can a core 2 duo e8600 outperform a pentium g2030 ?

jbrown156,

I think a more relevant indicator for comparing CPU's is the overall performance in systems as the parameters of memory bandwidth, and the memory, graphics, and disk subsystems of compatible motherboards will affect the perception- experience of performance. The interesting parallel to your question is the introduction of new Haswell Xeons which use DDR4 2133 and in general have more cores, higher bandwidth, more cores- but noticeably lower closck speeds and the latency of the DDR4 is 13-15 compared to as low as 8-9 for DDR3. Will a Xeon E5- XXXX v3 "feel" faster than a v2?

My favorite way to sort this kind of question is Passmark system baselines, which measure the main subsystems and weight them- the 3D and Disk scores seem heavily weighted- and then provide an overall system rating.

E8600: On Passmark, the highest CPU score for the E8600 is 3495, achieved by overclocking one to 4.25GHz on an ASUSU PSK PRO M/B. The system rating with a GTX 560ti and 4GB RAM is 2008., and with a 3D score of 3459. The highest rated system using an E8600 is rated 2098 with CPU=3274 @ 4.0GHz and 3D=1126 from a GTX 260.

G2030: The highest CPU score is 3286 @3.2GHz on Gigabyte Z77M-D3H and which has a 3D of 2222 from a GTX 550ti. The highest rated system using an G2030 is rated 2809 with CPU=3165 @ 3.0GHz and 3D=4030 from a Radeon HD7850.

Notice that the E8600 had the higher CPU score, but the G2030 had the higher system score. In my experience the system with the higher overall system rating on Passmark will "seem" to have higher performance overall, but for specialized uses this could be deceptive. If you're moving a lot of polygons, clock speed and 3D performance will be you friend, and will very large file processing, memory bandwidth and RAM speed may tip the perception, and with rendering, more cores at a lower clock speed may help more -if- it's CPU-based rendering.

So, overall system configuration and application are going to be necessary to determine which is 'faster". My take on it is that a current CPU that may overclocked on a new M/B with fast RAM and a modern GPU variety running on an SSD OS /application drive is going to be able to be tuned towards performance more effectively than an older technology that's been pushed to it's limits.

Cost / Performance: If your considering obsolete gear, you have much wider opportunities for an impressive cost / performance ratio. If you want the best performance within a budget, for gaming, buy a used i5 system of the newest affordable generation on a board that may overclock,add an SSD, fast GTX or Radeon, and low latency RAM. The price compared to the performance could be very good, epscially is you have the GPU or drives to transfer to the new system.

I did this for my backup 3D CAD workstation:

Dell Precision T5500 (2011) Original: Xeon E5620 quad core @ 2.4 / 2.6 Ghz > 6GB DDR3 ECC Reg 1066 > Quadro FX 580 (512MB) > Dell PERC 6/i SAS /SATA controller > Seagate cheetah 15K 146GB > Linksys WMP600N WiFi > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
[ Passmark system rating = 1479 / CPU = 4067 / 2D= 520 / 3D= 311 / Mem= 1473 / Disk= 1208]

Dell Precision T5500 > Xeon X5680 six -core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz, 24GB DDR3 ECC 1333 > Quadro 4000 (2GB ) > Samsung 840 250GB /WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card > Linksys WMP600N PCI WiFi > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (1920 X 1440)
[ Passmark system rating = 3339 / CPU = 9347 / 2D= 684 / 3D= 2030 / Mem= 1871 / Disk= 2234]

The cost of the T5500 was $171 and upgrades made the total about $475 as I had the Quadro 4000 and Samsung 840 spare from my last hp z420 upgrade, and the WD RE4 was on eI bought for my T5400 and never used. That's a good cost /performance result as the revised system is the 7th highest scoring T5500 on Passmark of 240 systems.

Similarly:

Precision 390 (2006) Original: Core2 Duo 6300 dual-core @ 1.86GHz, 2GB DDR2 667 > Quadro FX550 > 2X WD 320GB . Windows XP Pro 32-bit
[ Passmark system rating =397, CPU = 587 / 2D= 248 / 3D=75 / Mem=585 / Disk = 552 ]

Dell Precision 390 (2006): Xeon X3230 quad-core @ 2.67GHz > 8 GB DDR2 667 ECC > Firepro V4900 (1GB) > 2X WD 320GB >Linksys WMP600N WiFi > Dell 24" > 1920 X 1200 > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
[ Passmark system rating = 1458, CPU = 3699 / 2D= 431 / 3D=1350 / Mem= 885 / Disk=552]

As this system was a gift from an architectural office that was closing, the total cost to me was about $125.


Cheers,

BambiBoom

HP z420 (2014) > Xeon E5-1620 quad core @ 3.6 / 3.8GHz > 24GB DDR3 ECC 1600 RAM > Quadro K2200 (4GB)> Intel 730 480GB > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > Linksys AE3000 USB WiFi > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440) > Windows 7 Professional 64 >
[ Passmark Rating = 4402 > CPU= 9280 / 2D= 797 / 3D=3480 / Mem= 2558 / Disk= 4498]