Trying to upgrade my Dell Vostro 400 Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz

[caylorbrandon]

So I got a pretty good deal on a computer off of craiglist (sketchy I know) but it was only 50 bucks and had a 250g solid state drive and 8g of ram. So I already upgraded to a nvidia 650 ti and its running games decently enough but struggles a bit with PUBG. My processor isn't meeting the minimum requirements so I am wanting to upgrade that but I'm honestly not sure what I need. I don't know a whole lot when it comes to computers but I believe I have a LGA 755 socket on my motherboard. What are some upgrades I could use? I'm already planning on upgrading my PSU but wanna start with the CPU first. Thanks in advance.

 

[clutchc]

You will need to come up with the exact make/model of the PC. If it is a proprietary built machine like a Dell, Lenovo, Acer, etc. you will want to go by their CPU upgrade path. If the machine is a self-built PC from retail parts, you will need to find the exact make.model of the motherboard.

 

[BFG-9000]

Exact make/model are in the title. And while it can refer to one of two G33 motherboards, the fact that it has a quad in it now suggests it came with the one that is quad capable.

The short answer is there is no upgrade available that will make much difference. That board does not work properly with E0 stepping 45nm chips like the Q9650 so just about the fastest CPU it can take is already installed. I suggest a BSEL 266-->333 padmod to the board's maximum supported 1333 FSB which would produce the same 3.0GHz that the Q9650 would have provided. I would not suggest dropping to dual-core to get more clockspeed.

It's time to temper expectations. PUBG is notoriously CPU limited, and while it's mostly single-thread, dual-cores are known to bog down its minimum framerate. The minimum requirements for a fast i3 and GTX660 only provide 30fps anyway, and you are below this for both CPU and GPU. C2Q is roughly comparable to a lower clockspeed dual-core + HT i3 so you'd need a C2Q at >4GHz to come close to such a fast i3, which is clearly impossible on that board.

While C2Q still makes a decent office and web browsing machine in 2017 (it's definitely a much better experience than a tablet or phone), for gaming it has severe bottlenecks in bandwidth due to the FSB and slow memory, so is like a Bulldozer that can't clock nearly as high and with half as many cores. The cores it does have share L2 in pairs and communicate over FSB which is why it's only equivalent to a dual-core with HT, + add in 10 years of IPC improvements and you have a severely underpowered CPU.