Upgrade to Quad Core?

[hugorudd]

Hi;

I have a current machine which until the latest Call of Duty game seemed unstoppable:

Core 2 Duo E6750 processor
4GB (Fast) DDR2
Asus P5Q Turbo S775 motherboard (rock solid and woefully underused)
Sapphire Vapor X ATI Radeon 4870 1GB video card

But now it seems that the processor is slowing the machine down for games.

I don't want to spend a shedload of cash on it, but I do want to speed it up. Would you recommend an upgrade to a Quad processor, and assuming a budget of €220, what processor would you buy?

Thanks.

[hugorudd]

Hmmm, no takers I think I may have to plump for a Q9450, it seems to have good bang-per-buck at that level. On the other hand, will it be worth it?

[RacerX]

No.

going to same core speed will do nothing for you.
both are 2.66

You're still just above CPU requirements for that game, I think it's 2.4 or something.

If anything go to a cheaper and faster E8400.
If you consider OC'ing, that'll easily run in the 4G range.
even on stock cooler should easily run 3.5



What makes you think it's the CPU, and not the video card, or just a system that needs a cleanup?

Unless you use a specific program designed for using more than 2 cores, and you use that program the majority of the time, that quad will just be a waste of money.




I'd suggest looking for anyone running the 4870 and see how the game runs for them, and if you haven't in a while, do a good cleanup of your system.


I definitely wouldn't waste money on a quad at the same speed though.

[Aaron_8015]

^ This... Spot on.

(Unless you plan on overclocking or have other needs).

[ShyguyXPC]

Upgrading to a Quad might be Warranted if you were moving to say Socket AM3 or Sockets 1156/1366 with an entirely new system/platform.

But I have to agree with the others here too.

Your CPU should still be doing fine, bit on the lower end for some of the higher end games, but still sufficient.

4870 should also still be doing pretty good, though its performance is now downgraded to mid range performance in comparison to current Radeon and Geforce Cards, it still shouldn't have much trouble running Call Of Duty Games with high settings and very playable frame rates.

[hugorudd]

That's great, thanks guys. In essence, I suppose I am looking at a platform upgrade in that case, but it's a bit of a pity to have to do that.

Is my best bet (meaning a noticeable difference in experience vs increase in price) going to be an i3, an i5 or a switch to AMD?

[RacerX]

Before you go out and get a new Mobo, CPU, ram, and possible video card, what exactly is the problem you are having with the game?
The specs seem inline with most other modern games, and if they work well on your current setup, i'm not sure why this wouldn't too.


First, do the cleanup as described above, and before getting a whole new setup, i'd recommend narrowing down the exact problem, as I suspect a cleanup may fix it, or just maybe adding a faster CPU or video card to this board would work fine.

At this point I think a whole new build would be a waste for what you are describing, but we need to know exactly what isn't working right to narrow things down.

[hugorudd]

Thanks RacerX; the game is reported to work very poorly on practically all low-medium power setups; whilst I'm not OC'd at all (laziness), some people with much faster dual cores have reported doggish performance, and some people are reporting even Quad cores having a hard time; it's incredibly CPU bound, and my video card isn't even breaking the temperature it normally has for silky smooth play in BFBC2.

Also, it's a pretty fresh install of Windows 7 Home Premium; the video card drivers and chipset software is up to date.

I know it's just shoddy programming from the developers, but still, I would quite like to get myself back on the roadmap, even if not at the cutting edge.

For this evening, however, I have an overclock on my mind to see how that helps matters; I won't hold out too much hope, to be honest.

[ShyguyXPC]

Call of Duty Games shouldn't have a problem with your current setup. Even the latest games shouldn't be having that much troubles.

Unless its some kind of conflict with drivers, or as you pointed out poor programming on the game developers part.

if its the latter, until some patches or updates coming out for it, address and fix the problems, no amount of Hardware upgrades would improve performance drastically I suspect.

Its like Grand Theft Auto IV, even that game gives top end systems trouble, and its main due to the games programming.

[hugorudd]

But I still want to upgrade

[ShyguyXPC]

Minimal Investment and substantial increase for the price:

Use your current RAM, DDR2.

Upgrade to new CPU and Mobo: Something like this (Using newegg as an example)

Newegg.com - MSI 790XT-G45 AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard

Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Deneb 3.5GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Desktop Processor HDZ970FBGMBOX

Video card should still be plenty fine, if it really is the CPU thats holding you back, this should help things quite a bit.

[DanielMsi]

Hi man,

i was reading your posts. Mate i have the exact setup i have A E6750, running at Stock speeds on a Gigabyte S series motherboard with a HD4870 Radeon.

With the E6750 and HD4870, i am also trying to play Black-ops and I am getting so much LAgg even with the Update Patches that they claim should fix the Issue. I believe that The E6750 is bottlenecking the HD4870 slightyl and causing the Headaches. It also does it on MW2 hence why i downgraded to a 9800GTX to remove the bottleneck. But, i jst thought ill let you know i have the same setup, and is causing me problems.

Im sure a core 2 Quad will fix our issue, even an old cpu like a Q6600 but for the price, it might be better just getting a new Mobo with either an AMD phenom X4 955, or 965 or An i5 760. See how you go

[ShyguyXPC]

have to agree with rich, got a friend who's been trying to sell me on getting Black Ops for the Multiplayer Coop, and even advised me to wait a month or two, till they get a lot of the bugs worked out with patches, seems they released it as a very buggy product.

Including some rather pathetic Multiplayer glitches (such as the Bouncing Tomahawk able to rebound of several surfaces and still kill players...)

[RicheemxX]

I was just over at the COD: Black-Ops forum reading a few posts and it seems as though many users are complaining about the new gaming being a CPU hungry monster but even with that I'd say you might want to wait to see if they come out with a patch that fixes the issues before plunking down any extra cash just to play that one game. From the sounds of it like most other games the game is not optimized for multi-core its just a CPU sucker.

[ShyguyXPC]

Wow... How'd that happen Rich?

I saw your post and made mine after yours, but here it is, showing up before it?

[RicheemxX]

There was a glitch in the matrix

[ShyguyXPC]

ahh... Been a lot of those lately, hang ups where you go to submit your reply, and it just hangs for awhile... While its sitting there "loading", you open a 2nd tab, load up TechIMO's page, and click new posts on the 2nd tab and your post shows up posted, meanwhile its still loading/Submitting the reply in the first Tab LOL.

[DanielMsi]

Just upgraded from the E6750. To a Phenom 965 Black Edition 3.4GHZ and my HD4870 is no longer bottlenecked, MAssive improvement