Is Q6600 enough for upcoming games?

[Krazy Owl]

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!

[Hayder_Master]

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 ?

[Krazy Owl]

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

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by Krazy Owl

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!

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.

[Krazy Owl]

Ok it answer my question.

[Mussels]

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.

[brandonwh64]

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

[AlienIsGOD]

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

[JrRacinFan]

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.

[Bo$$]

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

[Benetanegia]

@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.

Originally Posted by JrRacinFan

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.

[JrRacinFan]

Originally Posted by Benetanegia

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).

[Krazy Owl]

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.

[brandonwh64]

Originally Posted by Krazy Owl

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.

[Krazy Owl]

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.

[brandonwh64]

Originally Posted by Krazy Owl

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.

[Krazy Owl]

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

[JrRacinFan]

Originally Posted by Krazy Owl

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.

[Benetanegia]

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.

[hat]

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.

[Krazy Owl]

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.

[TRWOV]

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.

[Krazy Owl]

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

[zenlaserman]

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.

[Solaris17]

Originally Posted by Benetanegia

@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.