Is Core 2 Duo E8400 still a capable gaming processor

[vishalaestro]

i brought this system to my friend 4 years before
intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3ghz
coolermaster extreme power plus 460w
transcend 2x2gb 800mhz ram
zebronics antibiotic cabinet
seagate 320gb hdd
nvidia 9500gt 1gb
since his card was barely not enough to play any games at 1600x900 resolution i told him to buy a good card like amd 7770 but he told that i would would invest that money to buy a new cpu. so my question is ,is still the Core 2 Duo E8400 capable of running heavy games at 1600x900 res for an another 2 years coz once he buys a new card he won't be able to anything to his system for an another two years.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

It really comes down the game. I think it is possible that the CPU is bottlenecking a number of current video cards like the 7770 on higher settings. So for the more demanding games I would say that you are going to be hard pressed to get another 2 years out of the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8400. 5 to 6 year old processors are really starting to show their age when running higher end games today.

 

[vishalaestro]

It really comes down the game. I think it is possible that the CPU is bottlenecking a number of current video cards like the 7770 on higher settings. So for the more demanding games I would say that you are going to be hard pressed to get another 2 years out of the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8400. 5 to 6 year old processors are really starting to show their age when running higher end games today.

i think the sandy bridge pentium processor performs less than or equal to core2duo E8400 .it's found that pentium processors are capable of running hi end games like battlefield 3 if that processor can work for 2 years why can't the core2duo considering the price point?

 

[gamerk316]

Probably not; you have latency problems due to needing the FSB, not to mention the fact the C2 architecture is just dated now. Probably limited to medium settings on most games, at best.

Even C2Q's are getting hard to justify these days.

 

[InvalidError]

i think the sandy bridge pentium processor performs less than or equal to core2duo E8400 .

Dual-core Sandy Bridge is at least somewhat faster than a similarly clocked Core2Duo and up to about 40% faster for games/applications optimized for SB's new instructions. Without SB-specific optimizations though, we are only talking 10-20% which is not going to make or break things in most cases.

So you're right, if the OP's friend can only afford spending ~$150 on upgrades, upgrading the GPU is likely a much better option. Though I would be a little worried about having only 4GB DDR2 RAM.

 

[whooleo]

I have a friend with an E8400 that I slightly OCed for him on the stock cooler @ 3.3GHz and I can personally vouch for the E8400 as a capable gaming CPU for the majority of games however, I would overclock it to get some more performance out of it. But don't expect to run the most CPU intensive games out there (battlefield 3 multiplayer) but there aren't many of those type of games out there anyways.

 

[vishalaestro]

I have a friend with an E8400 that I slightly OCed for him on the stock cooler @ 3.3GHz and I can personally vouch for the E8400 as a capable gaming CPU for the majority of games however, I would overclock it to get some more performance out of it. But don't expect to run the most CPU intensive games out there (battlefield 3 multiplayer) but there aren't many of those type of games out there anyways.

the motherboard is asus p5kvm can i overclock with this board?and any way i'm not going to play any multiplayer games

 

[whooleo]

You can indeed overclock with that board however, I would be a little conservative on the overclocking due to the fact that the motherboard only has 3 power stages. So a clock speed like 3.4GHz-3.6GHz should be ideal.

 

[mihir94]

I guess CPU's aren't that important while gaming as GPU's.

And spec-wise the 9500 is ancient compared to the E8400. I guess the latter can still do fine for a year-year and half.

And as the other dudes said, overclocking with a good cooling solution would be great setup when coupled with a 7770.

 

[Deeks]

one of my older rigs has a E8400 in it. to be honest with you it really depends on the kind of games you want to play and if there more gpu or cpu dependent. It also matters if the game is optimized to use 2 or 4 cores. My E8400 is oc'd to 4ghz with a gtx 650ti and i can play all new titles but as for games like battlefield 3, crysis 2, anything that's somewhat demanding i have to lower my settings and my cpu bottlenecks my card due to the fact its only dual core and its architecture is getting dated and just cant hack it. Games like sc2 and diablo 3 i have no problem running on it because there only designed to fully utilize 2 cores and i seem to have no problem at all. I would recommend to grab a cm212+ for 25$ and oc as much as you can and you could possibly get it to last 2 years but would have to lower the settings of some games in order to play with 30+ fps using a 7770. if you can try and save and buy a new rig but if you need to stretch it that is what i would recommend .

 

[vishalaestro]

one of my older rigs has a E8400 in it. to be honest with you it really depends on the kind of games you want to play and if there more gpu or cpu dependent. It also matters if the game is optimized to use 2 or 4 cores. My E8400 is oc'd to 4ghz with a gtx 650ti and i can play all new titles but as for games like battlefield 3, crysis 2, anything that's somewhat demanding i have to lower my settings and my cpu bottlenecks my card due to the fact its only dual core and its architecture is getting dated and just cant hack it. Games like sc2 and diablo 3 i have no problem running on it because there only designed to fully utilize 2 cores and i seem to have no problem at all. I would recommend to grab a cm212+ for 25$ and oc as much as you can and you could possibly get it to last 2 years but would have to lower the settings of some games in order to play with 30+ fps using a 7770. if you can try and save and buy a new rig but if you need to stretch it that is what i would recommend .

how much ghz do i need to overclock to get to a pentium g850 performance because that pentium processor is well enough for gaming at my resolution .it's proved in tomshardware gaming cpu

 

[whooleo]

The E8400 overclocked to at least 3.8GHz would beat all sandy/ivy bridge Pentiums. Getting that high isn't that hard especially if you grab a Cooler Master Hyper 212+ heatsink.

 

[vishalaestro]

The E8400 overclocked to at least 3.8GHz would beat all sandy/ivy bridge Pentiums. Getting that high isn't that hard especially if you grab a Cooler Master Hyper 212+ heatsink.

the cpu score of G850 is 2642 and the cpu score of E8400 is 2174.so should i need to overclock to 3.8ghz for just 468 i think if i overclock to 3.3ghz i will be able to catch up with G850 what do u say dude?

 

[ionut19]

I have a core 2 duo E6750(gen just before the 8000 series) oc'ed to 3.4Ghz for four years now and still going with 2Gb of RAM at 850Mhz. Didn't bother upgrading to 4(i should have done that). I use a 5770 video card. I game at 3 resolutions, 1080p, 720p and 1680x1050.

The PC is starting to show it's age in newer games. The 8000 series are just slightly faster core per core compared to 6000 series but they overclock better.

The increase in stress should be minimal when overclocking that CPU.

When i did my research to find at what frequency my cpu take's the most advantage in games i found that anything above 3.2Ghz gives a good bump but after 3.4-3.5Ghz the improvement is too small to worth the increase in voltage. This is viable for 8000 series too. I believe you should go to 3.5Ghz if the motherboard is sturdy enough to support this over a longer period so it won't fail.

 

[vishalaestro]

I have a core 2 duo E6750(gen just before the 8000 series) oc'ed to 3.4Ghz for four years now and still going with 2Gb of RAM at 850Mhz. Didn't bother upgrading to 4(i should have done that). I use a 5770 video card. I game at 3 resolutions, 1080p, 720p and 1680x1050.

The PC is starting to show it's age in newer games. The 8000 series are just slightly faster core per core compared to 6000 series but they overclock better.

The increase in stress should be minimal when overclocking that CPU.

When i did my research to find at what frequency my cpu take's the most advantage in games i found that anything above 3.2Ghz gives a good bump but after 3.4-3.5Ghz the improvement is too small to worth the increase in voltage. This is viable for 8000 series too. I believe you should go to 3.5Ghz if the motherboard is sturdy enough to support this over a longer period so it won't fail.

this is the cooler i can buy http://www.deltapage.com/products/Cooler-Master-CPU-Fan-%252d-INTEL-i7-%7B47%7D-i5-%7B47%7D-i3-%7B-LGA-1155%7B47%7D1156%7D.html can i overclock to 3.3-3.4ghz with this cooler ans asus p5kvm mobo?i just want to get to the pentium G850 performance

 

[whooleo]

this is the cooler i can buy http://www.deltapage.com/products/Cooler-Master-CPU-Fan-%252d-INTEL-i7-%7B47%7D-i5-%7B47%7D-i3-%7B-LGA-1155%7B47%7D1156%7D.html can i overclock to 3.3-3.4ghz with this cooler ans asus p5kvm mobo?i just want to get to the pentium G850 performance

This cooler would probably get you to at least 3.5GHz: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103064

I want to retract my previous statement and say the E8400 probably only needs 3.3GHz to match the Pentium G850.

However, this cooler would get you to at least 3.8GHz and probably 4GHz: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065 OR http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099

 

[iceclock]

it can run games alright but if u can afford to upgrade the cpu.mobo.ram plateform id
suggest u do so.

if not overclocking the 8400 would be an option:

with the above cooler or :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181015

for 54$

 

[sanilmahambre]

AN ULTIMATE UPGRADE
ESPECIALLY FOR CORE 2 DUO

-The First thing would be replacing your mobo (Gigabyte GA-G41MT-S2PT Motherboard)
- Using a ddr3 1600 F S B supported 8 GB Corsair Vengence Ram stick (4 X 2 as equal loads decrease heat)
-use water cooling solution like Corsair H40 Cooler which costs less and cools more
-water cooling will enable overclock of upto 4.5 Ghz but i would recommend 3.8 Ghz
-stress n blend test it for 12 hours under orthos.
-Use a discrete Graphic card such as HD 7970 or HD 7950
-if possible replace ur SMPS for a new 600w PSU

NOW UR PC WILL RUN LIKE A STEROIDS INJECTED HORSE

 

[vishalaestro]

This cooler would probably get you to at least 3.5GHz: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103064

I want to retract my previous statement and say the E8400 probably only needs 3.3GHz to match the Pentium G850.

However, this cooler would get you to at least 3.8GHz and probably 4GHz: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065 OR http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099

if the processor need to be overclocked to only 3.3ghz then i can do it even with the stock cooler because E8600 is 3.3ghz .so finally i'm goingto overclock my cpu to 3.3ghz with my stock cooler itself i think this will make my cpu run for an another 2 years

 

[ionut19]

You can try higher with stock cooler. Check the temps in prime95 and games. If the temps stay within the normal limit then you won't have any problem. I have a arctic freezer 7 pro cooler so any aftermarket cooler will do the trick if temps are too high.

 

[vishalaestro]

You can try higher with stock cooler. Check the temps in prime95 and games. If the temps stay within the normal limit then you won't have any problem. I have a arctic freezer 7 pro cooler so any aftermarket cooler will do the trick if temps are too high.

what will be the normal temps ?

 

[chromex]

so this dude gets payed like once every 2 years or what lol

 

[vishalaestro]

so this dude gets payed like once every 2 years or what lol

i'm a student lol my parents should give me money .they are not interested in giving 600$ for just playing games like i would ."MONEY DOESN'T GROW ON TREES"

 

[iceclock]

you forgot that lga 775 processors overheat alot more than new ones, i doubt u can overclock well with the stock intel cooler, ive had one and they overheat, i had a coolermaster aftermarket cooler cant remember but worked good and overclocked to 3.8 with temps of idle around 35 ish and max temps at load 64.

so yeah def investing in a cooler is worth it

 

[ionut19]

The Tcase is 72C. http://ark.intel.com/products/33910/Intel-Core2-Duo-Processor-E8400-6M-Cache-3_00-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB

Anything above that might be dangerous. Try first without the cooler. If the temps get too high buy a cooler.

I don't like anything that goes higher than 65C.