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Having trouble deciding on a new CPU for LGA775

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August 17, 2014 8:33:57 PM

Hello everyone, I'm using an old LGA775 at the moment,, with a Core2 Duo E6550 @ 2.7Mhz ( overclocked) and 4mb l2

I'm trying to get a little extra life for my LGA775 motherboard, and some of the games I've been playing, games like battlefield 3 and 4 or a source game like garry'smod drops in frame-rate when to much is happening on screen. The e6550 has been doing well but I think its really time to upgrade to a quad core. I don't have enough to go upgrade to an 1156 motherboard+i5 so I'm going to have to make the best of what I got.

I have a 75$ budget, and the best bang for buck that I can afford is a Core2quad Q9400.
I found a q9550 for 85$ too, but i'm not sure if the extra price is worth getting.

My pc specs
650w PSU 80 plus bronze
HD 7770 1GB O.C edition
E6550 @ 2.7mhz (overclocked) & 4mb l2 cache
4GB DDR3 @ 1333mhz
Asus P5g41T-mlx plus

If I did go with the Q9400, would my GPu bottleneck the Cpu? also how much of a performance will I gain form going to a quad core?
Also, is the E6550 cpui have now bottlenecking my HD7770?

More about : trouble deciding cpu lga775

August 17, 2014 8:48:27 PM

I can't tell you about battlefield, or most games for that matter- but I play Starcraft2- a lot. It's one of the (I'd like to say rare) games that are particular about l2 cache. 9550 has 6 while 9400 has 3mb (2x for each of the dual cores on it). I also know for a fact (as I've tried it personally) that SC2 plays beautifully on 4mb+ l2 cache while its piss poor with 3 and less.

I think it's going to be hard to tell how many games are going to prefer bigger l2 cache like that, but 10$ for the peace of mind is not that much.

I'd also like to point out that I play(ed) a lot of other games like crysis 1/2, far cry 3, wolfensteins.... Anyway, recently I upgraded from the old q6600 to i4770k. I can't tell that I did in most games. Old quad was that good- or the new one is meh better. I only upgraded since I do 3d modeling/rendering in 3ds Max and I felt like upgrading. The difference is quite notable there, but for most games I'm sure you'll be very happy with q9550. I know I was with my q6600 @ 3ghz.

Last gaming reference- for far cry 3, going from dual core to quad core- the same night/day difference as from going from 3mb l2 cache to 4mb for starcraft2.

Quote:
If I did go with the Q9400, would my GPu bottleneck the Cpu? also how much of a performance will I gain form going to a quad core? Also, is the E6550 cpui have now bottlenecking my HD7770?


GPU cant bottleneck CPU, it only goes the other way around. As for will the new CPU be bottlenecking your current GPU- it depend on the game and the resolution you play on. If you game on FHD or lower, you'll be fine with that setup in most games. In fact I'd go so far as to say you can get a new gpu and still feel benefit from it in most games.
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August 17, 2014 9:09:32 PM


Thanks for the fast reply eodeo. Are you sure the Q9550's L2 cache is 6mb? I thought it was 12mb and the Q9400's was 6Mb. Also, oI play on a 38inch hdtv with 1080p. I havent played starcraft myself but I do play other RTS games like company of heroes 2. I don't have any problems in COH2, except for if there is alot going on, or I change the camera position to see the whole battlefield. And yeah that's what I meant as far as the bottle-necking, I got it mixed up there.

But if what you said about the cache size of the C2Q's I listed is true, then that changes everything
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August 17, 2014 9:58:29 PM

Q9550 has 12MB of L2 cache, Q9400 has 6MB, Q9450 has 12MB. Basically those that end in xx50 have 12MB of L2 cache
http://ark.intel.com/compare/35365,33923,33924
Here is a decent Core 2 Quad for socket 775. Runs at 1333FSB at 2.5GHz
Don't worry too much about the cache. If you still want the 12mb one then maybe ebay might have it for a cheaper price.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 2.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($85.45 @ Amazon)
Total: $85.45
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-18 01:10 EDT-0400

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August 17, 2014 10:20:13 PM

Intel advertizes 2x the cache amount since both the quad cores are actually 2x dual cores. The "6mb" variant can access only 3mb by any of the dual core pairs at any one time. So while they do have 6 or 12mb, in reality they behave as if they had 3 and 6mb- which is what I originally addressed.
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