Core 2 duo E8400 with a GTX 650 Ti

[CommanderGavin]

Hello, I'm planning on getting a new graphics card to upgrade from my 3 year old 8800 gt, I am thinking of gettinga GTX 650 Ti since I can do shadowplay (a new geforce thing). I am worried that it will bottleneck. I was wondering if OCing my CPU would help I have a 500w PSU 80+ Certified so I'm sure I could get away with ocing it. Also if it will bottleneck how much would it? 4-5 fps? or more. Also do you know any other graphics card that can offer similar performance for lower price? Also the games I want to play on hopefully max are:

Star wars the old republic
Mount & blade Napoleonic wars
Battlefield 2 and 3
Arma 2
Dayz

My current system is:

Windows 7 Ultimate
8 GB DDR3 Ram
Core 2 duo e8400 3 Ghz dual core
8800 Gt alpha dog 512mb
320 GB HDD
500w hexa 80+ bronze PSU.

 

[chrisso]

Its fine. Get the card.. later buy a Q6600 and clock it to 3 gig. cheap as chips.

 

[CommanderGavin]

So will it bottleneck?

 

[chrisso]

More than 3 gig if you have a good cooler and voltage adjustment.

 

[CommanderGavin]

I have 500w Hexa psu so I should be fine might have to get a after market cooler but I think I will just upgrade to a new CPU later not for a few months at least.

 

[chrisso]

A little, maybe. Probs not with the Q6600 clocked.

 

[chrisso]

After market cooler 2nd hand on ebay.. Must be a few cheap.

 

[CommanderGavin]

How much? A few frames?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

An E8400 will bottleneck almost any modern game. It was a great CPU in its day and I ran one overclocked to 4.050Ghz ( 450FSB ) for several years. Most games need quad core CPUs now and even overclocked the E8400 does not cut it. You would be OK in older games. It's not that it will bottleneck a GTX 650 Ti so much as a quad core CPU is the minimum recommended for most games and when a dual is the minimum recommended you never just want to met the minimum requirements, not if you want the game to be playable.

Also spending money trying to upgrade to a Q6600 is not even a little bit advisable as the Q6600 is older tech than the E8400 and clocked lower even though it has 4 cores. It would be a downgrade in most gaming situations. LGA 775 is a dead platform. You need new everything. Never spend money on obsolete tech.

 

[CommanderGavin]

So would I be better with a different card? Or should I just go for it?

 

[chrisso]

intel core2duo 8400 at stock clocks

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Duo+E8400+%40+3.00GHz

Intell Q6600 at stock clocks

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=intel+core2+quad+q6600+%40+2.40ghz&id=1038

The 8400 overclocked by 33% to 4 gig would just about be breaking the Q6600;s stock total compute power, whilst the Q6600 G0 slacr stepper could be overclocked to 3 gig (25%) on standard volts
and to 3.6 gig (50%) with overvolting, If you got a good one. 3.4, anyway. Which would equate to reasonable performance in any title recommending a quad core, even modern ones. Check out the requirements for games like bshock infinite, or skyrim. Many gamers still use these chips. Newer doesnt always mean better. E84's were designed to handle dual thread games well. The Quads were longer strategy thinking. The Quad will rip the duo to pieces in optimised games. In fact, it would be an upgrade in almost every gaming situation.

 

[a1blaster]

it will bottleneck...get 640

 

[chrisso]

He has an 8800gt now , and could go 3 tiers higher. A 640 is not a step up.

 

[CommanderGavin]

From what I have read GTX 650 Ti wont bottleneck much I don't intend to be playing latest games either so I think I will geti t

 

[CommanderGavin]

a1 a 640 is about 80-120 USD Dollars its not worth it it may give me 30-40 fps bf3 but I could get a 650 ti a which will be better

 

[Deleted member 217926]

intel core2duo 8400 at stock clocks

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Duo+E8400+%40+3.00GHz

Intell Q6600 at stock clocks

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=intel+core2+quad+q6600+%40+2.40ghz&id=1038

The 8400 overclocked by 33% to 4 gig would just about be breaking the Q6600;s stock total compute power, whilst the Q6600 G0 slacr stepper could be overclocked to 3 gig (25%) on standard volts
and to 3.6 gig (50%) with overvolting, If you got a good one. 3.4, anyway. Which would equate to reasonable performance in any title recommending a quad core, even modern ones. Check out the requirements for games like bshock infinite, or skyrim. Many gamers still use these chips. Newer doesnt always mean better. E84's were designed to handle dual thread games well. The Quads were longer strategy thinking. The Quad will rip the duo to pieces in optimised games. In fact, it would be an upgrade in almost every gaming situation.

This is a completely useless metric. Synthetics are not real world. A much better comparison is Tom's hierarchy chart.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html

The E8400 and Q6600 are in the same tier.

An even better benchmark? Right here.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/53?vs=56

Seems to support Tom's placing them in the same tier. It's about 50/50 depending on threading. Except gaming where the E8400 wins 3 of 4 😉


None of that changes the fact that any LGA 775 system is hopelessly obsolete by todays gaming standard.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

OP get what you want. The best advice in this thread is to not spend money on obsolete tech. If you can get a new GPU now and a new motherboard, CPU and RAM in a few months then by all means go for it and move the GPU over to the new system. Don't waste time trying to upgrade that platform though.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Oh and since it has not been mentioned don't try going over a GTX 650 Ti with that power supply. It's a low end FSP and I would not trust it with anything approaching a full load.

 

[chrisso]

Totally useless metric, eh? The tom's hardware chart result for those two chips is based on the games available (mostly two thread max) when the chips were current. That is a pretty useless metric, unless you are only going to play 6 year old games. The other metric you posted confirms that the 8400 has a slightly better single thread ability. and played older games better. Both charts are based on stock clocked cpu's, which makes either of them completely irrelevant to my point, or useless metrics.

 

[CommanderGavin]

Well I can get the 650ti for 85 USD so yeahhhhh

 

[Mousemonkey]

I think you'll be OK, I have a 560Ti on an E8400 and it runs fine.