Q6600 or Q9450?

[Jarman]

i can play pretty much any game at 1900x1200 max settings with an 8800gtx :S cod4 runs at 100+ fps

 

[trog100]

interesting, how many frames would do you get with your current specs if playing Crysis @1024X768 full details on and with best possible IQ?

i can run a test on high settings at 1024 x 768 just to see.. i am xp so only dx9 high..

its more the settings that make the difference thow not the resolution..

trog

ps... 1024 x 768 all high but no AA.. 54 fps average with two cards.. 48 fps with one card.. as i said its all down to the settings.. a huge difference between high and low.. i normally would run textures and shaders on high the rest medium.. at 1680 by 1050.. that gives me about 57 fps average with two cards 48 with one card..

 

[Nitro-Max]

i can play pretty much any game at 1900x1200 max settings with an 8800gtx :S cod4 runs at 100+ fps

I get over double 400+ if i look at the sky but anything above 60fps is fine.

 

[VroomBang]

i can run a test on high settings at 1024 x 768 just to see.. i am xp so only dx9 high..

its more the settings that make the difference thow not the resolution..

trog

ps... 1024 x 768 all high but no AA.. 54 fps average with two cards.. 48 fps with one card.. as i said its all down to the settings.. a huge difference between high and low.. i normally would run textures and shaders on high the rest medium.. at 1680 by 1050.. that gives me about 57 fps average with two cards 48 with one card..

I'm surprised. From your numbers, it looks like settings indeed need more ressource than resolution. I wouldn't have thought so.

 

[trog100]

I'm surprised. From your numbers, it looks like settings indeed need more ressource than resolution. I wouldn't have thought so.

yes with older games it used to be that way.. but crysis has some pretty mean settings.. many that never used to exist..

the other interesting thing is.. the test i ran proves crysis is very playable even on a low end machine.. if i can bang off those over the top frame rates.. something a lot further down the food chain would produce very playable frame rates..

crysis scales very well and is playable on any low end gaming machine..

its just like oblivion.. folks with normal machines were happy they could play it at all.. folks with e-peen machines were pissed off cos they couldnt play it maxed out.. he he he

trog

 

[Wile E]

yes with older games it used to be that way.. but crysis has some pretty mean settings.. many that never used to exist..

the other interesting thing is.. the test i ran proves crysis is very playable even on a low end machine.. if i can bang off those over the top frame rates.. something a lot further down the food chain would produce very playable frame rates..

crysis scales very well and is playable on any low end gaming machine..

its just like oblivion.. folks with normal machines were happy they could play it at all.. folks with e-peen machines were pissed off cos they couldnt play it maxed out.. he he he

trog

Count me in the latter group. lol.

 

[VroomBang]

In the end, in spite of my original thoughts, and after doing some research, I've decided to go for the E8400 which, given my usage, should give me the best perfomance/price ratio for today's and near future applications and games.

I'm sure more demanding apps and games will come out in the future and will make a better use of quads. No doubt about that. The question is when, how many and am I going to use them? My personal guess is by the time it makes sense to get a quad because most applications are optimized for it, there'll be much better quad cpu's out there than the "old" 65nm Q6600 and "not so new" Q9450, which will only be average by then.

It really depends on what you want:
- Best possible performance now and struggling in 2 yrs time but ok since you'll upgrade the cpu: go for the E8400

- Inferior performance now relative to other cpu at same price (in games), and average perf in 2 yrs time when apps and games use quad threads more, and no intention to upgrade by then: go for the Q6600

I’d like to add that if it wasn’t for the games, I wouldn’t even upgrade my Pentium D 925 3GHz, as it’s doing a great job in all applications, and provides more than enough power to watch films, browse the web, use word and excel, encode music and films every now and then etc. Games are what make the upgrade necessary, as my Pentium was bottlenecking my graphics card (ATI x1950pro). So as long as games benefit more from higher clocks than multiple threads, the E8400 wins.

Quads will be the future, but by the time they are, better cpu’s will be on offer and current quads will be obsolete.

 

[phanbuey]

yep. E8400 a much better choice ATM for games. Q6600 only good if you have water and know you can get it close to 4GHz.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

I think many are over-hyping Crysis in a fanatically way that I found disturbing. There are no other note worthy games currently using the CryEngine 2 engine. I believe that Unreal Engine 3 is found in most popular games like:
Frontline Fuels of War
Unreal Tournament 3
Medal of Honor: Airborne
Mass Effect
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield
America's Army
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
Gears of War
BioShock
Tactical Ops
ETC

There are other engines being used in current and future titles like:
Unreal Engine 3
Unreal Engine 4
Far Cry 2 Engine (maybe Dunia) or whatever they decide to call it (Far Cry 2 doesn't use Crytek Engine which speaks Volumes in my book!)
id Tech 4 for Doom 3, Quake 4, Pray and Quake Wars.
Euphoria which is scheduled for release to the PC market in 2009 (I believe, going on memory)
Frostbite Engine which is rumored to be used in Battlefield 3 for the PC!
Source engine TF2, HL series, Portal, etc
The Alan Wake engine for Alan Wake (or whatever they decide to call it)

As you can see, Unreal engine is the most popular. There are no worth while games being developed that are using CryEngine 2. Therefore, placing more weight on Crysis then any other game is not a wise thing to do when the engine has no "teeth" in future gaming development. So far CryEngine 2 is just a blip on the radar with Crysis.

Having said that, most engines can or will take advantage of 2 cores. I would go with a dual core CPU like the E8400 or E8500 until it's proven that current, popular games are showing a sizable performance boost in frame rates using mid range to high end video cards. However, if gaming is more a secondary reason for how you use your PC and your do a lot of multitasking with resource hogging applications then a QX9650 maybe something to consider. When getting a quad core cpu it's best to get one that offers the same clocks as a E8400 or E8500. That way if a program or game doesn't use all 4 cores you are still using 2 of them at the same clock rate as a dual core. This should prevent performance drops as seen with Q6600 in some games.