Core 2 Quad + GTX 550 Ti

[DPerete]

My Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93GHZ (OC to 3.30GHz) is bottlenecking my GTX 550 Ti on online games (TERA, Marvel Heroes, Red Orchestra 2, etc) and on 'BIG' games (Tomb Raider, etc) but it's fine on 'normal' games (Mass Effect 3, The Witcher 2, etc).

I'm a brazilian jobless student and can only afford a Core 2 Quad Q8200~8400 for now.
I was wondering if this CPU can completely handle my GPU so both MAX their power.

 

[firo40]

It'll be a slight improvement

 

[spooky2th]

I think your GPU has a lot to do with it. The 50's are not exactly considered gaming GPU's. 60 is considered the low start of gaming GPU's for Nvidia. 60 and above for gaming.

 

[DPerete]

Alright, I'll use TERA as an example, CPU is used 90%~100%, GPU usage is 10%~50%...
Red Orchestra 2's MAX GPU usage is 70%, etc.

 

[Rationale]

I think your GPU has a lot to do with it. The 50's are not exactly considered gaming GPU's. 60 is considered the low start of gaming GPU's for Nvidia. 60 and above for gaming.

Not entirely true. Wikipedia and Nvidia list the x60 cards as "high end" and the x70/x80/x90 as "enthusiast."
They list the x50 as mid range gaming cards.
Nvidia carefully avoids calling the x40 and lower anything, preferring to talk about how well they can run HD video and blu-ray.

I would agree with their assessment. Generally the x50 is fine for medium settings in the newest and best looking games at the time of each release, as befits its mid-range rating. The 550 TI is older of course, making it lower end now. I simply was disagreeing with your claim that the x50 cards aren't meant for gaming.

 

[Zircoben]

My Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93GHZ (OC to 3.30GHz) is bottlenecking my GTX 550 Ti on online games (TERA, Marvel Heroes, Red Orchestra 2, etc) and on 'BIG' games (Tomb Raider, etc) but it's fine on 'normal' games (Mass Effect 3, The Witcher 2, etc).

I'm a brazilian jobless student and can only afford a Core 2 Quad Q8200~8400 for now.
I was wondering if this CPU can completely handle my GPU so both MAX their power.

The E7500, especially overclocked, has better single thread performance.

See the "Single thread rating" below the score.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Quad+Q8200+%40+2.33GHz

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Duo+E7500+%40+2.93GHz

The E7500 is probably going to perform significantly better than the Q8200 because of this figure, and in most everything besides multitasking, the E7500 is going to beat the Q8200. Most games don't even take advantage of the quad cores, so the E7500 is definitely your best bet for gaming.

The Q8400 is better, (http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Quad+Q8400+%40+2.66GHz&id=1041) but it is really not worth your money and the E7500 would still beat it.

Hope I could help!

 

[Rationale]

My Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93GHZ (OC to 3.30GHz) is bottlenecking my GTX 550 Ti on online games (TERA, Marvel Heroes, Red Orchestra 2, etc) and on 'BIG' games (Tomb Raider, etc) but it's fine on 'normal' games (Mass Effect 3, The Witcher 2, etc).

I'm a brazilian jobless student and can only afford a Core 2 Quad Q8200~8400 for now.
I was wondering if this CPU can completely handle my GPU so both MAX their power.

Your CPU performs about the same as my CPU; I don't think it's really bottlenecking. I used to have a card similar to your GTX 550 TI, and my CPU didn't bottleneck me at all. I had to upgrade to a GTX 660 GC for a bottleneck to become evident.

I would recommend replacing your GPU rather than your CPU. If you switch to the Core 2 Quad, you will gain performance in some newer games but lose performance in other games. It's more of a sidegrade with different optimization than an upgrade.

So my vote would be to save money and hopefully upgrade your video card at some point, or just wait because it sounds like money is tight.

 

[Zircoben]

My Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93GHZ (OC to 3.30GHz) is bottlenecking my GTX 550 Ti on online games (TERA, Marvel Heroes, Red Orchestra 2, etc) and on 'BIG' games (Tomb Raider, etc) but it's fine on 'normal' games (Mass Effect 3, The Witcher 2, etc).

I'm a brazilian jobless student and can only afford a Core 2 Quad Q8200~8400 for now.
I was wondering if this CPU can completely handle my GPU so both MAX their power.

Your CPU performs about the same as my CPU; I don't think it's really bottlenecking. I used to have a card similar to your GTX 550 TI, and my CPU didn't bottleneck me at all. I had to upgrade to a GTX 660 GC for a bottleneck to become evident.

I would recommend replacing your GPU rather than your CPU. If you switch to the Core 2 Quad, you will gain performance in some newer games but lose performance in other games. It's more of a sidegrade with different optimization than an upgrade.

So my vote would be to save money and hopefully upgrade your video card at some point, or just wait because it sounds like money is tight.

I'd just stick with your current CPU, that will be better for most of your games. Invest in a GOOD video card, because you can use that later in your next computer build, and then with an i5 or something you will be on cloud nine.

Good luck!

 

[DPerete]

As I said, for most offline games there is no bottleneck, MAX on Mass Effect 3.
Almost MAX on The Witcher 2 : CPU AND GPU can reach 100% and I can even leave Google Chrome and Windows Media Player on and get 35 FPS minimum, aerage 45 FPS, on a place with a lot of soldiers and a dragon spitting fire on us and exploding a castle.


The thing is my card isn't even used to it's full potential for it to be bad, the CPU doesn't allow it to on online games.
If I set Red Orchestra 2 for example, to minimum or maximum FPS it's the same, I get 25~60 FPS.
Too many FPS drops and stuttering.


What I'm asking really here is if a Core 2 Quad would work well/not bottleneck the GTX 550 Ti, because I KNOW it's happening with my Core 2 Duo, CPU at 100% usage on TERA while GPU is doing almost nothing at 20%...

Also I it takes TIIIME for these games to load areas, I can't ALT+TAB because it's SLOOOW and after I close the game I have to reboot my PC because it's SLOOOW even thogh the game is already closed.


I should also mention if I leave the CPU at default 2.93GHz I get even worst performance than Overclocked at 3.30GHz.


ALSO that I get constant 60 FPS on these games when no one is around: an 'empty' area on TERA, 'empty' server on Red Orchestra 2, etc. = less calculations for the CPU.

 

[Zircoben]

As I said, for most offline games there is no bottleneck, MAX on Mass Effect 3.
Almost MAX on The Witcher 2 : CPU AND GPU can reach 100% and I can even leave Google Chrome and Windows Media Player on and get 35 FPS minimum on a place with a lot of soldiers and a dragon spittin fire and exploding a castle.


The thing is my card isn't even used to it's full potential for it to be bad, the CPU doesn't allow it to on online games.
If I set Red Orchestra 2 for example, to minimum or maximum FPS it's the same, I get 25~60 FPS.
Too many FPS drops and stuttering.


What I'm asking really here is if a Core 2 Quad would work well/not bottleneck the GTX 550 Ti, because I KNOW it's happening with my Core 2 Duo, CPU at 100% usage on TERA while GPU is doing almost nothing at 20%...

Also I it takes TIIIME for these games to load areas, I can't ALT+TAB because it's SLOOOW and after I close the game I have to reboot my PC because it's SLOOOW even thogh the game is already closed.

From this: http://benchmark3d.com/red-orchestra-2-heroes-of-stalingrad-benchmark/2, we see that Red Orchestra 2 only utilizes 2 cores (same performance on dual core and quad core). The Q8200/8400 would just worsen this with it's worse single thread performance.

This same thing will go for your other games.

 

[CompuTronix]

Perhaps a different approach to the problem should be considered.

The Socket 775 E7500 - http://ark.intel.com/products/36503/Intel-Core2-Duo-Processor-E7500-3M-Cache-2_93-GHz-1066-MHz-FSB - is a 2nd generation (45 nanometer) Core 2 processor, which means it's overclocking potential is typically about 4.2Ghz. As the E7500 has an 11x multiplier, the FSB only needs to be 382Mhz to reach a very nice OC of 4.2Ghz, so there's still a lot of overclocking headroom above the current OC at 3.30Ghz.

If money is tight, then a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099 - and a little OC tweaking would offer a very significant performance increase for minimum dollars until funds become available for a new build. Regardless, the CM H212 EVO would do an outstanding job of cooling the E7500 at a mere 65 Watts TDP, then could later be moved to a new i5 build.

With the present graphics card, this may reduce or eliminate the bottleneck in some gaming titles, but others will still require a nicely overclocked quad core.

I recently upgraded a Socket 775 Core 2 Duo E6600 (65 nanometer) overclocked at 3.6Ghz to a QX9650 (45 nanometer, unlocked multiplier) I found on eBay for $175.00, which with the addition of a Cooler Master TPC 812, I was quickly and easily able to overclock to 4.4Ghz. Day and night difference. Food for thought.

Hope this helps,

CT