Q6600 paired with a 5870 ?

[bhamx2]

I'l keep it short and sweet how will my q6600 2.4 GHz stack up against future games when paired with a 5870 ?

At the moment I have the q6600 paired with a 3870x2 and 4 GB of RAM.

The 3870x2 still does a good job at handling newish games at high settings (BC2 50+ , MW2 70 +, ME2 60+, Empire 40+)

However it's starting to diminish when heavy shadow and lighting effects are in play ( SSAO in Napoleon Total War, DX10 light shafts in Call of Prypiat etc )

Basically before long I think its going to start falling on its arse when Crysis 2, newer Total War games, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood etc

Any advice would be welcome

 

[Proximon]

You could get a big boost out of an overclock. The next gen of Intel CPUs should be a nice upgrade.... so maybe get by for 6 months or so with a good OC.

 

[jonh1974]

I agree... if you can get an OC to about 3.2 you will see a significant improvement from the 5870

 

[unknown_13]

Just OC the Q6600 to 3GHz, and paired with the 5870, it should give you pretty good performance in the long run. Q6600 is still strong.

 

[sportsfanboy]

Yes you will have to overclock to 3.0 or higher, or you will be bottle necking the 5870.

My q6600 was the bottleneck for my gtx 285, until around 3100ghz.

 

[unknown_13]

Yes you will have to overclock to 3.0 or higher, or you will be bottle necking the 5870.

My q6600 was the bottleneck for my gtx 285, until around 3100ghz.

I think that Nvidia cards usually tend to grab more juice from the CPU that their ATI counterparts.

 

[sportsfanboy]

^ How would that work? Nvidia's slower memory latency?

 

[sportsfanboy]

Disregard it's probably a driver thing

 

[unknown_13]

Disregard it's probably a driver thing

Probably yes.

 

[bhamx2]

Yes you will have to overclock to 3.0 or higher, or you will be bottle necking the 5870.

My q6600 was the bottleneck for my gtx 285, until around 3100ghz.

My pc at the moment is a dell xps 420 (x38 mobo) so will i be able to overclock the q6600 ?

 

[sportsfanboy]

Most pre-made pc's have locked bios, so most likely not.

 

[Proximon]

Well, look into it. You would need a good cooler obviously but some of those Dell XPS had pretty good boards as I recall.

 

[fleakiller]

I have a Q6600 @3.4 with a 5870 it runs good

 

[werxen]

My pc at the moment is a dell xps 420 (x38 mobo) so will i be able to overclock the q6600 ?

Yes you can - google "electrical tape q6600 overclock"

Also, Q6600 is a shitty processor. Was crap when it came out, and is worse now. Everyone got a Q6600 because "games/programs will use more cores soon just you wait!"

Now in 2010 we are just barely hitting parallel processing past 3 cores and we have 32nm processors that make the Q6600 look like a Pentium 4 - which it is. 65nm, power hungry, room heater and very inefficient.

Look at current benchmarks: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/53?vs=109

Besides that, I would agree overclocking is the way to go but you are really doing a disservice to your gaming by packing such an outdated weak sauce CPU. I still hate anyone and everyone who proposed a Q6600 was beneficial for gaming when it came out. My E8500 still smokes the Q6600 in games while remaining cool and less power hungry.

Anyways /rant about Q6600 being so awful. Overclock it but ditch it soon. Don't need that thing in your house anymore.

 

[rand_79]

I have a q6600 its easily overclockable to 3ghz.. most get to 3.2+

on my motherboard i basically bumped all the voltages up 1 notch..
and changed the FSB from 266 to 400 and the multiplier from 9x to 8x

been rock solid at 3.2ghz for over 2 years now. Max overclock i did was 3.6 but i had to bump the voltage too much and I didnt like it going to 88C on prime95

also make sure you have an aftermarket cooler.. the stock q6600 retail box cooler kinda blows. although even with the stock cooler you should be able to easily hit 2.8

finally, are you sure its your video cards bottlenecking? some of the newer games arent 4 thread friendly... those video cards were pretty beast in the day.. might want to just OC the processor and wait abit for 6xxx ati series. or a pair of 460's


ps. the q6600 isnt really bad, although for games that use 1.2 cores it needs a hefty OC to be competitive.

if there are no OC options you are better off selling that computer and building a new one.

 

[sportsfanboy]

His problem is that his bios might be a locked. Maybe a hacked bios is available or maybe if he can find out what the mobo is, then flash to an unlocked version.

 

[enzo matrix]

^wow based on that link, it holds up better than I expected against the i5.

BTW they use a GTX 280 for their benchmarks.

So I agree that the Q6600's low clockspeed will be what will hold you back in games. However, that said, upgrading to a 5870 will still certainly increase your FPS and gaming ability.

That said, If you intend to keep the computer setup for a long time, I would recommend getting overclocking or getting a new CPU/motherboard/RAM. This all depends on your budget. I believe a new 5870 will be worth the price regardless if your CPU holds you back some. That said, if you want to keep your system more balanced, you could opt for a cheaper GTX460 1GB.

Regardless of what route you choose, since you have an OEM machine, you almost certainly will need a new and better power supply to support the 5870, unless you already upgraded the power supply to support your dual 3870s.

 

[Proximon]

My E8500 still smokes the Q6600 in games while remaining cool and less power hungry.

Anyways /rant about Q6600 being so awful. Overclock it but ditch it soon. Don't need that thing in your house anymore.

Well, the rant was entertaining if a bit extreme

It's true though, I've seen my moderately overclocked E8400 next to a stock Q6600 and in most gaming situations the Wolfdale wins easily.

 

[sportsfanboy]

^he's running a 3870x2 so I think he'll be ok with power.

 

[sportsfanboy]

As long as he runs a single card that is, no gtx 480 or 5970.

 

[enzo matrix]

As long as he runs a single card that is, no gtx 480 or 5970.

GTX480 is a single card. Still, I agree it draws too much power. 2 3870s are 210W TDP.

 

[sportsfanboy]

I thought it was a duel PCB in one package, my mistake. So Nvidia hasn't released a double Fermi card?

 

[enzo matrix]

I thought it was a duel PCB in one package, my mistake. So Nvidia hasn't released a double Fermi card?

Nope, they haven't. The GTX480 is a stripped down version of their originally intended single graphics chip card. Because of heat and power issues. Alone, the GTX480 has a TDP of 250W. The dual chip 5970 draws under 300W. No way Nvidia could get dual chip into the power limits of PCI-e with two 6pin power adapters.

 

[andrern2000]

Well, the Q6600 is very easy to overclock-stable. Also, when it reaches >3.0 Ghz it can compete with other processors with similar clock, but it has four-cores advantage.

-=EDIT=-
I mean 'other processors'= Core 2 Duos.

 

[werxen]

^wow based on that link, it holds up better than I expected against the i5.

BTW they use a GTX 280 for their benchmarks.

So I agree that the Q6600's low clockspeed will be what will hold you back in games. However, that said, upgrading to a 5870 will still certainly increase your FPS and gaming ability.

That said, If you intend to keep the computer setup for a long time, I would recommend getting overclocking or getting a new CPU/motherboard/RAM. This all depends on your budget. I believe a new 5870 will be worth the price regardless if your CPU holds you back some. That said, if you want to keep your system more balanced, you could opt for a cheaper GTX460 1GB.

Regardless of what route you choose, since you have an OEM machine, you almost certainly will need a new and better power supply to support the 5870, unless you already upgraded the power supply to support your dual 3870s.

It only "holds up better" because of the 8MB L3 cache. Besides that, any overclock applied to the Q6600 can be applied to opposing processor and still hold a ridiculous lead. While the Q6600 might be able to hit 3.4, a 920 will be able to hit 4.2. You do the math - its already faster stock vs. stock.