What kind of improvement can I expect from upgrade?

[HoochShepherd]

Ok, so I realize this is kinda a dumb question but...
I just recently did a budget upgrade on my PC... First did the MB, GPU, and ram... Then recently bought the CPU. Got a 750i SLI, GTX 260, 4 gigs of 1066 Ram. The processor was/is an old Pentim D 930, and I just bought a Q9550.

As its been for the past month the PD has been working out fine. Have been playing games etc just fine. The games obviously run better than on my old Nvidia 6800. My question is this....

How much of an improvement can/should I expect? I assume as it now I'm probably getting some bottlenecking, but not really sure how to tell if/how much.

 

[bige420]

Well, considering a Pentium D at 3.2Ghz barely keeps up with a very low end Core 2 duo at around 1.8ghz, you would see a very noticeable improvement.

 

[wuzy]

Hard to quantify unless you're comparing with the same game using the same resolution and graphic detail.

Using your upgrade as an example. You would've seen playing something like FarCry2 @1680x1050 + max. detail impossible on your previous setup (probably below 5FPS), but with your new setup you would have no problem getting at least 50FPS on avg.
If it's for an older game like UT2004 the difference is probably barely noticeable if both setups produced playable framerates.

 

[rooseveltdon]

It will be a VERY noticeable improvement,several newer games would not have been able to be maxed out or played on high due to the processor limiting the graphics,the q9950 is one of the best quads there is, you will be able to multi task like never before and no new games will give you any trouble as long as you play within the resolutions that favor the gtx 260 (1920x1200) so you will definitely see a massive improvement.

 

[hundredislandsboy]

You should already be seeing a remarkable performance gain especially if you were doing photo and video rendering.

 

[Winly]

its a big improvement, you can tell the difference.

 

[HoochShepherd]

Any idea of like PC marks?

God, I'm such a little kid on Christmas... I'm seriously not sure I can wait the 4-5 days till it gets here.. Shoulda overnighted it.