Will the Q8400 Bottleneck a R7 360?

Austin Rivera,

Checking Passmark baselines results there are 2138 systems tested using the Gigabyte G31 motherboard.

The top CPU results:

__CPU_______CPU Score__

Xeon X5460 ____ 5837
Xeon E5440 ____ 5724
Xeon X5460 ____ 5513
Xeon E5440 ____ 5381
Xeon E5440 ____ 5119

The top scores for a Q8400 on the G31M:

__CPU__CPU Score__

Q8400 ____ 4515
Q8400 ____ 4254
Q8400 ____ 4196
Q8400 ____ 4143
Q8400 ____ 4117

The Xeon X5460:

http://ark.intel.com/products/33087/Intel-Xeon-Processor-X5460-12M-Cache-3_16-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB?q=X5460

The Q8400 is a good one at 2.66 but the X5460 is 3.16GHz and will have the best chance of getting good results from the R9. There are no Q8400 / G31M / R9 systems on Passmark but a Xeon X5460 / G31M / R9 270X system has a 2D =576 and a 3D of 4595. A Q9505 (2.66) / G31M / R9 370 system has a 2D =294 and 3D = 3393.

Given the quite low cost for a Xeon X5460 on Ebay- as low as $18- 25, I think it would be a good investment. The X5460 by the way cost $1,245 new in 2007. Since 2010 I've had a Dell Precision T5400 with two X5460's and that system has been 100% reliable even during three days continuous rendering.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 (6-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz) > 32GB DDR3 1866 ECC RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > Logitech z2300 speakers > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)>
[ Passmark Rating = 5064 > CPU= 13989 / 2D= 819 / 3D= 4596 / Mem= 2772 / Disk= 4555] [Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1014 OpenGL= 126.59 FPS] 7.8.15

2. Dell Precision T5500 (2011) > 2X Xeon X5680 (6 -core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz), 48GB DDR3 1333 ECC Reg. > Quadro K2200 (4GB ) > PERC H310 / Samsung 840 250GB / WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card > 875W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (27", 1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark system rating = 3844 / CPU = 15047 / 2D= 662 / 3D= 3500 / Mem= 1785 / Disk= 2649] (12.30.15)

7. Dell Precision T5400 (2008) > 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16GB DDR2 667 ECC> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 500GB / Seagate Barracuda 500GB > M-Audio 2496 Sound Card / Linksys WMP600N WiFi > HP 2711X, 27" 1920 X 1080 and Dell 19" LCD > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit >
[ Passmark system Rating = 1853, CPU = 8626 / 2D= 520 / 3D=1096 Mem= 736, Disk= 901] [Cinebench 11.5 CPU=7.54 OpenGL = 51.89 fps] 10.24.15