New Processor for me

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[Groundfire]

Its payday and I have delegated money for a new CPU processor.

I got $150- $175 to spend on this thing.

My socket is LGA 775.

Any suggestions?

Im looking at the Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 Yorkfield 2.5 GHz quadcore, atm.

I order in a few hours. anyone know of anything better or have any feedback on the one i listed.

It would help me in my research.

[CafeMilani]

ask bigdick

[Groundfire]

I will be overclocking this btw, so i dont need the CPU with the highest clock speed. I can just shoot it up there when I get it.

the Q8400 is 2.6 Ghz base, but its like $30 more than the Q8300. Not worth it when im just gonna be overclocking past that with not much more OC improvement possible between the two.

Im looking at newegg primarily. if anyone saw this cheaper anywhere else, let me know

[LeoPhone]

maybe u should get a dualcore.

games usually dont use 4 cores, so it more depends on the processor speed.

you can get a 3.3 GHz dualcore for the same price, and your performance will be much better.

im using a 3 ghz dualcore, and i can run the game at max graphics 1920x1080.
only when i turn videos or xfire broadcast on i start to see my cpu is at 100%

so ehh, since you kinda do that stuff all the time, maybe quadcore is better  

[Groundfire]

I frequently CPU bottleneck my Core 2 duo 2.6Ghz.

Its gonna be a quad core. no turning back now.

only when i turn videos or xfire broadcast on i start to see my cpu is at 100%

yeah, i do this stuff all the time. for recording and streaming, i need the 4 cores.

[wildsolus]

really isn't another choice besides the q8300 unless your board is amd compatible

[Grundwaffe]

maybe u should get a dualcore.

games usually dont use 4 cores, so it more depends on the processor speed.

you can get a 3.3 GHz dualcore for the same price, and your performance will be much better.

im using a 3 ghz dualcore, and i can run the game at max graphics 1920x1080.
only when i turn videos or xfire broadcast on i start to see my cpu is at 100%

so ehh, since you kinda do that stuff all the time, maybe quadcore is better  

Lucky mo--beeper.. i can do everything besides resolution, that sounds epic.

[Killer344]

If you can't afford a high end quad like a Q9550/Q9650 don't waste your time with them, just get a E8400/E8500, for two reasons:


 1st- Pretty much all games use 2 cores only, so most of the time the CPU with the highest frequency will have the edge. The x-fire broadcast encoder uses the VGA only (I upgraded my E8400 to a Q9550 and there was exactly 0% difference, but when I changed the VGA it was a world of difference). CoH doesn't need more than that, when I was broadcasting it rarely had spikes of more than 50% load on both cores, the quad keeps it steady at around 25%. FRAPS or any kind of program like that records the file without any compression (the CPU load is minimum), so a RAID setup will probably help you more :p, you don't need it anyway.

 2nd- Overclocking a quad ain't easy, the E8400 can be OC'd easily to 3.6ghz without raising the vcore, to get to 4ghz, a slight bump is enough. To reach 4ghz with a quad you need to know how to tune GTL voltage references, skew clocks, etc. It's also heavily dependant on the quality of the VID.. so if you get a mediocre one, you may waste weeks trying to get to such speed. The vdroop and vdrop can also become an issue on quads, even some high end mothers like most of the P5Q series from Asus have troubles dealing with it (my P5Q-E has 0.05v vdrop + 0.05 vdroop = 0.1v!!, I have it set to 1.48v on the bios but it goes down to 1.38v when I put it under heavy load). The temperatures are also a major issue on any quad, to cool the E8400 pretty much any decent cooler will do, to reach 4ghz on a Q9550 you need a high end air cooler like a Scythe Mugen or a watercooler.

 So.. to sum it up, if you can't reach 4ghz, get a dual core. Before changing mine I ran bechmarks on the E8400 (working at 4ghz) and it smoked away the Q9550 (working at 3ghz), the only exceptions were Far Cry 2 and Bad Company 2.

[Phil]

wtf... I didn't know there was someone who knew stuff around. I'm gonna have to have a talk with u there Killer =)

[Tymathee]

wtf... I didn't know there was someone who knew stuff around. I'm gonna have to have a talk with u there Killer =)

same here, i'm gonna be buggin ya in da future killer when i need advice

[wildsolus]

which p5q board you have killer? from your post, your build looks very similar to mine

[Lai]

This is too much thinking. What happened to: what CPU will give me most muscle for my money?

[Groundfire]

Yeah, what killer just said was nearly gibberish to me.

Already ordered Q8300. Found a promo code for $10 off.

Anywho, all i know is that with my duel monitors going, SLI GPUs running, xfire, vent, fraps, etc. going on at the same time I regularly see my CPU usage go straight to 100%.

I feel that I ought to edit my post where I said I had a Core 2 duo 2.6 Ghz. It's been OCed to that for so long I just refer to it as such.

The CPU I have right now is a 3 year old Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13 Ghz, which ive OCed to 2.6

My mobo has OCing presets which I use and never bothered figuring out how to do it manually through the votage, (FSB is locked. meh)

but yeah, what I got is a relic fossil, and ive pretty much beat the fuck outta it. If I want to future proof my rig alittle longer might as well go to the very end of the range of CPUs my mobo can handle.

[BigDick]

If you can't afford a high end quad like a Q9550/Q9650 don't waste your time with them, just get a E8400/E8500, for two reasons:

i would not even spent much money anymore into a S775 System, so a cheap Quad (like q8300) is imho a better option then a Q9550
even when the core2 architecture relies strongly on caching where the q8300 just gets 2x2mb and the Q9550 gets 2x6mb
i don't know how the prices in south america but in germany the Q8300 is actually even cheaper then the E8400

1st- Pretty much all games use 2 cores only,
...
 2nd- Overclocking a quad ain't easy, the E8400 can be OC'd easily to 3.6ghz without raising the vcore, to get to 4ghz, a slight bump is enough. To reach 4ghz with a quad you need to know how to tune GTL voltage references, skew clocks, etc. It's also heavily dependant on the quality of the VID.. so if you get a mediocre one, you may waste weeks trying to get to such speed.

most use just up to 2 cores thats true, but for video encoding he does much better using a quad
only problem of the core2quad architecture is that they are no native quads like 4 cores communicating using shared caching or an internal bus system like hypertransfer or qpi, but 2 core2duo put together
thats why the the scaling of multi threaded applications is strongly limited by the front side bus since the 2x2Cores need to communicate using it. (not to mention that the FSB is anyways the bottleneck in newer CPUs without integrated memory controller

when he overclocks a bigger amount he need to focus on FSB and an adequate board with enough settings an and a bit luck with the chipset on board to reach as high FSB as he can

The vdroop and vdrop can also become an issue on quads, even some high end mothers like most of the P5Q series from Asus have troubles dealing with it (my P5Q-E has 0.05v vdrop + 0.05 vdroop = 0.1v!!, I have it set to 1.48v on the bios but it goes down to 1.38v when I put it under heavy load).

what you call "vdroop" is an intended effect by the load line to compensate that vcore spikes that build up by load switches
furthermore the silicium gets hotter under load what means it get more conductive and there will be a higher current flow caused by temperature that needs to be compensated by lowering the vcore
so its no thing someone need to worry about

So.. to sum it up, if you can't reach 4ghz, get a dual core. Before changing mine I ran bechmarks on the E8400 (working at 4ghz) and it smoked away the Q9550 (working at 3ghz), the only exceptions were Far Cry 2 and Bad Company 2.

there are GTAIV and Anno1404 that are profiting from quadcores
and i'm sure a bunch of more

since the Q8300 is cheaper then the E8400 here and @default with 2.5Ghz in average in games as fast as the E8400 and in video encoding it wipes the floor, so i would not recommend to buy an E8400 anymore

actually i wouldn't even recommend to spend money in a S775 System only exception when next time is realy not enough money left for buying board and ram too

so the quick and dirty solution without spending many bucks is indeed a small quadcore and try to OC it as far as you can get (try to get a high FSB)

[Phil]

Ok now I'm scared.


Gogo someone put together a build (CPU GPU Mobo RAM) for me with a ~750$ budget

[Killer344]

i would not even spent much money anymore into a S775 System, so a cheap Quad (like q8300) is imho a better option then a Q9550

 Depends on your build, if you already have a good mb, vga, ram, but you bought a dual core why would you change everything again? Considering a Q9550 working at 4ghz holds its ground vs an i7 920 working at the same speed. Sure it may beat it on some synthetic benchmarks but on real applications the difference is low and on games both are overkill already. The i7 will only make a difference with a SLi/Crossfire setup.

even when the core2 architecture relies strongly on caching where the q8300 just gets 2x2mb and the Q9550 gets 2x6mb
i don't know how the prices in south america but in germany the Q8300 is actually even cheaper then the E8400

 They cost about the same, and it makes sense, the E8400 architecture is just better, on dual core applications (almost all of them ) the extra hertz and better chip leaves the Q8300 behind, and on the few quad friendly ones it isn't too far from the Q8300. If you factor in OC capability, it only gets better for the E8400. It doesn't require so much power neither a high quality cooler, you can bump it 600mhz without raising the vcore or buying a new cooler, you don't even need to test it for stability because all the E8400's revisions/VIDs can do it with no problem.
 To do something like that on the quad you'll need average knowledge and a good amount of time. To reach something along the lines of 4ghz on the E8400, you only need a couple of hours (or days depending on how much free time you have) and basic knowledge about OC. To push further a quad you need a high quality cooler/PSU, and be quite an expert because a slightly bad set GTL voltage, skewed clock can be enough to render the entire system un-stable or un-responsive.

most use just up to 2 cores thats true, but for video encoding he does much better using a quad
only problem of the core2quad architecture is that they are no native quads like 4 cores communicating using shared caching or an internal bus system like hypertransfer or qpi, but 2 core2duo put together
thats why the the scaling of multi threaded applications is strongly limited by the front side bus since the 2x2Cores need to communicate using it. (not to mention that the FSB is anyways the bottleneck in newer CPUs without integrated memory controller

when he overclocks a bigger amount he need to focus on FSB and an adequate board with enough settings an and a bit luck with the chipset on board to reach as high FSB as he can

 It depends on personal preference.. I would take the extra FPS on games, 5 or 10 extra minutes to encode a video wouldn't make any real difference for me =P.

what you call "vdroop" is an intended effect by the load line to compensate that vcore spikes that build up by load switches
furthermore the silicium gets hotter under load what means it get more conductive and there will be a higher current flow caused by temperature that needs to be compensated by lowering the vcore
so its no thing someone need to worry about

Considering that the peak overshoot voltage (Voffset) is about 0.02v on all Q9xxx...

 Don't you think is quite noticeable it stopped being an "intended effect" a long time ago? High end MBs from Gigabyte prove it, they can handle quads with a 0.025v vdroop. Theory also proves that Asus MBs should not be capable of handling it effectively, more phases only spreads the load, board design makes the difference.
 It's something to pay attention at if you care about OCing.

since the Q8300 is cheaper then the E8400 here and @default with 2.5Ghz in average in games as fast as the E8400 and in video encoding it wipes the floor, so i would not recommend to buy an E8400 anymore

 Before swapping the CPUs, I ran bechmarks on all the games I had, I set the e8400 to the max frequency without raising the vcore (3.6ghz) and set the Q9550 to 3ghz. It smoked away the Q9550 on almost all games and performed just as well on the quad friendly games. OCing (to 4ghz) the quad was a nightmare that took me weeks, to get the E8400 working at 4.1ghz I only needed a couple of days.
 The q8300 is just a tad faster on video encoding, and tbh I really don't see why you would give up performance on real time applications (games) to encode a video a couple of minutes faster... but that's just personal preference.

actually i wouldn't even recommend to spend money in a S775 System only exception when next time is realy not enough money left for buying board and ram too

 I doubt it, my Q9550 keeps up vs a i7 920 working at the same speed on all games, it's funny because my E8400 used to do the same excluding the few quad friendly games. I did several in depth benchmarks with a hd 5850 before changing the CPU.

so the quick and dirty solution without spending many bucks is indeed a small quadcore and try to OC it as far as you can get (try to get a high FSB)

Considering how low its multiplier is, it really doesn't have too much room for OC.

[Killer344]

wtf... I didn't know there was someone who knew stuff around. I'm gonna have to have a talk with u there Killer =)

Just give me a list of places/websites you can buy stuff from, I have no clue about hardware prices on Europe  .

which p5q board you have killer? from your post, your build looks very similar to mine

P5Q-E, Q9550, HD 5850, 4GB G-Skill 1100mhz.

This is too much thinking. What happened to: what CPU will give me most muscle for my money?

If you want something good and cheap, get a Phenom II 945.

[Phil]

I'm planning to get a friend from the US to buy it and send it to me. The added cost of shipping will be less than the VAT, and well.. Taxes suck =o So newegg or any other store that ships in the US will be fine. THB I don't know any others

[BigDick]

Depends on your build, if you already have a good mb, vga, ram, but you bought a dual core why would you change everything again?

because a Q9550 is in price almost as much as e.g. a LGA1156 mainboard+Core i5 750
and as said its very limited by FSB and scales bad running multithreaded applications

thats why an cheap investment for a Q8300 is ok but for the expensive Q9550 is a waste imho

Considering a Q9550 working at 4ghz holds its ground vs an i7 920 working at the same speed. Sure it may beat it on some synthetic benchmarks but on real applications the difference is low and on games both are overkill already. The i7 will only make a difference with a SLi/Crossfire setup.

nah there is a difference its just that most games are limited by GPU

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/50?vs=108

source: http://www.hardware.fr/articles/778-1/comparatif-geant-146-processeurs-intel-amd.html


http://666kb.com/i/bjtmgni88iu34u2s6.jpg
http://666kb.com/i/bjtmh2ii96o8tgnti.jpg

and if you buy a cpu you will mostly keep it 2 years or something
that's why i would think twice if i buy a DualCore CPU and i would think twice if i spend 230++€ (283$) into a Q9550 when i get a Q8300 for a bit more than the half

It depends on personal preference.. I would take the extra FPS on games, 5 or 10 extra minutes to encode a video wouldn't make any real difference for me =P.

but there are more and more games comming out that make use of quadcores
i don't think he buys his CPU for just a week or something

Considering that the peak overshoot voltage (Voffset) is about 0.02v on all Q9xxx...

 Don't you think is quite noticeable it stopped being an "intended effect" a long time ago? High end MBs from Gigabyte prove it, they can handle quads with a 0.025v vdroop. Theory also proves that Asus MBs should not be capable of handling it effectively, more phases only spreads the load, board design makes the difference.
 It's something to pay attention at if you care about OCing.

It is intended trust me

for further informations about load line and vdroop consult the intel technical datasheets

http://download.intel.com/design/processor/datashts/318726.pdf

page 22 and following

before you buy a cpu you should make sure that it is on the supported CPU list of your mainboard to make sure there is an up to date bios provided and the vrm circuitry is able to handle it

to use something like "load line calibration" in bios of some 1337 OC boards where the vrm circuts pump more voltage into your CPU than the load line intends will give your CPU some "nice" little voltage peaks that are way higher than the vcore you set up

Considering how low its multiplier is, it really doesn't have too much room for OC.

depends on the board how much OC you will get for the Q8300 but since its the only cheap S775 Quad and it benefits most from its FSB its ok for the price i bet

[tank130]

Ya, but.......ummmmm..................nvm