Best Processor Upgrade for Gaming Excluding Core I5/7 or AMD

[Cronos18]

Quick summary of what I'm looking for? A intel based processor, probably just the 8400 I have and a really good heatsink or whatever to give adequate cooling + information to OC it so I can get it stable to 4- 4.5ghz possibly lol. OR Insight on a quad core solution for gaming. I gather that dual core solutions are easier to overclock to higher speeds, and probably create less heat etc, but if I could get a quad core to 3.5-4ghz. Wouldn't it be really beneficial even for gaming? Task manager + set all windows files and background apps to run on either core 1-2 or 3-4 and set Aion or another game to run a dedicated 2 cores. Would that be ideal/possible? I'm willing to pay around $400 hopefully at the most, for a good quad core + heatsink fan and extra cooling on top of that. I'm looking at this processor specifically

Buy the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 Processor BX80580Q9400 at TigerDirect.ca

As far as I heard, my P5Q Green motherboard is supposed to be pretty good for overclocking, I don't use the epu 6 engine energy saving application of course. I also have an Antec 900 case with a filter on the front which I think works very well, the fans seem to run great at high speed too checked the temps before even when I had the processor OC'd to 3.8ghz and it seemed fine. Nothing over 60c when gaming if I remember.

Anyways Just want some insight on my best option to buy a quad core or overclock my processor to be stable with a good cooling solution, Pretty sure my ram is fine never see it get above 70 percent usage and my graphics card is fine too. I should mention that I Play on a 26" monitor with 1920/1200 reso so it's quite hard on my CPU. Especially in mmo's >.>








TLDR background information below based on my situation.




I Noticed my 8400 set to 3ghz standard or even overclocked to 3.8ghz is getting really stressed in Aion. I was experiencing a lot of app crashes in the form of access violations related to memory reading issues, so I reverted to standard clock speeds. Not sure if it was driver issues (didnt delete the old driver info just overwrited at that time) or maybe the registry fix I have from uniblue finnally worked, but I think I recall the last time I reverted back to manufacture clock speeds it didn't fix my frequent crashes within games. I think I seen maybe 3 bsod's but other than that it was just games that crashed with .dll file errors and not other background programs (probably because of the massive resoucres they use). One way or another it's fixed, everything is running fine, and my computer seems stable, no more crashes in games thus far.

When I overclocked my E8400, I changed the fsb to 425 with the same 9x multiplier, it generally seemed to work alright. But if i tryed to go for 445 for 4ghz clock, I'd get a crash before I could even load vista 32 usually. I tryed setting the Cpu Voltage to 1.25 I think, even 1.3 and 1.4 max I think I read, but that made it crash even faster. I don't know if I was supposed to change the other voltages too like the NB Voltage or something. Any insight on that would be nice.

I'm running a P5Q motherboard with a E8400 processor @ 3ghz / GTX 275 graphics card / 2x2gb sticks of kingston ram @ 800mhz / 700 watt PS etc.

I've just reformatted and have a mirror image on a second hard drive, only run AVG msn my g15 and razer death adder app's in the background + my creative soundcard app.

My guess is the bottleneck is obviously my processor. Not to mention as far as I know Aion still only uses one core so having a high clock speed will probably make a great performance increase.

[RicheemxX]

Exactly which ASUS P5Q board do you have they have several models and some OC slightly better than others. Also what type of Kingston and what is the standard clock speed?

The E8400 can do 4ghz + with the right conditions and the right setup but OC'ing isn't an exact.

Not to sound mean or anything here but for really for such a long drawn out post you left out most of the important info. Exact details are more important like what 700w psu, what cooler what RAM.

Just gotta ask why on earth are you running a GTX 275, 2x2gb sticks of ram and Vista 32. You're probably only getting what about 1.5-2gbs of ram out of that??

[Cronos18]

Sorry, don't know anymore than I've read to be true.

Google Image Result for http://images.tigerdirect.com/skuimages/large/A455-2824-main.jpg


That's the motherboard I have. Standard P5Q Green, without using the epu 6 engine software.

I have a rocketfish 700 watt PS
E8400 Processor 3ghz manufacture clock speed
Gtx 275 gigabyte graphics card, with 896mb onboard memory
Kingston DDR2 pc2-6400, 2x2gb sticks. (400 mhz) <--- max bandwith reported by Cpuz, I'm not sure, is that multiplied by 2 or something? I asked for 800mhz ram when I bought em, but the chips themselves don't say what speed they are. Never bothered to look up the serial

Compuvest Corp.
that looks like the ram I have.

I have windows vista 32, wouldn't mind getting 64 bit for more memory usage but I don't think it's really an issue for gaming. App's are set to not use more than 2gb of ram anyways right. And the stress doesn't seem that bad as far as I know, like I said always below 70 percent even under stress.

32 bit can only utilize 3gb of ram though right, so are you saying that because I have 4gb via 2x2gb sticks, that really I can only use 2gb, because the other 2gb wouldnt be recognized? and that I should just use 3x1gb sticks? Not entirely sure about that, some things report it as 4gb and some recognize 3gb in use.

Using stock cooling for the heatsink and fans inside my case, temps seem to be fine nothing over 60c in loads as far as I remember. What's wrong with the Gtx 275 though? I think I read that it suggests having 2gb of ram or more for it. Does it demand a lot?

Sorry for the poor format and context of my posts, just had a lot of background shit to state that I'm not too entirely sure was related to my previous overclocking or driver/registry issues. And how about the Quad core solution? Would it be a good idea for gaming with a high clock speed?

[RicheemxX]

Well you mis-understood my point on the memory but not a big deal.

A 32 bit OS only addresses 4gbs of total memory, so you total up all your memory system memory, video card memory and whatever else might be on board. Running the 275 basically cuts that 4gbs you have installed from 1/3 to a 1/2, again not really an issue as it pertains to the question.

One issue you might have in terms of the performance and lack of OC is that RAM. Depending on the settings you are running you are likely pushing it to far. Cheapo ram is good for running stock but not very good for OC'ing. That might also be relevant to the issue you had/have with the games.

Using stock cooling for the heatsink and fans inside my case

that is not what most of us would consider "good" cooling and if you are shooting for higher numbers then you really should consider a better hs/fan.

I'm not a big gamer so I had to look up Aion, and from looking at the system requirements I can say there is no way to you'd be bottle necked anywhere with that game.

TBH I don't see any games listed in any of your posts that you shouldn't be able to handle with easy, nor do I really see anything that would warrant a push to spend more money let alone $400+. Some of the other guys out there that are more into gaming my have a bit better perspective but I really don't see that you'd get much in terms of cost/performance benefit.

[ShyguyXPC]

rich, you hit the nail on the head as far as the gaming aspect goes.

I started to type a reply earlier, but after about 2 pages length LOL, I gave up and said screw it.

with the specs of that system there isn't any reason why it shouldn't handle that game or any game for that matter with any problems.

it should be sailing in that Aion game along with any others, hell even Crysis should be purring along at high settings fine on that system.

if there is High CPU usage, its most likely the game itself, the way its coded, usually when games make high usage of CPU its due to things like Processing AI data, or something like that.

but that E8400 should still be doing quite well at 3GHz clock speeds.

they mentioned being able to Overclock the CPU to 3.8, and if thats so, why OC to 4 or 4.5, the meager increase in performance they'd gain really wouldn't be worth it IMO, unless you were running benchmarks.

as to the problems hitting higher than 3.8. there are a lot of factors involved with OCing, it could be the Motherboard, it could be the voltages coming from the PSU, it could be the RAM they're running just isn't up to the task, hell it could even be the fact that the CPU just won't run any faster, not all CPU's are created equal, you could have one E8400 in a batch that will clock to 4+GHz, meanwhile the one right next to it can't even do 10MHz over the stock 3GHz speed. meanwhile another CPU in that batch might not even be able to hit the 3GHz mark and then gets binned as a lower spec CPU like maybe a 2.66GHz model or something, or the 2.93Ghz versions, etc.

so there's a lot of factors that come into play when overclocking and could be why their having problems.



as to their question about the RAM speed being reported as 400Mhz, thats right, thats the real speed its running, since its DDR2 memory, or Double Data Rate, yes, you double that for the effective speed rating.

PC2 6400 is DDR2 800MHz, so yeah, its running 400Mhz.

and yes, thats Kingston's ValueRAM series, so its not intended for Overclocking really, sometimes you can get decent OC's out of them, but in most cases not really a good idea. add in Kingston's RAM has always been known to be picky with which boards it will cooperate with for whatever reasons.

I put 2GB's of that stuff in my Brother's friends system, though it was the lower profile sticks, basically half height sticks.

it works fine at stock speeds, but wasn't even going to try and OC it at all.

if your looking for some good OCing memory, try and buy some stuff running at DDR2 1066 or higher, assuming the motherboard is good, those speed kits should be guaranteed to run at those speeds, but you'd have to set that speed in the bios if the motherboard doesn't support those speeds out of the box.

for example for Socket 1366 Core i7 systems the official Speed RAM for them is DDR3 1066, but you can get the stuff in speeds much higher than that, but many people have complained on newegg that when putting it in their systems, it isn't running at the rated speeds like 1600Mhz etc, not realizing that they have to set it to those speeds in the bios after installing otherwise it will default to 1066 or whatever.

not all systems are like this, but many are.

problem is right now, that DDR2 memory is starting to climb in price now that DDR3 is coming down.

so you'll probably spend more now on a 4GB kit for OCing DDR2 than you would of 6 months ago.

but OCing aside, your system should be handling the games just fine.



as to Quad core, if your multi tasking or running a lot of programs with your games, a Quad could help.

problem is, I don't know of any way other than manually setting the affinity of a program to the cores, (assigning a program to run on specific cores), usually everytime you start a program, you have to go into task manager, right click the process for the program, and then set the affinity, selecting or deselecting so its running on the cores you want... if a lot of programs running its an annoyingly time consuming task.

as soon as the program is shut down, or restarted, you have to do that all over again.

but a Quad core could alleviate some of the CPU stress, by dividing the programs amongst the additional cores, but only if they're designed to utilize the extra cores, otherwise the extra cores sit their idle more or less.

me, going from a Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz Dual core to a Q6600 2.66GHz Quad core I saw a noticeable jump in responsiveness and performance in all apps, windows, and games, so it could help, but now I'm running a Core i7 920 2.67GHz Quad, with Hyper Threading, so I have even more resources freed and much more responsiveness, and am only running with 3GB of RAM right now too.

as it is right now I have no need to OC my CPU at all.

in fact I haven't had the need to OC a CPU since my Socket 939 Athlon X2 4200+ 2.2GHz dual core 3 or so years ago.

I don't play much MMO's but even still I run apps and games that do tax the CPU or can tax it, with advanced AI processing and other aspects.



as to what Rich was saying on the RAM addressing.

4GB total RAM, if its a regular GTX 275, thats 896MB deducted from the 4GB total, your running an E8400 Dual core it has 6MB of L2 Cache, so let see here...

4GB = 4096MB

minus 896MB = 3200MB

minus 6MB = 3194MB

2 Hard drives, depending on the cache size they have that could be 8MB or 16MB or even 32MB cache per drive...

whatever that is times 2, then subtract from the total above...

depending on the number of Optical drives in the system, take their cache sizes and deduct that..

etc (basically any solid state Cache memory or RAM, do not count hard drive storage)

deduct that from the total, and thats the maximum amount of addressable Memory you should have in Windows 32bit.

thats about the easiest way of figuring out how much RAM you should have available.

[Cronos18]

You guys have missed the whole question about quad core with high clock speeds of 3.5-4ghz being good for gaming and if its possible to offload all windows and background app's to the 3rd/4th cores and leave the first 2 just for the games. Aion runs decently, wow runs pretty great. Other games Run pretty great too, I usually notice even better fps within my linear fps offline games than my mmo's because I think its less CPU stressful. I did notice a BIG difference from 3.0 to 3.8ghz in Aion. It isn't enhanced for dual core oddly at the moment from what I've read and the box doesn't specify that it should be so that is probably true. When my processor was clocked at 3.8ghz (showing about max of 85-90 percent cpu usage) I was playing with everything on very high + 4x AA and getting around 80-100+ fps in remote locations and a decent amount in higher pop locations but in towns its like LOLWTF 30-60 and so inconsistant that it looks like lag even with vert sync on, which I don't use. Don't get screen tearing.

With the proc at 3ghz (cpu usage is spiking to 95 percent ~ when stressed in a town or near a lot of players) I'm getting 80 fps in remote locations with just high settings and No AA but its clear the overclock for a technical 25 percent higher speed is making a big difference. I play on a 26" monitor with 1920/1200 resolution which I think plays a big factor in this. I'm using 190.62 nvidea drivers. All I wanted was a suggestion to the best processor for a dual core duo setup to overclock or a quad core setup, speeds you could reach with optimal cooling and stability.

As for the ram, that's really interesting I had no idea that the graphics card memory was counted towards your total amount of windows usable memory. so getting a 64 bit OS would probably be a good idea.

[thephilosophizer]

Dude, I think maybe you missed the point. They're telling you that your cpu is fine, that a different cpu isn't going to give much if any better performance. And that the price it cost you to replace the cpu isn't going to be worth the performance increase. Best bet on that note is to hang on a while longer, and switch to i5/i7 when you can, because the 8400 is already one of the fastest socket 775 chips.
You have a 32bit os, and your system has about 5gb of memory, which means there is about 1gb of memory that your system can't use because it isn't 64 bit. Go get win7 64, and see if that makes a difference.

And damn, you all used a lot of words to not say very much

[ShyguyXPC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cronos18

You guys have missed the whole question about quad core with high clock speeds of 3.5-4ghz being good for gaming and if its possible to offload all windows and background app's to the 3rd/4th cores and leave the first 2 just for the games. Aion runs decently, wow runs pretty great. Other games Run pretty great too, I usually notice even better fps within my linear fps offline games than my mmo's because I think its less CPU stressful. I did notice a BIG difference from 3.0 to 3.8ghz in Aion. It isn't enhanced for dual core oddly at the moment from what I've read and the box doesn't specify that it should be so that is probably true. When my processor was clocked at 3.8ghz (showing about max of 85-90 percent cpu usage) I was playing with everything on very high + 4x AA and getting around 80-100+ fps in remote locations and a decent amount in higher pop locations but in towns its like LOLWTF 30-60 and so inconsistant that it looks like lag even with vert sync on, which I don't use. Don't get screen tearing.

With the proc at 3ghz (cpu usage is spiking to 95 percent ~ when stressed in a town or near a lot of players) I'm getting 80 fps in remote locations with just high settings and No AA but its clear the overclock for a technical 25 percent higher speed is making a big difference. I play on a 26" monitor with 1920/1200 resolution which I think plays a big factor in this. I'm using 190.62 nvidea drivers. All I wanted was a suggestion to the best processor for a dual core duo setup to overclock or a quad core setup, speeds you could reach with optimal cooling and stability.

As for the ram, that's really interesting I had no idea that the graphics card memory was counted towards your total amount of windows usable memory. so getting a 64 bit OS would probably be a good idea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShyguyXPC

rich, you hit the nail on the head as far as the gaming aspect goes.

I started to type a reply earlier, but after about 2 pages length LOL, I gave up and said screw it.

with the specs of that system there isn't any reason why it shouldn't handle that game or any game for that matter with any problems.

it should be sailing in that Aion game along with any others, hell even Crysis should be purring along at high settings fine on that system.

if there is High CPU usage, its most likely the game itself, the way its coded, usually when games make high usage of CPU its due to things like Processing AI data, or something like that.

but that E8400 should still be doing quite well at 3GHz clock speeds.

they mentioned being able to Overclock the CPU to 3.8, and if thats so, why OC to 4 or 4.5, the meager increase in performance they'd gain really wouldn't be worth it IMO, unless you were running benchmarks.

as to the problems hitting higher than 3.8. there are a lot of factors involved with OCing, it could be the Motherboard, it could be the voltages coming from the PSU, it could be the RAM they're running just isn't up to the task, hell it could even be the fact that the CPU just won't run any faster, not all CPU's are created equal, you could have one E8400 in a batch that will clock to 4+GHz, meanwhile the one right next to it can't even do 10MHz over the stock 3GHz speed. meanwhile another CPU in that batch might not even be able to hit the 3GHz mark and then gets binned as a lower spec CPU like maybe a 2.66GHz model or something, or the 2.93Ghz versions, etc.

so there's a lot of factors that come into play when overclocking and could be why their having problems.



as to their question about the RAM speed being reported as 400Mhz, thats right, thats the real speed its running, since its DDR2 memory, or Double Data Rate, yes, you double that for the effective speed rating.

PC2 6400 is DDR2 800MHz, so yeah, its running 400Mhz.

and yes, thats Kingston's ValueRAM series, so its not intended for Overclocking really, sometimes you can get decent OC's out of them, but in most cases not really a good idea. add in Kingston's RAM has always been known to be picky with which boards it will cooperate with for whatever reasons.

I put 2GB's of that stuff in my Brother's friends system, though it was the lower profile sticks, basically half height sticks.

it works fine at stock speeds, but wasn't even going to try and OC it at all.

if your looking for some good OCing memory, try and buy some stuff running at DDR2 1066 or higher, assuming the motherboard is good, those speed kits should be guaranteed to run at those speeds, but you'd have to set that speed in the bios if the motherboard doesn't support those speeds out of the box.

for example for Socket 1366 Core i7 systems the official Speed RAM for them is DDR3 1066, but you can get the stuff in speeds much higher than that, but many people have complained on newegg that when putting it in their systems, it isn't running at the rated speeds like 1600Mhz etc, not realizing that they have to set it to those speeds in the bios after installing otherwise it will default to 1066 or whatever.

not all systems are like this, but many are.

problem is right now, that DDR2 memory is starting to climb in price now that DDR3 is coming down.

so you'll probably spend more now on a 4GB kit for OCing DDR2 than you would of 6 months ago.

but OCing aside, your system should be handling the games just fine.



as to Quad core, if your multi tasking or running a lot of programs with your games, a Quad could help.

problem is, I don't know of any way other than manually setting the affinity of a program to the cores, (assigning a program to run on specific cores), usually everytime you start a program, you have to go into task manager, right click the process for the program, and then set the affinity, selecting or deselecting so its running on the cores you want... if a lot of programs running its an annoyingly time consuming task.

as soon as the program is shut down, or restarted, you have to do that all over again.

but a Quad core could alleviate some of the CPU stress, by dividing the programs amongst the additional cores, but only if they're designed to utilize the extra cores, otherwise the extra cores sit their idle more or less.

me, going from a Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz Dual core to a Q6600 2.66GHz Quad core I saw a noticeable jump in responsiveness and performance in all apps, windows, and games, so it could help, but now I'm running a Core i7 920 2.67GHz Quad, with Hyper Threading, so I have even more resources freed and much more responsiveness, and am only running with 3GB of RAM right now too.

as it is right now I have no need to OC my CPU at all.

in fact I haven't had the need to OC a CPU since my Socket 939 Athlon X2 4200+ 2.2GHz dual core 3 or so years ago.

I don't play much MMO's but even still I run apps and games that do tax the CPU or can tax it, with advanced AI processing and other aspects.



as to what Rich was saying on the RAM addressing.

4GB total RAM, if its a regular GTX 275, thats 896MB deducted from the 4GB total, your running an E8400 Dual core it has 6MB of L2 Cache, so let see here...

4GB = 4096MB

minus 896MB = 3200MB

minus 6MB = 3194MB

2 Hard drives, depending on the cache size they have that could be 8MB or 16MB or even 32MB cache per drive...

whatever that is times 2, then subtract from the total above...

depending on the number of Optical drives in the system, take their cache sizes and deduct that..

etc (basically any solid state Cache memory or RAM, do not count hard drive storage)

deduct that from the total, and thats the maximum amount of addressable Memory you should have in Windows 32bit.

thats about the easiest way of figuring out how much RAM you should have available.

[Cronos18]

@%@*$#*@@$ I just lost all the garbage I wrote lol.

Lets make it short, sorry I didn't have time earlier to read all of your post shyguy regarding the quad core bit. I was just heading out to work but wanted to get a quick reply in to address other issues and hadn't had time to browse all of your massive post lol.

Only reason I'm so curious about quad is because I run 1920/1200 resolution which I think plays a big factor on stress, looking at benchmarks of different graphics cards within current gen games at higher resolutions of 1920/1200 or 2500 by whatever the fps marks even with core I7 + 8gb ram etc are rediculously low compared to something like 1600/1200 or something. It would make sense that to render a larger more detailed image would require more power. I don't use vert sync in wow or aion, because my fps is generally high enough to not get screen tear. I notice that my CPU is stressed to 95 percent without OC and a bit lower settings in game detail then maybe about 80 percent with max settings and 4xAA with 3.8ghz speed. That alone makes it quite clear that overclocking the CPU to 25% increase makes a pretty big difference in game that only utilizes one core.

My friend that has a quad plays with a 1024/768 resolution, 3gb ram at 600mhz and my old 8800GT card. He says he plays full settings no AA and gets around 60 fps with very sync off but gets a consistant decent fps in towns or highly populated areas as well. When I turn in a town I get fps spiking of course and shit gets choppy and my cpu tends to jump. The more power I give it the higher settings I can run the less choppy things become in highly populated areas the more happy I am.

I've no idea how much difference it would make to have say a 64bit OS + 6gb ram in the form of 2gb sticks @ 1000mhz + my graphics card 1gb totalling 7gb. Not sure if 70 percent usage in peak gaming is a lot of stress on my memory and that would be the bottleneck but my guess is no. My guess is that it all lies in the hands of the CPU and that is why linear fps games tend to run best for me, when games like aion and wow are so much more cpu intensive with all the other player images around you and in high resolutions. More power = more performance. I've been really considering 64bit though, especially now knowing that my Gtx 275 onboard isnt getting totalled with my actual ram but I guess I gotta look into the prices of it, is it not expensive?


Realistically I think my best bet is to OC my E8400 to 4ghz or maybe push 4.2 stable with a fsb of 445x9 multiplier and get a good heatsink fan/ other cooling solutions based on suggestions of people. Then look into Win 7 64 bit maybe get like 3x 2gb sticks of OCZ 1000mhz ram and watch my computer rip games to shit until I purchase a new Motherboard and go I5/7

Sorry the first post I actually made an effort but I had to retype it all so this is what you get lol.

[thephilosophizer]

Gonna try and keep this short, I like short.
Vid memory plays a very strong role in being able to display higher resolutions. As far as I am aware, wow isn't even designed for multiple threads, which means the e8400 is going to run faster than just about any quad skt 775.
Also, your friend is running 1024 res, and you 1920. There is no comparison there. My cell phone can run wow at 1024 (not really, but maybe). Resolutions like that are worlds apart and are basis for no comparisons.
Again, the point is that a quad isn't going to make a difference, at all. If anything, a q9400 could well leave you with lower fps, because the majority of games at current are not designed to use multiple processors.
Your computer's access to memory, ram and vid memory, is much more likely to provide a performance benefit, especially in games, then a quad core would.
OC'ing a bit higher may make a little difference, though not likely a big one. Better cooling might be a good idea (are you using stock cooling?), but my inclination here is to think that your OS may be the more significant bottleneck.

Ok, sorry, just read more of that last post. 2gb more of ram probably isn't going to do anything. Games don't need that much ram, the trouble now isn't that you didn't have enough, it's that your system hasn't been able to access all of its resources.
Oh, and don't get 3 2gb sticks. The ram is dual channel (whereas the skt 1366 x58 runs triple channel, this is the only setup that uses triple channel), runs faster in pairs, 3 sticks will slow you down, not speed you up.