Who still uses Core 2?

[yogurt_21]

Up till a few weeks ago my work machine had an E7400 in it. Things ran fine for the most part, but I do compression and my work laptop has an i5 4300U in it, the fact that the laptop can finish in minutes what would take the older desktop hours mean the desktop was retired and replaced with a dock and usb3 hard disk. Much happier at work now.

 

[SaltyFish]

Just a question, what games are you playing?

My laptop has an ivy bridge i7 (quad+HT) running at 3.2GHz and it is only just enough for playing newer games like BF3. I tried a bit of underclocking and at anything below 2.7 I was getting a CPU bottleneck. My GPU is basically a GTX560 clocked slightly slower.

Blackguards
King Arthur the Roleplaying Wargame
Dynasty Warriors 8
Starcraft II
Borderlands 2
Age of Wonders III
Divinity: Original Sin
Counter-strike: Global Offensive
World in Conflict: Soviet Assault
Kingdoms of Amalur
Might & Magic X
Skyrim
Fallout: New Vegas

I don't play a lot of FPS games, at least not the newer ones. So that maybe something there.

 

[BUCK NASTY]

Still rocking a E7500 in my work PC(2011), but the newer rigs are i3-2120. Still performs very well for my business applications. Crazy how our corporate IT dept will charge me $1400.00+ for these basic rigs....must be the software licensing.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Blackguards
King Arthur the Roleplaying Wargame
Dynasty Warriors 8
Starcraft II
Borderlands 2
Age of Wonders III
Divinity: Original Sin
Counter-strike: Global Offensive
World in Conflict: Soviet Assault
Kingdoms of Amalur
Might & Magic X
Skyrim
Fallout: New Vegas

I don't play a lot of FPS games, at least not the newer ones. So that maybe something there.

Considering the 560 Ti is only about 30% faster than the 670m, I guess you won't run into bottlenecks in most games.

 

[yogurt_21]

@BUCK NASTY it has to be, we get the basic rigs from dell for 400$... 1000$ more seems steep. lol

 

[Scrizz]

@BUCK NASTY it has to be, we get the basic rigs from dell for 400$... 1000$ more seems steep. lol

lol, reminds me of the Autocad Design Suite Ultimate machine here....
that alone cost 2x what the hardware did .lol

 

[Shambles1980]

I'm wondering how many of us here still use the Core 2 architecture, in their main rig. Not a second pc, guest pc, laptop, I mean the main machine still having a Core 2 CPU.

I had an i7 920 at one point, but I wound up with a Q6600 system. It doesn't seem that much different from the i7 machine, at least at the speed I run at. Certain specific things have suffered, but overall it's much the same.

i had a q6600 untill just recenty it had been with me from new. and it overclocked like a champ (probably why i had it for so long)
I couldnt really see how id be better off with a new cpu. but after changing from a 5770 to a 7850 i decided that it was time for a change.
il cut out the long stopry and skip to the part where i got my i5-2500k. at stock it was easily 50% faster than my q6600 at 3.7 in most tasks. and when it came to some games (thief especially) the improvment was rediculous.
The in game bench test in thief is Ludicrous its just a beast on the cpu. i mananed to get a avarage frame rate of 26fps with a lot of tweaking with my Q6600 (in actuall game low drops were down in the mid 40's and usually well above 70) but the i5-2500k managed avarage frames of 63Fps with the exact same settings in the bench test. (obviously thats not reall world expirience) but it does reflect the fact that after the change i no longer had frame drops.
all i ever wanted was to set it up and enable tripple buffer v synk, and not drop below 60fps and the I5 (at stock) + my oc'd 7850 let me do that.
The q6600 even overclocked to 3.7 just could not do it. (no matter what gfx settings i used and tweaked, id still get the drops in game) and that set up had the highest "verified" 3dmark score for similar systems in fire strike and cloud gate. so its not like it was miss configured.

the media pc that i use for the tv downstairs (its the only thing connected to the pc) is a core 2 duo with a hd 6xxx low profile gpu (i forget which). and my other downstairs pc is also a core 2 duo with a 7570 gpu. i use that for light gaming and generall internet stuff. it can play thief at lower settings so its still useable.

 

[Capitan Harlock]

I have right now my q9400 at 3.2ghz because my motherboard cant go higher that 400mhz oc but runs well a lot of games and i have a e6420 in my "old" system oc at 3.2ghz too.
Im unemployed so i cant buy new stuff xd but i would really like to swich to something more powerfull for sure xd

 

[coozie78]

My brother's still using my old E6600 but curses the slow load/boot times. perhaps a small SSD for his birthday might be an idea?
Perhaps he's a more typical user than most here: Mainly online services along with Ebay and Youtube with the odd run in with an old game or two are all it's used for.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

I haven't run or seen a Core 2 system since about 2006-7

 

[BUCK NASTY]

I remember just prior to Bloomfield, I was rocking a Q9550/EP45 @ 3.8Ghz and it was a beast of a CPU/Mobo combo. My first Intel CPU was a E8400 Wolfdale and it was quite an improvement from Athlon X2's. Was my first attempt at water cooling as well.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

I went from an E6600 to a i7 920 with an Evga Classified and GTX260 SLI.

 

[yogurt_21]

Q6700 (non extreme) to i7 950. The jump from the FX 62 to the Q6700 felt larger than the jump from Q6700 to i7 950. In fact the jump from i7 950 to i7 4790k doesn't feel as large as FX-62 to Q6700 even. The Core 2 just felt like "Hello Nurse" not only was it much faster per core, but it had more cores AND it clocked much higher. 2.67 to 3.95 GHZ was a breeze (would hit 4.1 but wasn't 24/7 stable) Compare that with the FX-62 that could barely hit 3.4GHZ on Phase Change...

 

[Mussels]

I just found an E6300 on my desk. i forgot it was there about 2 months ago.

Wonder if ill find a mobo it can go in.

 

[JunkBear]

Just got a cheap 30$ new mobo that can handle only ddr2-800 but 1600fsb quad core so ill find a dual core and put it there

 

[hat]

Wow, Core 2 is really this dated huh? At least I've got my decent overclock...

 

[Toothless]

Fixed up a Q6700 rig and it's a speedy grandpa chip.

 

[1nf3rn0x]

I remember I ran an E7400 at 4.2GHZ with an evga 780i and dual 8800 ultra's. That was probably my most kickass system I had ever built. Going from that to a new system didn't seem much of an upgrade to be honest. I did some light photoshop work, surfing the internet and gaming. Gaming was a dramatic increase due to the new gpu but in like system fluidness etc it was the same. I do edit and render videos and I can say that there is a very big difference in that.

 

[Mussels]

I remember I ran an E7400 at 4.2GHZ with an evga 780i and dual 8800 ultra's. That was probably my most kickass system I had ever built. Going from that to a new system didn't seem much of an upgrade to be honest. I did some light photoshop work, surfing the internet and gaming. Gaming was a dramatic increase due to the new gpu but in like system fluidness etc it was the same. I do edit and render videos and I can say that there is a very big difference in that.

the big change is when you go back.

I've met lots of people who've used a newer PC and thought 'nah its not faster', but as soon as they go back to their old PC, the instantly notice very bit of lag.

Its like how console gamers are happy at 30FPS, but once you go 60, 30 just doesnt cut it anymore.

 

[1nf3rn0x]

the big change is when you go back.

I've met lots of people who've used a newer PC and thought 'nah its not faster', but as soon as they go back to their old PC, the instantly notice very bit of lag.

Its like how console gamers are happy at 30FPS, but once you go 60, 30 just doesnt cut it anymore.

Yes, that makes perfect sense. Though, I personally did much notice much of a difference going from an SSD to mechanical drive. Other than boot times, everything was pretty much the same but I didn't install any games, just programs I use all the time such as word processing, photoshop etc

That's why I could also never go to a console, I refuse

 

[zenlaserman]

My main home PC runs a Q6700. I built this rig 7 years ago with an HD2900XT and since then all I've upgraded is the video card and added a few HDDs. It's been 99% reliable.

It runs all my games just fine at 1680x1050, runs AutoCAD for side projects, runs Plex for my Roku and is also the main house server for audio and video.

Since Core 2 came out, it seems that CPUs have been nothing but increasing degrees of overkill. I'm waiting for 8-core Haswell-E to upgrade, tho. My CAD renders will thank me

 

[BrooksyX]

Crazy to think core 2 cpus are that old. Shoot even the i5-2500k in my rig is over 3 years old. Still rocking strong though.

 

[JunkBear]

Yeah. I'm still rocking single cores with these old Compaq SFF pentium 4. But why expense for morewhen what you have is already enough?

 

[v12dock]

I recently sold a core 2 machine for $300