all seen this being thrown around:
You dont need a quad core because XXX game can only use two cores - at 50% load on each. The reason I jumped on the 930 is as such:
I dont foresee either Intel or AMD launching a quad+ processor that is going to be SO much faster than a Qxxxx, or even an i7-930 within the next two years(my current upgrade rotation). They may expand on cores, but we're nearing a frequency cap until a redesign of transistors are implemented. Because of this, I dont think an optimized quad core is going to net me a "better computing experience" within 2 years time frame. Neither is a hex core+. Unless you depend on thread count heavily, which you probably do not since you're still using an e8400, either keep your e8400 until it's unusable or build an entire new system.
 
I agree with waiting for the i5/i7 build... think about it, if you go Quad now, you will still go with an i5/i7 (or better) later. Might as well just wait a couple months and go right to the end product.
 
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