will an intel core 2 quad q9550 2.83 bottilnick a gtx 550 ti

1) The answer is no, the 550 Ti won't be bottlenecked by a Q9550.
2) Why do you want a 550 Ti? It was always a really bad price/performance card.

Unlikely. Especially if you can overclock it to say 3.8ghz

A 550 Ti might surprise you. If you lower the settings appropriately and aren't expecting perfect first person shooter butter smooth, you might be pleasantly pleased. Of course this isn't in regards to new AAA titles that are simply pushing hardware requirements for the fun of it, but games people are actually playing.

This value is also of course exemplified more if the res is lower than 1080p

1) No, you really don't need to overclock a Q9550 for a 550 Ti.
2) There really aren't other options in the same price bracket? List me some options. I really advice against the 550 Ti. For all the reasons.

Need is a subjective term. There's a plethora of titles in which a C2Q will bottleneck a 550 Ti to some small extent. The gap in performance breadth would be minimal, but things to remember would be that the single core performance of core2's is really dated. Even a modest overclock of 3.5ghz would eliminate any potential. With a processor that old, why wouldn't you overclock?

I do agree however that there has to be something better than a 550 ti even in the lebanon market. Coincidentally my girlfriend is from Lebanon, and I've been to a computer store in Beirut, and they had current stuff. Though I have no clue what the prices equated to, as I don't know the conversion rate very well. I just know a cup of coffee there was really cheap compared to usa

The 550 Ti would be GPU bound in absolutely everything. The Q9550 is perfectly fine. It's not a subjective term. It's just not needed.

Anything that is urged by opinion or conjecture is subjective. Horses for courses, young one. I've built countless towers for customers(I own and operate a small repair business) containing both new and refurbished parts. I built not long ago a tower using a Q9400 which I gave a very minor overclock of 3.1ghz that also housed a bare basic GTX 650 1GB which for the record clock for clock at nominal speeds performs(in most cases) lesser than a 550 ti. The benches I ran with various games would probably shock you.

I remember getting a strong 50-60fps at medium preset for skyrim. This was with the processor overclock mentioned, and the card given a 65mhz overclock, and running stable, no artifacting. Also ran Blacklight: Retributtion most details set to medium, no AA of course with 60fps at most times with dips with physics heavy stuff happened but nothing too bad.

My point stands; is this card ideal for gaming? No. Is it fine for a budget oriented option for someone that's alienated from other options. It can suffice.

Again, my assertions are made assuming the buyer, living in Lebanon, is living in an alienated overblown price market.

Well, he continuously made comments in response to what I said, not respectfully disagreeing but plain saying no. In honesty, he was incorrect. A 550 Ti would not be GPU bound, the system overall would. And it would not be held back in absolutely everything as he was suggesting. I do and have lots of real world experience with the topics I choose to post in. I don't rely almost entirely on articles and synthetic benches. I'm not saying that you or Cryio do, at all. My point is I'm confident that a 550 Ti second-hand can be used aptly given it's more or less his only option.

I very rarely comment on other contributors posts, unless they're obviously and blatantly giving poor advice, which wasn't the case with my estimation as I answered the OP's question accurately, saying the 9550 would not be a bottleneck on the card.

what's the price the 550ti is going to cost, and what would a gtx 750 in comparison cost or even the 750ti? You could do alot worse than a 550ti, I know a friend who streams games on the OEM version of the 550ti, called the GT 545 and he plays fairly modern games well, not all 1080p ultra maxed out with AA on, but I assume most stuff at medium settings, maybe some at high, with AA off at 30fps or more, obviously tweaking here and there can increase FPS.

If a 550ti if all you can afford, then sure go for it, the core 2 quad can still certainly play modern stuff, here's a vid of a guy playing Battlefield 4 multiplayer with a lower clocked core 2 quad and a gtx 650

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRROUneYRcE

"Mostly I have 45 - 70 FPS. Sometimes it lagged because of the recording.
I play the game at 1920x1080 at medium settings.
My PC:
Mainboard: AsRock G31M-GS R2.0
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 @ 2.4Ghz
GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 650 (Gainward)
Ram: 2x2Gb Corsair 830 Mhz

OS: Windows 8.1 Pro 64 Bit"

here's a vid of somebody with a 550ti, 4gb ram, and fx 4130 cpu on BF4 multiplayer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPGrHSjCzF0

I just used BF4 multiplayer as a standard test of a modern game fairly demanding since it's online, anything lesser than that and your fps and settings could be better, it obviously just depends what you're wanting to play.



but in short, yes, nearly any game ever made will be playable, might be on low or medium settings, but you'll be able to play them.

but if the guy earlier was able to play earlier in multiplayer with only 4gb ram, a low clocked 2.4ghz core 2 quad, and gtx 650, you should be more than fine playing games.

I'm not talking down on anybody here, but people should realize that people in the real world have such a thing as a budget, and maybe they can't afford the newest r9 or gtx 900 series gpu, maybe they're not super enthusiast and are perfectly fine turning settings down and playing more casually. Depends on the person. Not everybody has or cares about spending more money on a 4k monitor, many out there aren't even on 1080p I've noticed, especially in other countries around the world, nothing wrong with that.

OP, making sure you have at least 4gb ram (more would be better) is important as well.

hope I helped some, you should be fine with the 550ti as evidenced by the gameplay videos, just make sure you have at least 4gb ram or more and you're good to go.

lol aggravated

Just because the 9550 wouldn't bottleneck the 550 Ti doesn't mean there's no reason to overclock. That was my initial point, since you weren't bored enough to not touch that far back. I said "Unlikely" meaning it won't happen. He followed up by saying that there's absolutely no need to overclock, and that the 550 Ti is more or less worthless. Both statements were untrue.

You're right though, you're not a moderator. Though you successfully aided me in derailing the thread. I won't comment further either :V

I used an overclocked 560 Ti, 980/1850 with a Q9550 at stock settings. The only game that benefited from CPU OC was Grand Theft Auto IV. Otherwise, as I said, I was GPU bound everywhere. The 550 Ti is underpowered for a Q9550.

Maybe the general OS will feel faster slightly faster from an OC but for gaming there is zero reason to OC a Q9550 in conjunction with a 550 Ti.