Question My core 2 quad is under preforming.

[dominicartherweaver]

On fortnight with low settings and resolution, my CPU bottlenecks so much fps is varying from 100 to 1. At first I thought it was my 550 ti yet on msi after burner it never goes above 30-40% load. I have 3gb of ram and I overclock to 2.8 ghz and still have same terrible performance. Should I upgrade to 4gigs of ddr2 ram, get a better motherboard for more ram or abandon the system. Or could it be a simple upgrade like driver.

 

[jimmyl_82104]

I'd sell the Q6600 system and save up for a Dell Optiplex with a Sandy Bridge i5 or i7. I bought one with an i5-2400 for $50. Just needed some ram and an SSD. Perfect media PC for around $100. Add your 550Ti and it will be a decent little rig!

 

[InvalidError]

Then I think you have found your problem. The max temp should be not higher than 70 so you are hitting the limits.
According to Intel its thermal max is 71'C
Unless I am misreading it

You are mis-interpreting it: the temperature you see when using monitoring tools is the JUNCTION (die) temperature, not package. Junction temperature for Intel CPUs goes to 90-105C depending on model. Most current Intel CPUs don't thermal-throttle until 100C but their case (IHS) temperatures are still in the 70C area.

When Intel says "case temperature", it means the temperature you read in the middle of the IHS by drilling a hole through a heatsink to put a sensor there. The CPU and motherboard have no mean of actually measuring that.

 

[bmacsys]

The Core2 Quad has woefull ipc and he has one of the early, slower variants. He has a pitiful amount of ram and with three Gigabytes it isn't even runing in dual channel mode. Putting anything into that rig would be throwing good money after bad.

 

[InvalidError]

it isn't even runing in dual channel mode.

Single vs dual-channel is only a 15% performance penalty on average. Compared to the 100% performance penalty (lockups or zero FPS for several frames, possibly seconds at a time) from having to use the swapfile, the lack of dual-channel is effectively immaterial.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

I would get cheaper motherboard, and psu and storage isn't in price in which case would add up to 300 which is equivalent price to my 2200g system with 8gb of ram.

Storage would come from your old machine. Also the case includes a cheaper CPU. As for the motherboard, that is for later upgrades. If you hold onto the system for a while you can easily drop a 3000 series Ryzen into it in a couple years, or whenever you get enough to upgrade.

Also the 4 GB of RAM is a stopgap measure to keep the price down. You can easily add more RAM later and be up to dual channel and 8GB.

As for 4 GB of RAM being trash, it isn't as bad as people say. Especially if you are playing older games or e-sports games...and remember to close Chrome. 4GB can get you by just fine for a little while. Sure, it will hurt performance, but it will get you by until you can drop another stick in.

I'm going for total rock bottom upgrade here. If that doesn't appeal then help me find out how to pull money from thin air so I can teach that to people. There are plenty of people who simply don't have the cash, like me. I've never spent more than $500 on my system at a time, and with my current job and family those days are long gone. It is a rolling and evolving upgrade cycle. That is simply the best way for cash strapped people to have a reasonable gaming machine. So, for this build, you get on the platform with a 200GE or 2200G. The next upgrade is more RAM and video card. Then storage and CPU. You can stretch out the cost of a reasonable gaming machine this way. Upgrade things like power supplies and cases when you get the chance.

There is a method to my madness.

 

[InvalidError]

There are plenty of people who simply don't have the cash, like me. I've never spent more than $500 on my system at a time, and with my current job and family those days are long gone. It is a rolling and evolving upgrade cycle. That is simply the best way for cash strapped people to have a reasonable gaming machine.

I'll have to disagree on that: if you always aim for the rock-bottom upgrade that will get you by for a little while, then you'll be spending that rock-bottom a lot more frequently and you end up even more cash-strapped than you had to be. I prefer paying a little more to get something that should last a fair distance into the foreseeable future, especially at the low-end where the bang-per-buck increases tremendously with every extra dollar spent. Getting an i5-3470 instead of an i3 back in 2011 cost me only $40 extra and extended my motherboard + 32GB of DDR3's useful life from 3-4 years to 7+., saving me at least one whole CPU+MoBo+RAM upgrade, quite possibly two. Best $40 I could ever have imagined spending on future-proofing.

Aiming for the best bang-per-buck instead of the minimum I can get away with has served me quite well. While it may not be quite as clear-cut right now with AMD giving Intel a run for its money, the mainstream core count escalation isn't going to last for long and will likely settle at 16C32T. I suspect anything 8C16T and up is going to see quite a few people through this next core count winter.

 

[dominicartherweaver]

Looked up the lowest i3 1st gen and it still has better single core performance but does loose out overall. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-Core2-Quad-Q6600-vs-Intel-i3-530/1038vs737

that's pretty obvious.

 

[j121]

if you pair a q9500 or a q9650 with a strong Graphics card and more ram you could run the game at decent settings but for newer games the core quads dont keep up anymore.

 

[sizzling]

that's pretty obvious.

Then you agree your earlier comment that a Q6600 was better than an i3 was wrong. Multi core performance to the weakest i3 is similar and the i3 dominates at single core performance.

 

[Achaios]

So yeah, this expert on Core 2 CPU's? Yeah that's me, I used to own an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX 9650 rig from 2008 to 2013.

Here's some photos of my system that you caused me to dig up:

https://imgur.com/kbkoanp

View: https://imgur.com/kbkoanp

On the right you can see my QX 9650, which I bought for $950, overclocked to 4 GHz in 2008. This is a CPU that is clocked 1.2 GHZ HIGHER THAN YOUR Q6600.

My motherboard was an ASUS P5Q Deluxe which you can see on the left and I had 8 GB of DDR2 RAM. That was like TOP GEEK 2008.

So let me discuss with you my experience with my Core 2 Extreme. Even overclocked to 4GHz, my CPU sucked so much due to insufficient single core performance, that even World Of Warcraft ran at 35 FPS or so.

A Q6600, about 30-50% slower than a QX 9650 is SO FREAKING BAD THAT I DON'T EVEN HAVE WORDS TO DESCRIBE THE LEVEL OF FAIL OF THAT CPU in 2019.

Listen to the Mods and other users and unscrew yourself by purchasing a modern CPU, motherboard and RAM. Your CPU isn't even worth the $20 it sells for on ebay.

Core 2 Expert, out.

 

[dominicartherweaver]

So yeah, this expert on Core 2 CPU's? Yeah that's me, I used to own an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX 9650 rig from 2008 to 2013.

Here's some photos of my system that you caused me to dig up:

https://imgur.com/kbkoanp

View: https://imgur.com/kbkoanp

On the right you can see my QX 9650, which I bought for $950, overclocked to 4 GHz in 2008. This is a CPU that is clocked 1.2 GHZ HIGHER THAN YOUR Q6600.

My motherboard was an ASUS P5Q Deluxe which you can see on the left and I had 8 GB of DDR2 RAM. That was like TOP GEEK 2008.

So let me discuss with you my experience with my Core 2 Extreme. Even overclocked to 4GHz, my CPU sucked so much due to insufficient single core performance, that even World Of Warcraft ran at 35 FPS or so.

A Q6600, about 30-50% slower than a QX 9650 is SO FREAKING BAD THAT I DON'T EVEN HAVE WORDS TO DESCRIBE THE LEVEL OF FAIL OF THAT CPU in 2019.

Listen to the Mods and other users and unscrew yourself by purchasing a modern CPU, motherboard and RAM. Your CPU isn't even worth the $20 it sells for on ebay.

Core 2 Expert, out.

thanks, i have i modern ryzen system I just didn't want it to go to waste

 

[bmacsys]

It doesn't have to be a waste. You just have to have more modest expectations for that ancient rig.