# Is Q6600 enough for upcoming games?



## Krazy Owl (Aug 23, 2012)

I have this Q6600 and wondered if it will be enough for upcoming games in the future? 

I know it's slower than what is on the market now but still I'm asking since it's a QuadCore. 

Is it suitable for Battlefield 3, COD Black Ops and other games like that? Will it work well for future games as long as I have a good videocard? 

Thank you!


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## Hayder_Master (Aug 23, 2012)

first 2.4ghz not enough overclock to 3.2 at least will be ok, and if u like the performance using this CPU with your system in BF3 it mean it's ok for upcaming games in this year.
in fact i see u need to upgrade GPU first, did u really run BF3 on 8600GT ?


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 23, 2012)

Nope I've never played before. Just BF2 multiplayer.


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## Mussels (Aug 23, 2012)

Krazy Owl said:


> I have this Q6600 and wondered if it will be enough for upcoming games in the future?
> 
> I know it's slower than what is on the market now but still I'm asking since it's a QuadCore.
> 
> ...



not for much longer, no. OC'd to 3.2GHz (quite easy with those chips, i used to own a few) it will last another year or so.


more cores does not always mean more performance.


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 23, 2012)

Ok it answer my question.


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## Mussels (Aug 23, 2012)

that said, your 8600GT is going to hold you back far, far more than the q6600 would.


If you;'re looking at upgrading the system, i'd say video card first, then overclock, and then looking into a new system later, re-using the video card.


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## brandonwh64 (Aug 23, 2012)

The 65nm process in which its built on is the holding feature. newer 45/32/22 NM CPUs will out perform it tremendously. 

Even a cheap Phenom II 965 will murder it in games.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=53


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## AlienIsGOD (Aug 23, 2012)

or a used Q9000 series (12MB cache ones)  they can run BF3 pretty decently still.


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## JrRacinFan (Aug 23, 2012)

Even an i3 21xx could prove it's worth over the q6600 in a heavy gaming/surfing environment. Wouldn't need an expensive board to do the switch.


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## Bo$$ (Aug 23, 2012)

nope, mine is at 2.4ghz, it's fine for anything my brother plays.


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## Benetanegia (Aug 23, 2012)

@OP

Like others said, OC it to 3.2 Ghz and it will be fine. IMO it will last you 2 more years. The Q6600 was almost high-end CPU when it launched, the stock clock being the only difference. OC it to 3.2 and bam, high-end. Your GPU on the other hand, was mid-range and a severely crippled mid-range card, even at the time. Any modern mid-range GPU will offer much better performance (regardless of the CPU used) AND at the same time, it still be your bottleneck in new games.



JrRacinFan said:


> Even an i3 21xx could prove it's worth over the q6600 in a heavy gaming/surfing environment. Wouldn't need an expensive board to do the switch.



Upgrading the system can be expensive for very little gains, look at his current GPU. He's not likely to buy a $300 GPU which are the kind of GPU that benefits from fast cores. And an i3 is not much of an upgrade. It's faster for current lightly threaded games, granted, but next gen games which will need more CPU power are likely to be better threaded at the same time, so while the Q6600 might not cut it to play on high/ultra settings, the i3 won't cut it either. IMO the only worthwhile upgrade for him is going with at least an i5.

I personally upgraded from a Q6600 to a 2500k, both stock (the Q6600 was giving problems at the time so back @stock) and got an average 15% performance increase on my GTX460, so yeah there is something to be gained, but it's not night and day either. I also couldn't test a Q6600 @3.2 Ghz vs the SB, and I suspect the difference would be smaller, because performance was definitely better on the CDQ when running @3.2 Ghz.

And that being said the Q6600 @stock is still playing 95% of new games along with a 9800 GTX+, of course at reduced settings, but that's goign to be case with the OP. 

The whole point is that unless you have a relatively high-end GPU and thus you're gonna play on very high settings, a new CPU is not going to be of any value until he gets a much much better GPU. Your gaming esperience is going to be bound to what your GPU can offer and will become the bottleneck a lot sooner that your CPU will.


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## JrRacinFan (Aug 23, 2012)

Benetanegia said:


> I personally upgraded from a Q6600 to a 2500k, both stock (the Q6600 was giving problems at the time so back @stock) and got an average 15% performance increase on my GTX460, so yeah there is something to be gained, but it's not night and day either.



For me going from an i5 655k over to the i3 2120 alone netted a good 25% bump with SLI GTX460's(which I no longer have).


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 23, 2012)

I'll go back to AMD if I plan to upgrade. I'm not a big gamer so far. Maybe stay with an APU for a while. best bang for the buck with 6550 IGP on these APU.


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## brandonwh64 (Aug 23, 2012)

Krazy Owl said:


> I'll go back to AMD if I plan to upgrade. I'm not a big gamer so far. Maybe stay with an APU for a while. best bang for the buck with 6550 IGP on these APU.



TBH if your not a gamer then stay Q6600. You asked gaming wise performance.


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 23, 2012)

Yes I asked about the cpu itself but not for upgrades for me. I'm not much into gaming. Except for BF2 multiplayer that's about it.


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## brandonwh64 (Aug 23, 2012)

Krazy Owl said:


> Yes I asked about the cpu itself but not for upgrades for me. I'm not much into gaming. Except for BF2 multiplayer that's about it.



Then stay were you're at and save money.


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 23, 2012)

I'm really going for APU next time. The Q6600 would have been to sell for my cousin who wanted a cheap setup.


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## JrRacinFan (Aug 23, 2012)

Krazy Owl said:


> I'm really going for APU next time. The Q6600 would have been to sell for my cousin who wanted a cheap setup.



If you're wanting to go with an APU , not going to persuade you, but Trinity does look interesting.


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## Benetanegia (Aug 23, 2012)

Coincidence or destiny? idk, but today TechReport released an article about CPU performance on games. It's not very extense (only 4 games) and sadly no Core2Q on the tests, but it's still worth taking a look. iirc highly clocked C2Q were on par with high members of the Phenom II X4 family. It's with a HD7950 so any card slower than that would benefit less from faster CPUs.

In general the differences are higher than I expected tbh, with the exception of BF3 which has only minor differences, the biggest surprise to me considering its fame.

Although it's also true that 2 of the games, Skyrim and Batman use really old engines, which are also known to benefit a lot from faster CPUs because of the several tricks they use in order to try and emulate graphics of more modern engines. In Crysis and BF3 all CPUs do a better job at keeping up the pace, especially on the 99th percentile metric, which is arguably the most important one for a CPU. It means that lowest framerates are kept high 99% of the time.


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## hat (Aug 23, 2012)

Nothing wrong with the Q6600. Extreme overclockers in the hayday of the Q6600 would run theirs as high as 4GHz! Don't expect it to have any longevity at that speed, though. I recommend pushing the FSB as high as it can go while staying around the "sweet spot" anywhere between 3.2-3.6GHz, depending on how comfortable you are with the voltage level, temps, and power draw. This way you can maximize the speed of the link of the processor with the rest of the system and chip away at the sluggishness of the old, slow QDR FSB bus. I would also recommend lapping the processor, especially since the Q6600 is 2 dual core dies strapped together on one chip. Remove the "extreme" highs and lows of the IHS surface (compared to microscopic imperfections you just can't get rid of) and make the IHS as flat as possible so you get better contact between the cooler and processor.


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 24, 2012)

I'm not really into lapping so I'll stick it it like that. It won't be for me anyway. From what I see of the test I might go with the A8 FM1 socket. If it plays Skyrim well then Battlefield 2 and my older games are gonna run pretty well.


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## TRWOV (Aug 24, 2012)

I'd get an HD6670 to hold up while Trinity comes out. It's entry range but still way better than your current 8600GT. Then get the A10 and Xfire with the HD6670.


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 26, 2012)

I'll do it later on or take advantage of computer freaks who throw away their A8 for almost nothing.


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## zenlaserman (Aug 26, 2012)

Get a video card, your CPU is fine.

I run a Q6700, and even when I use RMClock to undervolt and underclock it (2.0GHz, 1.1625v) it still does fine on games, thanks to my 4850X2.


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## Solaris17 (Aug 26, 2012)

Benetanegia said:


> @OP
> 
> Like others said, OC it to 3.2 Ghz and it will be fine. IMO it will last you 2 more years. The Q6600 was almost high-end CPU when it launched, the stock clock being the only difference. OC it to 3.2 and bam, high-end. Your GPU on the other hand, was mid-range and a severely crippled mid-range card, even at the time. Any modern mid-range GPU will offer much better performance (regardless of the CPU used) AND at the same time, it still be your bottleneck in new games.



im not saying he doesnt need a new card. but you would be hard pressed to have me believe the 8600GT was a bad mid range card at its time. i had a few 8800 boys sweating when they challenged me  not to mention the 8600/9600 cards were some of the BEST scaling in SLI most of the time out performing their 8800/9800 counter parts.


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 26, 2012)

This 8600GT got some place for Overclocking anyway


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## Mussels (Aug 26, 2012)

zenlaserman said:


> Get a video card, your CPU is fine.
> 
> I run a Q6700, and even when I use RMClock to undervolt and underclock it (2.0GHz, 1.1625v) it still does fine on games, thanks to my 4850X2.



must be some old games. you'd be massively CPU limited, especially with crossfire.


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 26, 2012)

What is the gpu overclocking program again? I forgot the name. Thx


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## zenlaserman (Aug 26, 2012)

Mussels said:


> must be some old games. you'd be massively CPU limited, especially with crossfire.



Nonsense.  I play a wide range of games and most of them play the same whether I'm at 2GHz or 3.33.  Some of them I can even play at my forced low-volt 2D GPU clocks of 333/500 (1000DDR) as well as the CPU underclock.  It gets very hot where I live, hence my extensive testing with underclocking and undervolting.  When ambient temps are over 40C, you do what you can.

OP has a 1080p monitor, his CPU isn't going to be a problem IMHO.  The 8600GT is his biggest bottleneck there.  GPU upgrade first, platform upgrade later.


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## BazookaJoe (Aug 26, 2012)

I am personally running a Q6600 RIGHT NOW, and running all the latest shizznoodle and the *Q6600 is SOLID AS A ROCK* - if you read your reviews carefully the good old Q still outperforms MANY newer mid range processors, and only slightly overclocked even still outperforms many higher range CPU's too, *but if it does have one flaw* I could warn about *it is MEMORY BANDWIDTH*.

*Sadly this flaw is not at all to do with the processor , but just its general generation - at the time DDR2 800mhz was all the rage.*

Now although mathematically the old Q6600 still has a LOT of punch, its overall memory-data bus is really beginning to feel the heat - a classic example is Supreme Commander - Forged Alliance, a game that with AI running, is notoriously brutal on a motherboard in general with its extremely large & wide floating maths stack it can bring almost any PC to its knees and this shows my point greatly - under full load the game begins to lag very badly, and if you go to a process explorer you will see that all of your cores are only rocking around 45% busy... 65% free but the game runs like crap - this is because there is upwards of 2.5 GB's of variables and co'ords and positions relating to every single unit on the map which is run in near full physics simulation.

The CPU cant physically GET at the work than needs to be done because the ram/bus itself is the bottleneck.

In reality, very little apart from massive physics simulation of literally thousands of units (Such as in SupCom FA) will show this flaw but it is there none the less.

You will also feel the burn on HIGH complexity HD graphics, and video trans coding - performance will drop but CPU will be less than 80% busy, the good old Q6600 was SO good, it was faster than its own memory bus.

*So in short If you have a good Video Card, the Q6600 will still be taking on general gaming solid as a rock for another 2 years at least*, but if you want to get into SLI/Crossfire high end performance configurations, you may be better off moving up to a nice 2500K i5 

*LATE EDIT : I will agree with anyone who has said it already, the 8600GT HAS GOT TO GO - I already threw out my 8800GT almost 2 years ago now - that will be by far the largest problem for newer games. If your priority is gaming spend as hard as you can on your video card, don't worry too much about the cpu, any reasonable quad core will do for MOST games, as long as you have a STRONG video card.*


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## MxPhenom 216 (Aug 26, 2012)

Krazy Owl said:


> This 8600GT got some place for Overclocking anyway



Its almost worthless overclocking a 8600gt TBH.


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 26, 2012)

Now 8600 OC http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/aekk9/

For nw gonna do the job on Battlefield 2.


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## Melvis (Aug 26, 2012)

I think the Q6600 will still be ok for gaming still, its the 8600GT that will be holding you back, i have a old comp here that runs SLi 8600GT's and well yes it can play most of the games but it starts to realy struggle with more modem games like black ops etc. Personally i wouldn't go any lower then a 9600GT these days to play modern games as a 9600GT is more or less two 8600GT's when it comes to performance wise.


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## Bo$$ (Aug 26, 2012)

Krazy Owl said:


> What is the gpu overclocking program again? I forgot the name. Thx



MSI afterburner or EVGA precision


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 26, 2012)

ntune i used


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## Bo$$ (Aug 26, 2012)

Krazy Owl said:


> ntune i used



ntune is unstable and very glitchy, stick to afterburner or precision as they are better overall


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## Dent1 (Aug 26, 2012)

Solaris17 said:


> im not saying he doesnt need a new card. but you would be hard pressed to have me believe the 8600GT was a bad mid range card at its time. i had a few 8800 boys sweating when they challenged me  not to mention the 8600/9600 cards were some of the BEST scaling in SLI most of the time out performing their 8800/9800 counter parts.



I'm going to have to disagree with you there.

The 86xxx was a complete flop for it's time performance wise. They were slower than it's predecessor 79xx and 19xx series and cost more on release. Even for SLI it was heh.

The 9600GT on the other hand performed really well, just slightly slower than the 8800GT and was priced reasonably well. Aside for the odd blue screen of death due to chipset conflicts it was a good card.




Krazy Owl said:


> I have this Q6600 and wondered if it will be enough for upcoming games in the future?
> 
> I know it's slower than what is on the market now but still I'm asking since it's a QuadCore.
> 
> ...



I have an Athlon II X4 which is about as fast as a Q6600 and I have no problem with newer games. Saying that I have mine OC'd 1GHz above stock.

I would recommend overclocking the CPU and dropping in a better video card. The 8600GT isnt going to cut it.

Edit:



Krazy Owl said:


> No possible oc on that board. Acer board with intel chipset



Ashame. Either way the video card issue needs addressing first,


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 26, 2012)

No possible oc on that board. Acer board with intel chipset


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## m1dg3t (Aug 26, 2012)

Krazy Owl said:


> No possible oc on that board. Acer board with intel chipset



Have you looked at something like "Clockgen"" or "SetFSB"? They might be able to get you a workaround to that problem 

CPU should be fine for a while, update the GFX 

Remember people we live in the "port" age


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## Benetanegia (Aug 26, 2012)

Solaris17 said:


> im not saying he doesnt need a new card. but you would be hard pressed to have me believe the 8600GT was a bad mid range card at its time. i had a few 8800 boys sweating when they challenged me  not to mention the 8600/9600 cards were some of the BEST scaling in SLI most of the time out performing their 8800/9800 counter parts.



The 8600 had 32 SP, 1/4th as much as the high end chip and performed acoordingly. You'll be hard pressed to find any other mid-range cards so crippled in the whole GPU history. Can it play games, of course, but it's nothing like 6600, 7600, 9600, 460... and this only from Nvidia. All those mid-range cards have in common that they are 1/2 the high-end chip or more in case of the 460.

This is what W1zz said in his frst 8600 review:



> Twintech's GeForce 8600 GTS comes with a $210 price tag attached, which is fairly expensive for a product with that performance.
> 
> The good:
> 
> ...



I'm not saying that it sucks, nor I'm trying to make the OP feel bad or anything, because there really isn't any reason for feeling bad. But the 8600 has never been a good performer, when copared to almost literally any other mid-range card.


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## Solaris17 (Aug 26, 2012)

Thats fine. Ill just say i disagree and that I dont give 2 shits what w1zzard said. 

either way he needs a new card and the CPU is fine.


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## Dent1 (Aug 26, 2012)

Solaris17 said:


> Thats fine. Ill just say i disagree and that I dont give 2 shits what w1zzard said.
> 
> either way he needs a new card and the CPU is fine.



Which part do you disagree with? 

If you don't care for W1zzard, most other reviews say the same.

AnandTech




> The bottom line is that the 8600 really doesn't offer what we would expect from a next generation midrange part. While on its own the 8600 series is not bad hardware, NVIDIA needs to rely on more than its feature set to sell its product.





> NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 GTS and GT simply do not perform any better than similarly priced hardware from AMD. GeForce 7 Series hardware priced at $150 and $200 also performs similarly to G84 based parts, outperforming the newcomer in some games and tying or trailing in others.




Techspot



> We will say it upfront, we are not impressed with the new GeForce 8600 series and while admittedly expectations were set high, it is hard to be pleased with the performance of these new graphics cards. This is not to say the new 8600 GTS and GT graphics cards are pathetic and should be avoided like the plague. Realistically speaking, these are good products despite of being disappointing considering what they could have been.





> F.E.A.R, Prey, and a few others based on the Doom 3 engine, play quite poorly on the new 8600 graphics cards. Given the 8600 GTS costs more than the Radeon X1950 Pro and GeForce 7900 GS, you would expect equal to or greater than performance in these games





> The question still remains, should you spend $200 on an 8600 GTS or $160 on a previous generation 7900 GS? Currently, with the games I'm playing, the 7900 GS is a much better option.





> As it stands the 8600 GT is almost useless in my opinion, and had it been called the 8600 GS it would be a worthy successor of the 7600 GS instead



http://www.anandtech.com/show/2218/6
http://www.techspot.com/review/51-nvidia-geforce-8600/page7.html


Lets put our pride aside here. The 8600 series was slower than the 79xx series and costed more. Yes it had DX10 support but back then there was few DX games available and the card was too slow to play games in DX10 mode anyways. Bottom line is the card sucked. 

To add some balance the ATI 2600 series also sucked back in 2006.


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## KainXS (Aug 26, 2012)

It sucks that you can't oc, thats alot of potential performance lost

I personally have a Q8400 on one pc and it outperforms a FX6100 oc'd

:shadedshu

but the videocard is a definite upgrade


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## patrico (Aug 26, 2012)

hi, im also using a q6600 at stock with a hd6950 at stock @ res 1920/1200 and it plays bf3 and anything else i have thrown at it just fine


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## Eva01Master (Aug 26, 2012)

Hello, I also own a Q6600 and a MSI GTX 550 Ti OC edition and I play @ 1920 x 1080 (Unfortunately I hadn't find a 1920 x 1200 monitor in my country of residence) and it holds together pretty well.


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 27, 2012)

m1dg3t said:


> Have you looked at something like "Clockgen"" or "SetFSB"? They might be able to get you a workaround to that problem
> 
> CPU should be fine for a while, update the GFX
> 
> Remember people we live in the "port" age



Tried but nothing working. Sorry


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## MxPhenom 216 (Aug 27, 2012)

Basically OP, just upgrade your GPU and you will be fine for a while.


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## Iciclebar (Aug 27, 2012)

My Laptop has a q9000 in it (basically a 2ghz q6600 with 1.5x the L2) and with a decent gpu overclock it does fine in bad company 2, not quite as demanding as bf3 but with a decent GPU I'd imagine you'd be fine even without the OC.  It's not gonna push super high fps through a xfire or sli setup but playable? I'd bet on it.


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## brandonwh64 (Aug 27, 2012)

Iciclebar said:


> My Laptop has a q9000 in it (basically a 2ghz q6600 with 1.5x the L2) and with a decent gpu overclock it does fine in bad company 2, not quite as demanding as bf3 but with a decent GPU I'd imagine you'd be fine even without the OC.  It's not gonna push super high fps through a xfire or sli setup but playable? I'd bet on it.



The Q9xxx series were 45NM chip while the Q6xxx series were 65NM. Much smaller and faster process.


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 28, 2012)

Just gonna upgrade for a 90$ 9570  card delivered inlucded in this price.  My budget under 100$.


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## Jetster (Aug 28, 2012)

9570?  What is that


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 28, 2012)

A 6570 with typo mistake...or PC133 sdram soldered on!


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## Dent1 (Aug 28, 2012)

Krazy Owl said:


> A 6570 with typo mistake...or PC133 sdram soldered on!



If its a 6570 I wouldnt touch it. AnandTech shows that it's consistantly at the bottom of the table in 2010 games - In 2012 games it would be abysmal.



http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4278/36834.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4278/36832.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4278/36836.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4278/36844.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4278/36824.png


For $100 CA dollars you can get a 6770, 460 SE or 6790 .

Personally for sub $100 I would get the 7750 or up the budget to £130 and get the 7770.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150629
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130690
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150630
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131477
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161403


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## 3870x2 (Aug 28, 2012)

Krazy Owl said:


> I have this Q6600 and wondered if it will be enough for upcoming games in the future?
> 
> I know it's slower than what is on the market now but still I'm asking since it's a QuadCore.
> 
> ...



I have an old athlon x2 that my little brother-in-law had.  Threw in an old 8800 ultra I had laying around, and it runs counterstrike GO at max settings, among other newer games, also pretty close to max settings.

Short answer: You need to replace that 8600GT.

Long answer: budget for a newer system. In the meantime listen to what the others said, clock it to 3.0 for a day.  If you get no crashes, take it to 3.2.


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## Iciclebar (Aug 28, 2012)

If I was really strapped for cash :

http://www.logicbuy.com/deals/evga-geforce-9800-gt-video-card/34686.aspx

50$ EVGA 9800gt 1gb  It hovers around the 6570 and 6670 depending on the game, but for 50$....

Wish I had an old sli board kicking around now


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## 3870x2 (Aug 28, 2012)

I have 2 5750s I could let go for $60 a piece.  Equivalent to a 6750 I believe.


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## Iciclebar (Aug 28, 2012)

That's a good price for a 5750.


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## 3870x2 (Aug 29, 2012)

Jetster said:


> 9570?  What is that



Radeon 9570 Pro!


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## Krazy Owl (Aug 29, 2012)

It's ok nevermind anyway I decided to wait for something else


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## Dent1 (Aug 30, 2012)

Krazy Owl said:


> It's ok nevermind anyway I decided to wait for something else



People that keep waiting for something else never upgrade.


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## Mindweaver (Aug 30, 2012)

What stepping? If you have a "*G0*" then overclocking 3ghz to 3.2ghz should not be a problem. Like everyone has stated.. I would upgrade the 8600gt before the Q6600.  Oh and like Solaris17 said it wasn't a bad card in it's day and I had a couple at one time as well.


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## Dent1 (Aug 31, 2012)

Mindweaver said:


> Oh and like Solaris17 said it wasn't a bad card in it's day and I had a couple at one time as well.



Bullshit. It was terrible in comparsion to what was available at the time.

Post #42 http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2706513&postcount=42


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## INSTG8R (Aug 31, 2012)

Mindweaver said:


> What stepping? If you have a "*G0*" then overclocking 3ghz to 3.2ghz should not be a problem. Like everyone has stated.. I would upgrade the 8600gt before the Q6600.  Oh and like Solaris17 said it wasn't a bad card in it's day and I had a couple at one time as well.



The shame is even if it IS a G0 he can't overclock it on the Acer OEM board he has it in. I was running a G0 Q6600 before I moved to this i7 rig. Yeah 3.2 was easy I could even run Speed Step without issues. Was a great CPU and I got it for "nothing" I built an HTPC for a buddy using it and he never used the PC at all so I asked him if I could swap it out for my E6600. Was a great upgrade.


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## twicksisted (Aug 31, 2012)

I havent read through the whole thread but when I upgraded from a Q6600 @ 3.6ghz with 8gb DDR2 ram to an i7 2600k, the difference in gaming was very evident! Even a game like BF2 ran much smoother on multiplayer servers and I couldnt imagine trying to run BF3 smoothly on that old processor. I diddnt upgrade my graphics card at the same time so the improvement i was seeing was totally the processor itself.


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## INSTG8R (Aug 31, 2012)

twicksisted said:


> I havent read through the whole thread but when I upgraded from a Q6600 @ 3.6ghz with 8gb DDR2 ram to an i7 2600k, the difference in gaming was very evident! Even a game like BF2 ran much smoother on multiplayer servers and I couldnt imagine trying to run BF3 smoothly on that old processor. I diddnt upgrade my graphics card at the same time so the improvement i was seeing was totally the processor itself.



Exactly the same experience.


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## Dent1 (Aug 31, 2012)

twicksisted said:


> I havent read through the whole thread but when I upgraded from a Q6600 @ 3.6ghz with 8gb DDR2 ram to an i7 2600k, the difference in gaming was very evident! Even a game like BF2 ran much smoother on multiplayer servers and I couldnt imagine trying to run BF3 smoothly on that old processor. I diddnt upgrade my graphics card at the same time so the improvement i was seeing was totally the processor itself.



Q6600 @ 3.6GHz is plenty. My Athlon II X4 @ 3.6Ghz runs BF3 at very high settings, friend has an I5 @ 4.2GHz running the same video card as me and his frame rate minimum is the same as mine, maximum frame rate is only slightly better than mine. 

Also bought Max Payne 3 recently. Plays at high settings, frame rate is good. If you've got a beefy video card like the ATI 5850 CF you can get away with a mediocre processor.  

Saying that I am looking to upgrade my CPU soon. Late December, early January 2013. I would recommend the OP eventually upgrade his CPU (2.6GHz) soon too as he can't OC to compensate, but the video card is the first priority at will net him atleast a playable frame rate at medium.


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## twicksisted (Aug 31, 2012)

Dent1 said:


> Q6600 @ 3.6GHz is plenty. My Athlon II X4 @ 3.6Ghz runs BF3 at very high settings, friend has an I5 @ 4.2GHz running the same video card as me and his frame rate minimum is the same as mine, maximum frame rate is only slightly better than mine.
> 
> Also bought Max Payne 3 recently. Plays at high settings, frame rate is good. If you've got a beefy video card like the ATI 5850 CF you can get away with a mediocre processor.
> 
> Saying that I am looking to upgrade my CPU soon. Late December, early January 2013. I would recommend the OP eventually upgrade his CPU (2.6GHz) soon too as he can't OC to compensate, but the video card is the first priority at will net him atleast a playable frame rate at medium.



Like i said, only once i upgraded to an i7 2600k did i notice how much smoother the gameplay was in BF2 / BF3, specially on large multiplayer maps.
Perhaps this wouldve been different if my q6600 was on a DDR3 board, i dont know


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## Mindweaver (Aug 31, 2012)

Dent1 said:


> Bullshit. It was terrible in comparsion to what was available at the time.
> 
> Post #42 http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2706513&postcount=42



Bullshit is your response.. I said it was not a bad card.. I did not say it was a great card... That's why I said I would upgrade the Graphics card before the CPU.. The 8600 wasn't a bad card in it's day, but it wasn't the greatest or near the greatest card either. In all fairness Nvidia should have named it 8600 GS and not 8600 GT. They did get it wrong with the name.



INSTG8R said:


> The shame is even if it IS a G0 he can't overclock it on the Acer OEM board he has it in. I was running a G0 Q6600 before I moved to this i7 rig. Yeah 3.2 was easy I could even run Speed Step without issues. Was a great CPU and I got it for "nothing" I built an HTPC for a buddy using it and he never used the PC at all so I asked him if I could swap it out for my E6600. Was a great upgrade.



Yea, he's not going to be able to do anything with that OEM board.  I still have a G0 Q6600 crunching 24/7 @ 3.0ghz. It was a great chip, but nothing compared to an i7, but a Q6600 paired with a good gaming card should squeeze a little life out of his machine.


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## D007 (Aug 31, 2012)

Agreed, need new gpu first and foremost...lol..


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## Jstn7477 (Aug 31, 2012)

Upgrade GPU first, but the stock Q6600 and DDR2 memory isn't really sufficient, especially for DX11 games that need lots of memory bandwidth.


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## INSTG8R (Aug 31, 2012)

Mindweaver said:


> Yea, he's not going to be able to do anything with that OEM board.  I still have a G0 Q6600 crunching 24/7 @ 3.0ghz. It was a great chip, but nothing compared to an i7, but a Q6600 paired with a good gaming card should squeeze a little life out of his machine.



Agreed. I would probably still be running mine. I just happened to have a lump of cash to upgrade so I did.


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## Mindweaver (Aug 31, 2012)

INSTG8R said:


> Agreed. I would probably still be running mine. I just happened to have a lump of cash to upgrade so I did.



I had an Old guy ask me years ago, “*When should I upgrade?*” I told him when the tasks you do on your pc feel slow. _Example: Soon after that he wanted me to upgrade his computer. The next day after I upgraded his machine he calls me and says, “*On my old pc when I got up in the morning I could go over to it, and start it up. Then go use the bathroom, go to the kitchen fix a cup of coffee, and grab a snack. When I got back to my pc the desktop would be coming up and when I sat down it was ready…. Now when I press the power button and before I walk away from the pc.. I’m at my desktop ready to go…*”. I responded to this with, “*That’s great so what’s the problem?*”… He said, “*But now, when am I suppose to use the bathroom, and get coffee and a snack?*”... lol _


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## INSTG8R (Aug 31, 2012)

Mindweaver said:


> I had an Old guy ask me years ago, “*When should I upgrade?*” I told him when the tasks you do on your pc feel slow. _Example: Soon after that he wanted me to upgrade his computer. The next day after I upgraded his machine he calls me and says, “*On my old pc when I got up in the morning I could go over to it, and start it up. Then go use the bathroom, go to the kitchen fix a cup of coffee, and grab a snack. When I got back to my pc the desktop would be coming up and when I sat down it was ready…. Now when I press the power button and before I walk away from the pc.. I’m at my desktop ready to go…*”. I responded to this with, “*That’s great so what’s the problem?*”… He said, “*But now, when am I suppose to use the bathroom, and get coffee and a snack?*”... lol _



LMAO! 

That was kinda the same thing that happened to me when I got the i7. When I download mkv TV shows I convert them with MKV2VOB so I can stream them to my PS3. I used to start it and go back to the livingroom while I "waited" I had barely gotten up and turned around to leave and it was done...


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## Solaris17 (Aug 31, 2012)

he could try setfsb. iv been doing some laptop clocking and the program actually works well. if you know your PLL chip have $11 and know the author he adds it to the program.


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