So, due the decrease in the price of the Q6600, I'm thinking of buying it, instead of the E6420 I was going to.

Now, since today's chipsets can't handle 4 cores with an FSB higher than 400Mhz (1600 Effective), that means that I won't be able to overclock my FSB to 533Mhz, which was my original intent.

And because you can't overclock the FBS, you also can't overclock the RAM, which saves me some money cause I don't need Micron D9 chips anymore.

But my question is - how much of a performance increase will I see from overclock my FSB and RAM to 533Mhz instead of 350-400Mhz?

Thank You.

I cant give any numbers or benchmarks since there arent any in existence.

The FSB alone makes hardly no difference, no matter what it is. RAM does make the difference.

400mhz ram (800mhz effective) is quite a bit slower than 1066mhz effective ram. BUT. If I had to make a guess, I think RAM that speed will be bottlenecked more by the rest of the parts in your system before it makes any SIGNIFICANT improvements.


I do know for sure though, that you are well best off getting the q6600, putting the FSB to about 340 - 360 to get that 3ghz and saving ALOT of money on that memory.

Actually, I've just found out about the new G0 stepping and I want it!
So that leaves the Q6600 and the E6750.

But since, the Q6600 are still B3, that means that it's either a 3.2Ghz Q6600 or a 4.2Ghz E6750.

So I think the choice is clear, unless I find a reason to buy a Quad-Core for games. Something a little more than "Some game at some time will support more than 1 core and that will do something".

How long do you plan on using this system?

If you upgrade every year (or less than 2 years anyways) the Dual @ a higher clock speed will be much better for gaming. But somewhere within 1-2 years all the new games will be multi-threaded to work a lot better between multiple cores, so if your not interested in upgrading the computer for several years the quad is a better long term purchase.

You can overclock the ram without touching the CPU - in the bios there is a memory ratio setting - it controls the FSB of the ram seperately from the CPU (ie, if you set it 5:4 at 400MHz (CPU) the ram runs @ 500MHz)

You are right. in 2 years all games will support 4 cores.
But that does NOT in any way mean that the game will work better with them. By then people will be talking about CPUs with 8 cores and saying that the games support 16 threads and that you need them to play a game.
The truth is that in 4 years, an E6400 at stock will still get you 60 FPS in every game.

But yeh, if my 680i SLi supports 45nm then I'll buy Yorksfield when it comes out - 4.2Ghz @ 8 threads.

I doubt you will get that prossessor to 4.2ghz. Only if you had full water cooling and a lucky model you may get there, 4.2 is pretty high. Not only that but you' be lucky to find a motherbaord that can run 2k+ FSB. There doesnt seem to be many around that can. Most I expect you could reach on that prossessor is about 3.4ghz tops.

Also, im not quite sure what you mean by "more cores doesnt help game". If they support more cores, then yes, they will. Two cores at 2ghz will be out-performed by 4 cores running at 2ghz by quite a lot, Tom's has plenty of benches on software that already makes use of the extra cores.

I doubt in 4years an E6400 stock will be enough to get 60FPS.. since Intel has aleady stopped making them in favor fo teh 1333fsb prossessors and the upcoming penryn.

Will I be able to get 4.2Ghz on a 45nm Quad-Core with a good stepping? Probably.

Will 4 cores give me 200 FPS in a game? Sure, but what will you do with the extra 140?

A single core Pentium 4 can still push 60 FPS in most games. So a dual-core conroe will defenitely push 60 FPS in 4 years, if infact they will be multithreaded.

45nm quad cores with a good stepping are not out yet though. You're asking about current prossessors, where 4.2ghz is very difficult.

ANd Pentium single cores WIOLL NOT be able to play upcoming games like Crisis well at all. Dual Core is the min. And besides its not the prossessor that mainly defines graphics its the GPU.

Within 4years, they will be pretty much worthless.

A Pentium 4 WILL run every game that is currently out at at least 60 FPS, but 30 is all you need, just like an E6400 WILL run all games till 2010 in the same way. This isn't a single core we are talking about here anymore. The power is doubled. Current games don't even use more than a single core. Once Crysis and the like come out, the E6400's power will be doubled and I wouldn't be surprised if it still run games in 2012.

So a pentium 4 at 3ghz with a old 7300gs model will run every game at 60FPS??

I think not. Games depend on your graphics before your CPU. New games will NEED the extra cores for physics and the like, Pentium 4's WILL NOT work.

Also, have you seen the benches for FlightSimulator X? I aint seeing 60fsp there, even with 8800ultra sli and the faster retail prossesor on earth!

If your latest posts are to be believed... you think a P4 will run every game out there today at 60+ FPS, yet started this thread by saying your looking at buying a quad core?

I know your full of bull on the 30 FPS, let alone anything more than that, I am currently running a P4 2.4GHz with 2 gig ddr ram and a 9700 pro. I have been playing 1on1 games of C&C:3 with a friend, which is a fairly new release. I have EVERY video option set to low at a 1024x768 resolution... and it lags, Have a superweapon go off on my screen and I get <1 FPS. How about WoW, nope gotta turn settings down there too to be able to play 30+ FPS.

I'm done with you... you first ask about overclocking a quad core, and by your third post your badmouthing how fast the computer industry updates itself and come out with new and improved hardware (which 2 posts earlier you were all too keen on buying) and then trying to explain how you believe I should be getting 60FPS on my P4 2.4GHz in supreme commander and all the current games.

I'd call you (Track) a troll... but I'd love to share in your dream world where my N64 is just as powerful now as it was when I bought it. So for making me laugh (at you) I'm just going to leave.

Ciao

You both misunderstand.. because you are idiots.

What I mean by "a pentium 4 can run every game at 60 FPS" is "if the graphics card can run the game at 60 FPS, a pentium 4 is powerful enough to keep up with it".

So as in, if you have an 8800 GTX and a Pentium 4, then you will get 60 FPS because the Pentium 4 IS able to do the one thing it's good for and thats sending over the frames to the graphics card for it to render them. If you have a 9700 Pro, your GPU is the bottleneck, not the CPU. Your Pentium 4 @ 2.4Ghz CAN give you 30 FPS in Oblivion, but your GPU can't.

And I suppose you have a GTX and Pentium 4 and you have tested all this to come to this conclusion? I doubt it, as the other poster said you are just talking bull and insulting people who tell you that you are wrong. If you didnt want to hear that you shouldnt of mentioned it.

Pentium 4 will NOT play games within a year at all, BECAUSE theya re being made to run optimized on dual core by spreading all the things that need doing between them, and a single core cannot do so many things at once, therefor it wont work!

How were we supposed to understand that when you said "A Pentium 4 WILL run every game that is currently out at at least 60 FPS, but 30 is all you need," what you really meant was that you need to pair it with a top graphics card to meet your claims. This is the first time you even brought up the topic of graphics cards.

I don't have any benchmarks or testing results of a P4 and various graphics cards... so lets use the nice VGA charts Tom's Hardware refreshed yesterday. Darn, they used a Core 2 Extreme x6800, one of the most powerful CPU's available today, so if that CPU and an 8800 Ultra can't keep 30 FPS across all games, you know anything lesser won't be able to either. (and to make myself perfectally clear: a P4 gets owned by a core 2 duo/extreme in every performance benchmark)

Oblivion: ES4 (Outdoors): 1024x768, no AA, Trilinear filtering, max quality: only the 8800 GTX and Ultra break 60FPS, but not much room to spare.

Oblivion: ES4 (Outdoors): 1280x1024, no AA, 8x AF, Trilinear filtering, max quality: Nope, nothing above 60FPS (Ultra only manages 45FPS)

Warhammer MOC: 1024x768, 4x AA, 8x AF, Max quality: No dice again, 8800Ultra tops out at 46FPS

MS Flight Sim X @ 1024x768, no AA, Trilinear filtering, Ultra quality: 24.1FPS is the highest of all video cards.

Take a close look at the MS flight sim results: Notice how every GPU from a 7800GT to the 8800Ultra all fall within a 5% range (22.9-24.1 FPS). That is a clear indicator that the GPU is not the bottleneck for this test (which usually means the CPU is). So if you tried using a much slower CPU (like a P4) these results will be even lower, and since they topped out at 24FPS with the top CPU/GPU combo, no way using a slower CPU is going to more than double the FPS to reach your 60+ claim.

And don't gripe to me about they only tested with high quality video settings. If you want to play the latest generation of games (and have them look like the latest and greatest) you can't just turn off every graphics enhancement - or you might as well go back to space invaders, Wolfenstein 3D, or maybe even some pac-man to spice it up a little.

Menetlaus, you are just too stupid for words.
How the heck could you run a game without a graphics card? It's the thing that does all the freaking work!

No, you may not be able to get 60 FPS in every game because the GPU is too weak, but that DOES NOT mean that if you had a GPU powerful enough and ran it with a Pentium 4, that it wouldnt work.

The point is that the Pentium 4 CAN pass on 60 FPS to the GPU for it to render. If the GPU can't do that, thats not the CPU's fault, you moron.

And I don't know whats wrong with Flight Simulator X, but I would bet you that it would work just as well with a Dual-Core as with a Quad-Core, so thats for your theory of the CPU holding it back.

And how the hell do you know that!


I swear you are just making it up!


You are saying with a graphics card that doesnt even exist and likely wont that that card used with a penitum 4 will run a game at 60fps, I mean wtf.


Have you even listened to youreself or are you now just arguing for the sake of it?


Also, you seem to have no idea of how far CPU overclocks so Im going to laugh because you're in for great dissapointment when yours keeps crashing.

Ha.

Track: What I said was *you* said nothing about a needing a high end graphics card in your claim that a P4 can run evey game at 60+ FPS. I do not know how you turned that into me saying you could run every game without any sort of graphics card. What I had initially assumed you were including a GPU that would have been purchased at the same time as the computer (like the 9700 Pro that I bought with my P4), not putting the latest and greatest (8800Ultra) into a 4 year old system.

I should turn that around and say your "computer" made from a P4 CPU and 8800GTX graphics card won't work either, since you need a motherboard, ram, hard drive, power supply, monitor, keyboard, and mouse for the computer to actually work. But I had assumed that they (like a graphics card) was included in the system.

Let me quote you: "No, you may not be able to get 60 FPS in every game because the GPU is too weak, but that DOES NOT mean that if you had a GPU powerful enough and ran it with a Pentium 4, that it wouldnt work."

I am going to assume you agree that the 8800Ultra is the most powerful GPU available (retail) today, but feel free to dispute this too. In my previous post I showed you three games where the most powerful GPU you can go out and buy today (the 8800Ultra) can't get 60 FPS (and in some cases not even 30 FPS).

You might aswell drop it mate he wouldnt believe you even if you got the entire Intel design team to shout it in his face.

Oh, and Track, please don't reply to my previous post. I only have one question that I want you to answer and here it is:

From Tom's VGA charts:

Why do an 8800 Ultra and an x6800 top out at 24FPS in Flight Sim X, or 45 FPS in Warhammer and Oblivion.

There are three possibilities that I can think of:
1) Is the best GPU you can buy not powerful enough to make your claim of 60FPS?
2) Was one of the top dual-core CPU's to blame for this poor showing? 3) or was something else flawed in those tests?

Please pick one of the above reasons and explain why no testing (on the charts I mentioned) gave results above 60FPS when you claim it's possible with a much older CPU and the same graphics cards.