# Help upgrading my CPU



## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Hey guys! I've been thinking of upgrading my PC for this christmas but I need some advice when it comes to the CPU

My current system rig:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4Ghz
Asus P5B Deluxe
4x1Gb 667 RAM Kingston
Nvidia 9800 GX2
Creative Sound Blaster Fatal1ty
LG W2452V 24" Monitor
Windows XP

Ok the thing is I've been trying to play games such as Far Cry 2 or Crysis at the highest resolution but they're laggin just a bit, not as smooth as I'd like the game to run. On the other hand I want to upgrade my CPU, I've been thinking about getting a E9600 or a Q9550, but I finally decided to go for the quad core.

My question is.. will I notice such an improvement when gaming? I was thinking maybe my current CPU was bottlenecking the 9800GX2 cuz I don't really see the RAM or the video card being the problem here.

Btw I just got this 24" Monitor and I want to play at 1920x1200 and I'm also planning to get Vista 64 bits to take advantage of the full 4gb RAM support and DX10.

Thanx for your help! and sorry for my English 


John


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

E9600? E8600 maybe it will be faster then the Q6600 but I think your current set up should do alright in Farcry what PSU are you running and do you have any overclock in the set up?


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Sorry, I meant E8600 

No, no overclock atm, but I might think about it. I can't remember the PSU, its a 750w one so I think it should be fine. That's my current rig, so the PSU can take the 9800GX2, I'm only upgrading the E6600.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

I think I would put a good heat sink on it if you don't have one already and clock the cpu up to 3.0. I would wait another 6 months in your position and see what the new socket 1366 i7 cores do they will be out next week.
Don't underestimate the role a good PSU plays with a x2 card they are power hungry and if your starving the card your going to lose performance and have lag for x2 cards I like to see 800-850w so when you get a chance have a look at the psu label and let us know the brand and model.


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

So you are saying that if I don't have a proper PSU then the video card is going slower than it should? mmm i just checked the PSU, it's a Thermaltake Toughpower 700W.


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

I have a P965-DS3 with E6750 and 9800 GTX with toughpower 650. 

Does all i ever need it to do. 

With your rig having a GX2, a 8xx PSU would be preferred, but i think you're in the same boat as me. My GTX is drawing the life out of my 650, i know within 2 to 3 years i'll have no choice to put a 750 or 850 in there. You just the same might be good for another year or two before your PSU gets overdrawn. 

I have my 6750 OC'd to 3.0, and did it on the stock cooler. I know have an arctic cooler pro 7 on it, which brought my temps down, but the CPU gets unstable past 3.0. You might try bumping yours to 2.6 or 2.8 (400x7 or 350x8) land. Mines at 375x8 i believe.

what are your CPU and GPU scores in 3Dmark?


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

pff I can't remember, i need to install that program again and run 3Dmark, then I'll let you know. If I upgrade my PSU and get a 850+ would I notice the difference? would it be any major improvement? thanx again


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

Bohemianbeatle said:


> pff I can't remember, i need to install that program again and run 3Dmark, then I'll let you know. If I upgrade my PSU and get a 850+ would I notice the difference? would it be any major improvement? thanx again


that's why i'd like to hear 3D marks. If your GX2 is slower than my GTX, then there's a problem. However, I would expect your CPU to be slower than mine..the difference would dictate where you would need to go for optimization.


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

mm I see your point... alright, what 3Dmark version should I run?


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

I use 06...should be the latest they have for free use i think.


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Alright, when I get back home (I'm working atm) I'll run it and I'll let you know the score. Should I run it with all maxed out? should I disable AA or something like that?


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

the E6600 which is stock at 2.4ghz and 1066mhz FSB will struggle very hard to hit 3.0ghz....... they can but it really takes some darn good tweaking patience and good air cooler ........ you will also need to kick things up significantly on the cpu voltage .....definetly not going to happen with the stock cooler

I would check to see if your motherboard has a bios update to bring it to the E8500 or E8600 and 1333mhz FSB those will overclock to 4.0ghz and you dont have to be a wizard to get there either!

IMHO >>>>>> its your cpu that cant run with your 9800 GX2 

if you have a high rpm 120mm case fan bring air in and a high rpm case fan exausting air out ........ I think your PSU can take the punishment for awhile longer ........ but NOT if you have a hot interior case temp ............ remember a power supply fan suck its "fresh" cooling air from within the computer box ........therefore if that 9800 GX2 is cooking the air in your box ....... then your giving your power supply the old "hot box" test .......... that is a bad senario

in your shoes ...... I would be looking for the E8500 or E8600

two x 120mm thermaltake smart fan-2 case fans .............. when gaming turn those fans on high ............... they are loud because they are 2800 rpm's 

but they will save you from spending $175.00 or more on a high quality 850 watt power supply........................ *that I would aim for and budget *next summer ........before the summer heat hits again 

BTW: the quad core eats alot more power then does the E8600 ....... in gaming the E8600 is plenty fast enough and equally as good for 1/2 the cost !!


the E8500 / E8600 at 4.0ghz would be almost doubling your cpu speed over your currently stock 2.4ghz 1066mhz cpu >>>>>>. that 9800 GX2 would surely know you put your spurs on then :laugh:


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

BTW: my collegues are 100% correct ........ If you were doing a complete upgrade I would be yelling for the 850 watt ....... but after using and abusing the toughpower units for almost two yeats now...... they have proven themselves to me as being able to take a pounding ................. I am very confident it will pull the wagon for another 6-7 months as long as your increase your ventilation


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Are you sure? I know maybe for gaming the E8600 will do better, but I don't think I'll get that much of an improvement in comparison with the Q9550, and i don't mind buying a Zalman or some kind of cooler to lower the temp. I mean, I'm thinking of the games to come that will probably be quad core optimized and I might do some multitasking as well so thats why I'm not going for the E8X00.

Btw, the PSU is 5 months old so it can take it for a while.

I'm about to run 3dmark, let's see what the results are.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

The Q9550 are $100.00 more than the E8500 !!


games arent using more than two threads at this time ....... there are a few which are playing "tricks" right now that make it look like four cores are working ........ but one core will be a t 70% then another at 20% and then 10% and 10% ........ those are tricks 

in order to make a game quad threaded the software programmer has to discard all their existing single threaded and dual threaded code and start from scratch ....... and true quad threaded programs will not run on less than a quad core .............. so please tell me ....... how long do you think it will be before we see true dedicated quad core games ? how long from now will it be before a game title can turn its back on all the single core cpu users and dual core cpu users ............... a game cant be ALL for ALL

you will see dual threaded games for a long time to come yet ........ at least 4 years IMHO ...... especially with the soft economy ....... you must realize ...... most high end gaming companies only have 5-7 high paid programmers ....... the others they employ are part time beginners (leafs they are called) that help write the mundande code ...... but they are cutting down on payroll big time ....... dont look for any big splash until the economy allows them to bloat the payroll again !

in reality the E8500 will game better than the Q9550 ...... that quad is at 2.8ghz stock the E8500 is at 3.1 ghz ............. even crysis which is the most hoggish; unoptmized game to come down the pike in a long time only uses 75% on core 1 and 25% on core 2 in most real life play action ????


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060906/monkkonen_04.shtml




everyone wants faster games, of course ........ but sales right now are soft and there are way too many dual core and single core machines still in existence ....... a game programmer can not turn their back and exclude the dual & single core cpu users ....... you will have to wait until the majority of the market the gamer is trying to sell to ALL have quads


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

However, the problem with multi-threading AI computation compared to other approaches is the following:

There are restrictions in the order of the computations, imposed by data dependencies that need to be passed from one task to another. This rules out straightforward solutions based on data parallelism.

The structure of these dependencies are only fully known at runtime while the AI is reasoning. *This also rules out solutions crafted manually by programmers development time.*



in plain english: most video tasks like rendering have to be caried out in an order ...... step 1,2,3 its not just a matter of having core 1 on rendering core 2 doing the action movement core 3 decision making ............. in reality tasks have to be completed in an order ............. thus the cores are waiting for a job to do !


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Lol this is so confusing... I'm running 3dmark atm, i just got something around 9k at 1280x1024, I'll let you know once I finish the 1920x1200 test.

So are you saying I should go for a EX00? I had this same conversation with a guy from another forum, he said this to convice me to go with the quad core.

"Quad core is the best possible choice at the minute because more developers are factoring quad core support into their games, so physics ect. can be processed on another core to keep the GPU chuggin along nicely. in short, better frame rates down the line if you go quad core now

don't get confused or convinced that GHZ means everything. it's only a very VERY small factor in the entire equation.

Would you get more FPS playing crysis (horribly coded game imo) with the quad core or dual core that you've listed? You've probably get 3-5% more FPS on the dual core, but in another game you could likely get as much as 100% more FPS on the quad core if that game made good use of quad core and was cpu limited on the dual core.

So ask yourself this:

Do i only want to play current (AKA as of november 2008) or older games with about a 5% give or take, advantage over a quad core.... With the fact that in the extremely VERY NEAR future, my dual core will be unable to cope well with those newer games giving me roughly -25 to -100% performance vs the quad core.

OR

Do i want to play my games these current or older games with a -5% hit for the time being but be able to have 25-100% more performance then the dual core in the up and coming games.

Really it's an apples to oranges comparison. The 2 cores will never be able to ever compete with something that is nearly identical but with twice as many cores.

And to top it off, at same clock for clock settings, the quad core will always win out. Even a slightly slower quad core will usually always win as while a game may only take advantage of 2 cores, that means the rest of background tasks or other devices will have thier resources shifted and moved over to the cores that aren't being used giving the game exclusive access to 2 of the cores."

thats what conviced me


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

he hasnt listened to any programmers talking whatsoever ! LOL thats all idealogic reasoning

kind of like ........ 2 men can get more work done than one man

when in fact .......... the current games that can do anything with 4 cores arent really shining becasue there are a very small percentage of action that can be done which is not "dependant" on another being completed first !

this other fellas thoughts are based upon the incorrect assumption that most all game action can be carried out simulantously without dependancy on ORDER of execution 


to put it more simple ........ its like a fire ....... how many people can go down the stairs at once ?


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Mmm I see your point... it's very reasonable. Maybe I should save the money and go with the E8400.. or maybe a E8600? Then I could spend the money trying to lower the case temp.

btw, 3dmark test, highest settings at 1280x1024 --- 9714


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

why pay an extra $100.00 now for a cpu whose full advantage cant be used

when the time comes for real quad core need ....... the Q9550 wont be the ticket any more than the 3800 X2 is now !


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

There is another way to look at this you have a quad core that is still on the market today.
and your not happy with the performance your current Quad will surely clock as fast as the 9550 stock so you have your own test bed take it for a ride.


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

3dmark test, highest settings at 1920x1200 --- 7746

that looks kinda of low, doesnt it?


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

So in case I go for the dual core which one should i choose? They sell the E8400 at the same price of the E8500, E8600 is 70€ more expensive.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

the E8500 has the best bang for the $$$$$$$$$$$$


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

Here's my scores at 1280x1024, both displays on (dualview): 

Overall: 11,588
SM 2.0: 5461
SM 3.0: 5319
CPU: 2584

Now if you system isn't bottlenecking (which it obviously is on the CPU)..

you scores should look something thike this i believe:

SM2: 6500+
SM3: 6000+
CPU: 19-2100

If you get a faster CPU liek the 84 or 8500, your CPU should go in 3000 land


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

hey Mag ....... you pulled off some decent scores there !


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

Bohemianbeatle said:


> Hey guys! I've been thinking of upgrading my PC for this christmas but I need some advice when it comes to the CPU
> 
> My current system rig:
> 
> ...


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

At 1280xs1024 I'm getting this

Overall 9722
SM2.0 4693
SM3.0 4424
CPU 2122


what's going on here?


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

download and run cpu-z (free)

then give us a screen shot of your cpu and memory tabs 

I have a feeling your could improve your scores if your memory ratio was at 1:1


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

There you go


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Btw it says 4GB RAM, I have that option enabled in the BIOS, remap feature or something like that, but 3dmark only recognizes 2GB RAM


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

linderman said:


> Bohemianbeatle said:
> 
> 
> > Hey guys! I've been thinking of upgrading my PC for this christmas but I need some advice when it comes to the CPU
> ...


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

wrench97 said:


> linderman said:
> 
> 
> > I Could have sworn I read Q6600 last nightray::4-dontkno
> ...


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

hey Wrench .............. dont think youre batting average will suffer as a result ! ray:ray::wave:


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

in your shoes Bohem


I would pump up your cpu host clock from 266 to 300

and change your memory SPD to a value of 2.0 

that should wake up the beast a bit


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

mmm ok.. how do I do that then? Sorry but I have no idea about oc... will there be any problems with the temp? thanks


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

you will want to watch your temps with a freeware monitor proggie like Core Temp or Real Temp

those options will be found in the bios under the overclocking or advanced section 

you will want to read your motherboard manual as well as do some google searches and reading info 

google for asus model XXXX overclock setttings and you will get a feel for what others are setting there boards at ..... as well some will have screenshots


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

ahhhhhhhh pay dirt !


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgndpgiFF0Q


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

haha that's great, thanks. So the thing is my CPU is bottlenecking the GPU, right? Cuz I'm still thinking about taking the E8500 over the Q9550 if so.

Thanks again


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

yup E8500 would be my choice for the money


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Alright.. I'm gonna buy it in christmas anyway so the prices will go down even more I hope. I'll try to oc my E6600 later and see what happens with the 3dmark score.

Thanks for your time! It was really helpful


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Btw, should I upgrade my PSU as well? could it be slowing down my 9800GX2? Or is it a matter of temperature? If so I'll get a better cooler instead.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

If you do change the CPU make sure you flash the Bios before removing the current CPU to at least version 1236 > http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5B Deluxe


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

so I just download those drivers for the CPU I'm gonna buy, install them and then turn the PC off and change CPUs. got it.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Well not quite, you need to do a Bios flash from a USB thumb drive or a floppy drive


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## magnethead (Mar 18, 2006)

linderman said:


> hey Mag ....... you pulled off some decent scores there !


not bad for a E6750 running at 3GHz, no?

Boh, i nailed down your CPU score pretty darn close. 

youe CPU has got to be your bottleneck..or as linderman stated, maybe your FSB and RAM ratio. Having 667 RAM won't help you out a whole heck of alot (i'm running 375x8 for a 750 MHz RAM speed). The most you could OC to would be 2.6 GHz with a 1:1 RAM ratio. I use a pair of 1 GB crucial ballistix 4-4-4-12 sticks PC2-6400 DDR2-800.

You could OC higher with a 4:3 RAM multiplier......but that's not the most suggested thing in the world. 

I think you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. I would say get the E8500, but it won't do squat on 667 RAM..you need 800 if not the next level up (10xx i think) plus the 8500 to unlock everything you have. But since you bought 4 GB of 667, that's going to be hard to unload anywhere and get much back on it.

You've got an awesome setup as far as potential. You just have fast stuff and slow stuff, kinda aint helping.


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Are you saying my 667 RAM will somehow run slower with the E8500 and run faster if I had 800+ RAM? or are you just talking about oc?


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

667 runs slower then 800. The E8500 won't make it run slower then it does now.
With the faster fsb on the E8500 800 speed memory will have more potential then 667
I would not be overly concerned at this point if you swap the cpu rerun the 3dmark tests and see where you're at.


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Is this a good RAM? GEIL DDR2 4GB 1066 - 2X2GBGAMING CL5 PLUS 
and there's also this one KINGSTON DDR3 2GB PC1333 

i wouldnt mind gettin one of those (up to 4gb overall), with the money i save from not buying the Q9550 if i will really notice the difference.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

The P5B deluxe only supports up to DDR2 800 anything above that will only slow down to 800 or not run> http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=2BD7E4DBA5CA7304


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Mmm rite.. well nevermind then, I'm not getting a new mobo rite now, I'll just buy that CPU. I don't think the ram thing is such a big deal anyway. Thanx


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

dont give up so easy there ......... look for Gskil (forget kingston) gamer memory 2 x 2gig sticks of DDR2-800 PC2-6400 with CAS 4 latencies that can handle voltage of 2.1 volts

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146049


you can sell off your old memory on ebay

its a good thing you bought high performance motherboard & video card & power supply when you did ........ you dont have that much to buy and youre right back on top

the savings from not gettting duped on the Q9550 will more than get your memory sticks !


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

That looks interesting... I might just buy those and yea, i will sell my old memory to one of my mates, as well as the old cpu.


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

I just found this one OCZ 4GB 2GBx2 NVIDIA SLI Ready DDR2 6400 800MHz MEMORY
and i can get it for less money that the one you recommended. is it just as good?


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

I would say yes ......... you got a link to it ?


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-OCZ-4GB-(2G...temQQimsxZ20081112?IMSfp=TL081112128005r25399


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

ahhhhhhhh nice find ......... yours are better than the ones I linked


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Well I just got the Q9550, but I have a problem... Last week I bought 4x2gb Kingston Hyperx 800Mhz and it was working fine, the problem came when I installed the new CPU and BIOS didn't want to boot. Then I just removed 3 of them and it was working again, but hey 2gb ram instead of 8gb. I don't know what's going on. I still haven't checked 3d mark so I cant really say right now that the gpu is not bottlenecked anymore, I'll run it later. Any ideas?


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## Bohemianbeatle (Nov 13, 2008)

Ok, 3dmark06 results at 1280x1024

Overall 14088
SM2.0 Score: 5037
SM3.0 Score: 6924
CPU Score: 4246

That's an improvement


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

See if you can get at least the 2nd 2gig stick in it you may have to bump the ram voltage up try .1v at a time don't go over the max supported by the ram.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

4 gigs of ram is more than plenty!


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