Researching replacement for e7200 to quad

[50bmg]

See sig for specs. I want to keep all my current hardware. I want a quad that will last me a year maybe 2 for gaming only.

now i run the e7200 at 3.8G. I love the performance i get out of it. At 3.2G or lower i see a huge drop off in performance(FPS).

most, affordable, quads are between 2.5G and 2.8G @ 1333Mhz. At 1600Mhz I will not be able to hit the high 3G range.

I am looking at the Q8200 and Q9400. Will either of them in the low 3G range keep up with the E7200 at 3.8G.

I plan on playing Far Cry 2 and COD5 in the near future.

 

[murdoc]

Honestly you won't see a major difference in having 4 cores even on FarCry2. I think in 2 years as you've said maybe some programs will actually use 4 cores to its potential where 2 cores are not able to catch up. As of now and probably 1-2 yrs later it won't matter that much. I'd save my money if I were you and upgrade when there is a need to since you probably won't be sticking to your current specs by then anyways.

 

[KyleSTL]

^+1

A Dual@ 3.8 in non-multithreaded games can't really be beat right now. If you were playing FSX or doing video encoding it would be a different story, but I don't think it's worth it, unless you want a quad for background tasks while gaming (anti-virus, encoding, whatever).

 

[KyleSTL]

Sorry for the double-post, but it won't let me edit.

Consider changing out your 3870s for an HD 4870 or a pair of 4850s, it's around the same price as those quads (~$250 and $320, respectively), but will have a significant impact on your gaming preformance (depending on your resolution and detail levels).

 

[50bmg]

yep, i agree. I was just thinking the exact same thing. These 3870's are a pain in the arse.

a 4870 would give me huge boost, especially with AA. I will wait to see how prices go after Thanksgiving.

 

[zenmaster]

Definitely do the video cards 1st.

 

[cerulean]

I agree with upgrading the video cards first. Your CPU is adequate at that clock speed to handle just about any current gaming title you can throw at it.

I would avoid the Q8200 as a gaming CPU altogether. It has a low multiplier (x7) which is going to be somewhat difficult to get high above 3GHz with DDR2-800 that you have. Aside from that it has a low 4 MB shared cache and the games that you've mentioned are pretty cache-happy. You will likely see a huge dip in performance with this option.