Intel Core 2 Quad 9550 or Core 2 Duo 8600 for games...

[ST Dragon]

My current setup is:
ASUS P5B-E M/B intel965 chipset (Supports 45nm CPUS 1333MHZ FSB via bios update and DDR-2 1066MHZ RAM)
2GB DDR-2 RAM 800MHZ
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHZ 6600 1066MHZ FSB
nvidia 7950 GTX 512MB
Onboard Sound card
WinXP PRO

The above system is mainly used for games, I would be interested to upgrade the CPU to one of the following:

Intel Core 2 Quad 9550 (s775/2,83GHZ)
Cache Memory L2 12MB
FSB1333 MHz
45 nmicron

Or:

Intel Core 2 Duo 8600 (s775/3,33GHZ)
Cache Memory L2 6MB
FSB1333 MHz
45 nmicron

So, which of the two CPUs will give me better performance for 3D games on my current rig? (Examples, CRYSIS, Half Life 2 Episode 2 & online C&C3 Kane's Wrath)

Thanks in advance

[moozooh]

You'll be better off with a dualcore at a higher frequency. Quadcore CPUs are pretty useless for games at this point, from what I can tell (not to mention that graphics cards are the ones at work there for the most part).

[TJB]

Honestly I reckon your CPU is fine, I've got the same and had what I suppose you could call the ATI equivalent in terms of a video card. (X1950 Pro)

Recently switched it out for a 9800GT (didn't cost much either, $160 AUD) and the difference is huge, Stalker : Clear Sky @ 1440x900 ran very well (chugged a bit with sun shadows on, not enough to make me turn it off though) with the settings up high and as another example, FEAR ran perfectly, not a single hiccup.

Although if you are set on upgrading your processor instead, I'd say the Core 2 Duo 8600, unless you're big on encoding movies and whatnot, you really won't need a quad and to my understanding, most games don't even use 4 cores. (Stalker Clear Sky only uses 1 core, Crysis uses 2, this is most likely something I'll have to go out and do some research on)

[moozooh]

In short, most games use 1, some games use 2. Can't remember any that uses more. In regards to gaming, 3+ core CPUs are useful when you're recording gameplay videos (2 cores for the game, 1-2 for the capturing application).

[kernow]

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=21911

There was a thread like this recently

[ST Dragon]

By the way, If I overclock the E6600 CPU from to 2.4GHZ to 3.0GHZ, will I need to get a better fan-cooler?
I'm using the standard Intel fan-cooler that came with it in the box when I bought it...

[moozooh]

I'd recommend getting a better cooler in any case, if just for being silent. Though I'm one of those who don't turn their computer off for days straight, so it might not be much of a concern for you.

Still, if you plan to overclock, definitely get a more effective cooler. The lower CPU's temperature, the longer it lasts.

[ST Dragon]

Hey, I never shut-down my PC as its online 24/7!
Ok, I'll get a better fan-cooler!

Which do you suggest?

Thanks in advance

[moozooh]

I'd suggest reading some recent hardware reviews… That's usually what I do before buying anything. Zalman and Scythe have been good choices last I checked, though.

[ST Dragon]

It might be a better idea to just overclock the E6600 CPU from to 2.4GHZ to 3.0GHZ, and get e better fan-heatsink-cooler
Akasa AK-965
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=15387
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=15387&page=2
It received good scores...

How ever, I would still like to know which is the better CPU for games at the moment.
E9550 or E8600?
Will those 4 cores do any difference for games?

I might as well buy a new GPU instead. How about the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 how well does it compare to the equivalent ATi GPU?

[kernow]

Will those 4 cores do any difference for games?

No, not currently.

I might as well buy a new GPU instead. How about the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 how well does it compare to the equivalent ATi GPU?

I'd always choose Nvidia, never liked ATI's efforts.

[ST Dragon]

Well yeah, I was planning on not upgrading the CPU for 3 years and maybe getting the next generation of NVIDIA cards after the 200 series... I really can't be bothered in changing the motherboard & Ram all over again!

I read that the current nvidia 280 is not as good as it’s advertised to be, so it might be wiser to go for the next series...
Is it true that the 280 doesn’t fully support DX10.1?

[Daigohji]

I'm looking into getting a new PC too. Would a quad core CPU show much performance boost over dual core in any current music production applications? I sometimes work with heavily layered compositions using 24-bit samples with release trails and convolution reverb, which is as hardware intensive as you'd think, but I don't know what apps (if any) could benefit from a quad core yet.

My other question would be, is it actually worth getting Vista instead of XP at this point? Maybe I've only heard negative propaganda so far, but the impression I get is that Vista just chews up system resources and hands you inferior performance (versus XP) in return.

[moozooh]

I'm looking into getting a new PC too. Would a quad core CPU show much performance boost over dual core in any current music production applications? I sometimes work with heavily layered compositions using 24-bit samples with release trails and convolution reverb, which is as hardware intensive as you'd think, but I don't know what apps (if any) could benefit from a quad core yet.

Many professional applications are optimized for parallelism, plus you can set the affinities manually if you're running several apps at the same time.

Vista just chews up system resources and hands you inferior performance (versus XP) in return.

This is correct. It does offer some new functions, though, so it's a matter of whether you need them or not (in which case XP SP3 is your best friend).

In fact, I think there are even more fine music production apps on Mac, anyway, so this is rather moot. :P

[Ed Oscuro]

My current setup is:
ASUS P5B-E M/B intel965 chipset (Supports 45nm CPUS 1333MHZ FSB via bios update and DDR-2 1066MHZ RAM)
2GB DDR-2 RAM 800MHZ
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHZ 6600 1066MHZ FSB
nvidia 7950 GTX 512MB
Onboard Sound card
WinXP PRO

Basically the same as mine, except I have a P5B-Deluxe. Are you sure you're getting 1066 MHz out of the FSB? Tthe chip's effective frequency is still at 2.4 GHz and the RAM's at 800 MHz, so it seems.

VIDEO CARD
Best thing you could do would be to upgrade the graphics card to an ATI 48X0 series card (like the 4850 or 4870). The most powerful card on the market, last time I checked, was the 4870X2, which is maybe $550 - $580 US.

I used to use a GeForce 7800 GTX, moved up to a GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB (more or less on par with the 8800 GT 512 MB), and even the 8800 can struggle a bit at 1600x1200 in modern games (let alone something on par with Crysis).

CPU / RAM
The venerable E6600 (which I'm using to type this) has been great since 2006 but could also use replacing.

I'd go to either the E8400 or the E8500 if you don't mind paying $80 more for about 170 MHz more.

Big things in moving from the E6600 to the E8X00 series will be the much faster RAM available and the 1/3 more on-die L2 cache, in addition to the core frequency boost.

Same power requirements as the E6600 so you're not losing anything there, probably don't need an updated cooler either.

OS
Skip Vista. I'd transfer over an XP install and wait for Windows 7, which will hopefully be un-fucked and give much improved performance over Vista.

Hopefully by then enough vendors will be writing their apps properly so you aren't getting UAC prompts all the time.

As it goes, my experience with Vista on my laptop (only about 10 months old) has been rather shaky as of late. Sometimes the thing doesn't come out of hibernation, sometimes it doesn't load the profile (looks like going to safe mode and seeing only a few icons on the desktop), and sometimes it does other dumb stuff. I'd say most of the problems are due to Asus bundling a bunch of shit onto the laptop that simply isn't compatible (the AsusUpdate utility for example), and also my college forcing updates that I didn't want (can't use SpyBot on that system 'cuz it interferes with Symantec's new all-singing Endpoint system).

MY PERSONAL PLAN
I have a system basically identical to ST Dragon's and the only thing I am likely to be doing this year is upgrading the video card. The E8600 does indeed give a sizable boost over the E6600 but I'm hoping that something amazing can happen in the next year with quadcore (heh), but even waiting for the next gen of dual core will be fine. The biggest thing I can do to improve my system (aside from buying a newer, faster, bigger hard drive) is the graphics card, and so in this case the old advice seems to hold true.

Well, the other thing I could do would be to double the memory in my PC, but Windows won't use all of the 4 GB and I won't be able to use the memory in a newer computer. So that seems like a bit of a waste.

[ST Dragon]

Ok, so I bought the:
Intel Core 2 Quad 9550 (s775/2,83GHZ)
Cache Memory L2 12MB
FSB1333 MHz
45 nmicron

The CPU was recognized properly by my motherboard and the FSB was set to 1333MHz. (as shown in the Bios info)
How ever, in the Bios DRAM Frequency menu, I can now only choose from the following frequencies: DDR-2: 667MHZ, 833MHZ, 1000MHZ, 1111MHZ, 1333MHZ
My current DDR-2 is the KINGSTON KHX6400D2/1G HYPERX 1GB PC6400 800MHZ, (2GB)
http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.554789
but the 800MHZ is not even listed in the menu, so I have downgraded it by selecting the 667MHz. “DRAM Frequency: Auto” & “CPU Frequency: Auto” if the AI tuning is set to manual, then the PCU frequency is set to 333.

Also, in the CPU settings menu:
“Ratio actual value: 8.5”
“CPU Ratio Settings: Auto”

Also, in CPU-Z 1.47 tool, in the memory timings menu the FSB : DRAM is 1:1

Is there a way to set my DDR-2 to 800MHZ?

If not, I was thinking about upgrading the Ram to this DDR-2 and set it to 1000MHZ in the Bios, in order to have the most out of it.
CellShock Ram 2GB Kit DDR2 1000MHZ 4-4-4-12
http://www.plaisio.gr/product.aspx?prod ... catalog=20
The timing 4-4-4-12 is better than my current 5-5-5-15.

However I noticed that this Ram’s Operating Voltage is 2,20V, where as the Supply Voltage of my current Kingston 800MHz DDR-2 Ram is 1.95V. So I’m not sure if it will work on my M/B?!

Any help will be appreciated!
Thanks in advance

[ED-057]

Also, in CPU-Z 1.47 tool, in the memory timings menu the FSB : DRAM is 1:1

If I understand this new-fangled stuff right then DDR2 is four transactions per clock cycle so DDR2-667 would be 166MHz. FSB : DRAM should say 2:1 ??

Is there a way to set my DDR-2 to 800MHZ?

Did you try the 833MHz setting? It's pretty close 'n all.

The timing 4-4-4-12 is better than my current 5-5-5-15.

Is 5-5-5-15 the official timing for your RAM or is that what you have it set at? Because if that is how it's rated, it may actually work with tighter timings when you're running it at a slower frequency (667 instead of 800).

So I would try 833 with normal timings, and 667 with tweaked timings. Run memtest86 or something to see which is faster (and stable).

[ST Dragon]

The official timing for my Kingston RAM is 5-5-5-15 @ 800MHZ and I currently have it set manually at 5-5-5-15 @ 667MHZ (By disabling the DRAM SPD timings in the Bios Northbridge chipset configuration Bios menu.)

[moozooh]

Indeed, just set it to 833 MHz. A 4% increase in frequency won't really be overclocking; the memory will operate just fine under such conditions.

[ED-057]

If I understand this new-fangled stuff right then DDR2 is four transactions per clock cycle so DDR2-667 would be 166MHz. FSB : DRAM should say 2:1 ??

I learned today that DDR2 is actually two-T per clock like DDR. So DDR2-667 is 333MHz FSB. Compared to DDR, DDR2 modules are able to acheive higher bus frequencies because the memory chips themselves are more highly parallel internally.

[Ed Oscuro]

I am gonna be laughing when I get the hyperthreaded Core i7 and ST Dragon will be losing performance on apps that are singlethreaded with the Quad. Still say you shoulda gone with the dual core!

ED-057: No, the memory chips are not "more highly parallel internally," as the memory chips are the black chips on each module (stick). Grammar aside, it's faster because it employs a set of techniques (mainly a faster bus) that let it transfer more data with each transfer (on DDR2 and many other types of internal computer transfer aside from PC-E Express, that means on the rising and falling edges of the clock - that is itself a performance technique).

Parallelism means something completely different - that you're doing distinct tasks at the same time. DDR2's memory transfers are a contiguous operation, no parallelism. If you were running two different programs through a chip's bus at the same time, that would be an example of parallelism (although that would be parallelism of the architecture, not the RAM itself).

[captpain]

If you don't buy dual core these days, then you're getting robbed

Quad cores will only be truly taken advantage of later, so right now you are buying them at a point when they perform (generally) not much better/worse than cheaper dual cores, cost more, and will also be too slow when quad cores are really taken advantage of

[ED-057]

I see that I've failed miserably at making my point. Let me try again.

Data is transferred at the rising and falling edges of the clock (specifically, the FSB frequency). That is presumably why the standard is called DoubleDataRate Two transactions per clock, the same for both DDR and DDR2.

So what is the difference between DDR and DDR2? (note: rhetorical question) There are multiple differences, but the one I wanted to point out is the one that allowed DDR2 to be introduced at faster speeds than what contemporary DDR modules (aka sticks) were rated. The difference is in the anatomy of the memory chips (indeed, the black things). DDR2 chips have greater parallelism. Although on the outside they may transfer data at a rate of two transactions per clock at 333MHz (as per DDR2-667) making them functionally equivalant to a DDR chip except at a higher frequency, on the inside they are like two slower DDR chips joined together. Twice as many 166MHz-capable memory cells = enough bandwidth for a 333MHz interface.

Yeah. Maybe I should just post a link. http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/ddr ... -rmma.html

[Ed Oscuro]

Data is transferred at the rising and falling edges of the clock (specifically, the FSB frequency).

We know that

The difference is in the anatomy of the memory chips (indeed, the black things).

We know that too! and Partially - the bus itself is vitally important, and the relevant "anatomy" of the memory chips is mainly changed in that DDR2 memory cells are operating at half the clock rate (which is not to say they are actually 166MHz as opposed to 333MHz, but rather that they can accept data twice the 333MHz rate, which seems functionally equivalent to having 667MHz cells). This is more a speed issue than an anatomical one.

Yeah. Maybe I should just post a link. http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/ddr ... -rmma.html

They don't call it parallelism, and (so I would argue) neither should you.

Parallelism, in my experience of computing, only refers to processing multiple tasks at once. I definitely see where you're coming from, but it's not called parallelism; it would be confusing if it was.

Even though they call something that looks similar a parallel circuit in electrical engineering, it doesn't really clarify matters to use one discipline's terminology in another. Electrical parallelism = electricity is the unit of work and takes the shortest route; computing parallelism = jobs represent work and can be transferred as required.

Another small sticking point is that DDR2 is not "faster;" it requires faster rates to improve performance and, all things being equal, suffers higher latency than a DDR configuration would.

Two transactions per clock, the same for both DDR and DDR2.

Although on the outside they may transfer data at a rate of two transactions per clock at 333MHz (as per DDR2-667) making them functionally equivalant to a DDR chip except at a higher frequency,

The bus operates at a higher frequency, and the memory chips are clocked at half the rate they would be in DDR. There are four transfers per cycle - more than "two transactions per clock" - since the bus is transferring twice the data it would in DDR (which already is transferring at twice the SDRAM rate, at the rising and falling edge of the clock).

You stated that DDR2 is "faster," but it's not - when you clock DDR2 modules at DDR speeds the increased latency means they perform worse. A vital part of the technology is the basic bus frequency - which corresponds to requiring higher frequency parts.

Hope that helps.

[ED-057]

They don't call it parallelism, and (so I would argue) neither should you.

Seems that was an error in terminology on my part. I searched on "parallelism" and got a bunch of results about software or multiprocessing but none about logic. I was thinking eg. parallel ports vs. serial ports.

The rest of your explanation is really not clear to me but I do not have questions about the facts anyway, I only wanted to correct my original post.

[Vexorg]

Hey, I never shut-down my PC as its online 24/7!
Ok, I'll get a better fan-cooler!

Which do you suggest?

Thanks in advance

I just built my new system with an Xigmatek HDT-S1284 heatpipe cooler, which seems to be quite popular with the overclocking crowd. Just be aware that the thing is pretty big (since it's got a 120mm fan mounted on it,) and you might want to do some measurements to make sure the thing will fit before you make the leap, but it's quiet, and cools pretty well. This is on a Q6600 processor, although I only built the system a couple of weeks ago so I haven't had a chance to try much in the way of overclocking yet. I'd also recommend getting the optional mounting plate to go with it, since it makes the thing a whole lot easier to remove after it's been installed if you need to.

[ST Dragon]

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it!

I was also looking at this cooler:
AKASA AK-965
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=15387&page=2
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?i ... 87&page=16
http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.805015

It seems that it has received some pretty good reviews and it’s quite cheap.

I see the one you have is one impressive piece of hardware!
Not sure if it will fit my case!

Isn’t this what you have?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835233017
http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/676326
Interestingly enough it rotates at lower RPM than the AKASA AK-965 and Newegg has no price for it…
Is this actually better than the Akasa 965?

[Vexorg]

I had to double-check my order, but it turns out that mine is the HDT-S1284EE model ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835233023 ). As to whether or not it would fit, as long as you're not trying to cram the thing into a small case it should be fine (I built my new system in an old Antec Sonata which has a 120mm fan in the back, and it fits by about an inch or so.) Between this heatsink and the GeForce GTX 260, I've noted that computer peripherals don't exactly seem to be getting any smaller these days...