Clockspeed or number of cores important for gaming

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hijaz

hijaz

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Mar 5, 2010
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IS clockpeed for gaming or is it the number of cores important for gaming..

I have 3 choices help me choice

1.overclock e7200
2.Upgrade to e8400 or e8500
3.Upgrade to quad processor

What do u choose for gaming untill 2012 maxed out...reply..

I read in some places that clock speed is important for gaming is it true?
 
all are poor choices - your far better off with an AM3/1156/1366 platform (aka dump the 775 platform you have or are looking at)

all new games like the extra cores, aswell as high clock speeds like normal, i wouldnt touch anything dual core here and now today etc, but with that you need a good rig to back it - good psu, 4+gb ram, windows 7, good video card etc - dont half ass it
 



If you already have a e7200 then go for the overclock option. LGA 775 is practically a dead socket. Save your money for an i5/i7 platform.

Clock speed is essential for gaming. Not all games can even make use of 4 cores yet. My E8400 at 3.6 with an old at this point 9800GTX+ still lets me play just about anything at highest settings although my monitor is only 1440x900. I know an overclocked E8400 can handle any graphics up to a 5850 with very little bottlenecking. E7200 should overclock quite well. Just get a good cooler.
 
At this point, i'd just max out the 775 platform and wait for Sandy Bridge (which appears to be on yet another new socket), as moving to a new platform when a new arch is comming in just over a year and a half doesn't make much senes.

I'd recommend a Q9550 (2.8Ghz Quad).

More and more, games are starting to use quads. Dragon Age benifites from a quad, as does Battlefield:BC2. Duos are now where Pentium D's were a few years back, OK, but clearly going teh way of the dinosaur.
 
If you have a quality LGA775 mobo with something like 4gigs DDR2-800 ram...

I would suggest some options in cost effective order.

1- Get a 30$ Air cooler and overclock that core2 that you are using...
2- Upgrade to a Q9400 or similar depending on how much you find it for... I don't think the E8400 is worth the price.... it's a great Core2 but only a dual core.
3- for the price of a good quad on your motherboard... you can change to an AMD using a cheep 780G chipset board such as an M3A-78-CM with an Athlon630 or a Phenom955.... this path has a good chance of future upgrade to 6cores but I can't guaranty it.


Personally, I would get a GREAT air Cooler and overclock that 7200...

Save money and within a few months, rebuild the PC with new Motherboard, CPU RAM... either I5-750 that is well proven to be excellent or an AM3 Phenom 955

If you have Great DDR2 ram a good AM2+ setup is what I would jump too... but that's just me.
 
I would say go the OC route as well- get a nice air cooler, and crank it up, then you're good.
If you want an upgrade, get an AMD 785G board and a AthlonII or PhenomII (you can do this for $200-300 very easily). This will be upgradable to a PhenomIIx6 in the future (they've already stated they are continuing with the AM3 socket for at least the Thuban CPUs.
There is no reason to buy another LGA775 chip- it would end up being a waste IMO as its just a dead end and won't really be much better than OCing the chip you have.
 
Frankly, a good OC'd 9000 series quad is a far more cost effective option then tearing out the entire platform for a lesser CPU (Phenom), and spend even more money afterwards to finally move up to a x6 (Thurian). So thats two seperate upgrades you need to make.

Just max LGA775 and wait for Sandy Bridge. Cheapest option and you won't notice any performnce hits, as a C2Q still isn't a bottleneck for gaming.
 
I was saying that it would cost about the same to upgrade from what he has now to a good Phenom II as it would to upgrade to a C2Q 9000 series, and that would be an upgradable system. the C2Q would be a dead end upgrade for the same price as a future upgradable upgrade. Also- a Phenom II is NOT a lesser CPU than a C2Q.
 


Phenom II is slower than Core2, it's a small difference, but Core2 is the faster of the 2.
 
Spending for the cooler and a c2q processor cost me the same because its an exchange offer so what should i choose
 
You can get the quad for the same price as you'd get the cooler? Wow. In that case, it may well be worth getting the quad (and maybe adding a cooler that you can use again with later builds too). Depends on which quad it is though.
 
I second the Q9550 comment. Just picked one up locally for a very reasonable price, and it gave my system new life. I already had a good cooler, but I also got a good northbridge heatsink for some light overclocking.
 


Well, sorta. My P5B and its 965 chipset was never really designed to support 1333FSB, so it gets hot! Plus, this sucker is my livelyhood, so I don't want to risk crashing it. It's sitting nice and stable and should get me another year or two before I'm ready for my next rig.
 
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