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Core2Quad : vs i3 and gpu bottleneck.

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Hello everyone!
I have a Core2Quad Q9300, 2.5 GHz with 4GB DDR3 RAM and NVidia GT 440 graphic card. (a dell precision T3400 with ram increased and graphic card added). I have a couple of questions about it.

1. Is my graphic card a bottleneck? If yes how far can I go to upgrade , in Nvidia or ATI cards, before it becomes more than my cpu can handle?

2. In applications programmed for quad cores e.g Battlefield3 or Bad Company 2, will my quad core perform better than a dual core corei3, say the 2100K, if the graphic card, ram etc were the same for both?

Thanks in advance.

More about : core2quad gpu bottleneck

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Pass on the bottleneck. Not a gamer. The quad core would be faster than a dual core with hyperthreading (two real cores + two locgilcal cores) but the 2100 has a faster clock rate. Most gamers will probably say you are best off with what you have a quad core. The graphic card could be the same, ram etc would not be as the MB platform would be different. Some places the 2100 would shine, but probably not in multicore games.
CPUs Authority
Graphics card Expert

The C2Q are roughly equivalent to the Phenom II series, so while getting on, they aren't obsolete yet. The GPU will struggle in games though, as a 440 is low-midrange at best.
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You definitely need a new GPU. Get the best one you can afford. Dont worry about the CPU not being able to keep up because while it will give you less performance than say a 2500K, itll still give you better performance than what youve got now. A GTX680 with your current processor will still far outperform a GTX560 with your C2Q. So get the best GPU you can right now and then when you finally upgrade your motherboard and CPU, youll be set for video card.

Thanks for the replies.

axe1592 said:
You definitely need a new GPU. Get the best one you can afford. Dont worry about the CPU not being able to keep up because while it will give you less performance than say a 2500K, itll still give you better performance than what youve got now. A GTX680 with your current processor will still far outperform a GTX560 with your C2Q. So get the best GPU you can right now and then when you finally upgrade your motherboard and CPU, youll be set for video card.


So I can go as far as I can afford with the gpu before my cpu becomes a bottleneck?

@MegaMan1, @recon-uk my idea of dual vs quad core is that a programme that can use all quad cores at 2.5ghz will perform as if it is using a processor at 9-10ghz while a dual core i3 with its two physical cores at 3.1ghz will be like 6.2ghz to programmes that can utilize its two cores. So despite the technical improvements in i3 a core2quad would be much faster in the newer games that can use all the four cores.
Is this how it really works?
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