[Mr.E]

Hey guys,

Haven't been on here in a while but figured you guys might have some good insight for me. I am planning out a new gaming rig for this Christmas. Would I be better off going with a 2.66 GHZ quad core or a 3.1 GHZ dual core. I have been looking at the i5 and i7 series. I have tried reading up on the subject on various forums but I had a hard time finding current discussions. Two years ago the answer may have been different. Are today's games and the upcoming games actually going to utilize quad core processors or is the clock speed more important. Obviously I could overclock the CPU but the question still stands. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[ibfreeekout]

Mr.E, on 08 November 2010 - 11:39 PM, said:

Hey guys,

Haven't been on here in a while but figured you guys might have some good insight for me. I am planning out a new gaming rig for this Christmas. Would I be better off going with a 2.66 GHZ quad core or a 3.1 GHZ dual core. I have been looking at the i5 and i7 series. I have tried reading up on the subject on various forums but I had a hard time finding current discussions. Two years ago the answer may have been different. Are today's games and the upcoming games actually going to utilize quad core processors or is the clock speed more important. Obviously I could overclock the CPU but the question still stands. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

I would go for a quad-core because dual-cores are starting to be phased out little by little. With the advent of the hexa-core machines, quad-cores are now considered the norm for most gamers and there are games now that are actually utilizing all four of those cores (one of the most notable being Bad Company 2). Also even if the games don't utilize all four cores, you are still not going to run into any problems with slowdowns and such because the background programs are running on the cores that aren't being used for the game (in most instances).

On a side-note, how much are you looking to spend on this new machine?

[madhatter256]

4-cores.

YOu can get AMD quad cores for pretty cheap and are just fine for gaming.

[TerranUp16]

Simple really- quad core. Very standard for modern games to take full advantage of them now, they multitask better (which you'll appreciate hugely outside of games), and Windows 7 is more than capable of leveraging a quad core to its fullest.

On the i7 side of things, they already address the greatest issue that quad cores used to have. Specifically, dual cores, per cost, had higher clocks and thus any single-threaded application would usually run better on a dual core. However, the i7s have a built-in Turbo mode that detects when only one thread is getting major utilization and amps the clocks on one core (basically to where the dual core would be clocked at anyway).

Otherwise, current AMD quad cores already come with clocks high enough to get over the hump of most single-thread games, and as mentioned Intel's quads come with the Turbo option (not to mention a much better ISA, so sub-3GHz is fine and OCing potential is great atm on both sides).

EDIT:
For reference, I've been running a Core 2 Quad Q6700 at speeds between 2.66GHz (stock) and 3.33GHz for over two years, and the times when I needed more power off on core were few- and what few there were melted away once I got an OC of 3GHz or above). I just bought a Core i7-950 for $275 off Newegg which I'll be using in my new build. It's clocked at 3.06GHz stock, so while I do plan to OC it, I'm content to know I don't really need to. Guessing that's more than you're looking to spend, but a Core i5, 1156 i7, or AMD quad core would have been viable options as well if I were only looking at gaming and general use. Dev work is where I want the extra power of hyperthreading and the beefed-up X58 chipset (and also, very sexy for streaming gameplay, replays, etc... which helps out both on a personal and business level).

This post has been edited by TerranUp16: 09 November 2010 - 12:23 AM

[ibfreeekout]

TerranUp16, on 09 November 2010 - 12:17 AM, said:

Simple really- quad core. Very standard for modern games to take full advantage of them now, they multitask better (which you'll appreciate hugely outside of games), and Windows 7 is more than capable of leveraging a quad core to its fullest.

On the i7 side of things, they already address the greatest issue that quad cores used to have. Specifically, dual cores, per cost, had higher clocks and thus any single-threaded application would usually run better on a dual core. However, the i7s have a built-in Turbo mode that detects when only one thread is getting major utilization and amps the clocks on one core (basically to where the dual core would be clocked at anyway).

Otherwise, current AMD quad cores already come with clocks high enough to get over the hump of most single-thread games, and as mentioned Intel's quads come with the Turbo option (not to mention a much better ISA, so sub-3GHz is fine and OCing potential is great atm on both sides).

Yeah as long as you have an aftermarket cooler for you processor you can reach some awesome levels in overclocking. Right now I have a Phenom II X4 955 BE (stock clocks are at 3.2 GHz) sitting at 3.78 GHz on stock volts and temperatures rarely go over 53C even under full load. I still have some potential to go even higher on my overclock if I wanted to increase the voltage a bit as well so I could reach the 4 GHz mark.

Truthfully, both sides are great for real-world applications. The only real difference (in most cases) is under synthetic benchmarks. As long as you have hardware that isn't causing major bottlenecks (which hard drives are not), then you will have no problems with either AMD or Intel.

[Thunderg0d]

I went Core 2 Quad now nearly 3 years ago in anticipation for Quad core being worth having. Now is it's time. Enjoy. The cost difference between dual and quad (for the most part) isn't big enough to not justify quad core.

[Avalon]

Grab an i5-750, great bang for the buck intel quad core, outstanding performance. If you really want to go cheap, AMD has some cheaper Phenom II X4 chips, but they won't perform as well.

[ibfreeekout]

Avalon, on 09 November 2010 - 08:43 PM, said:

Grab an i5-750, great bang for the buck intel quad core, outstanding performance. If you really want to go cheap, AMD has some cheaper Phenom II X4 chips, but they won't perform as well.

I wouldn't say AMD processors don't perform as well. In most cases, that is only in synthetic benchmarks, which doesn't necessarily show real-world results. For most people who just play games, either brand is fine. Besides, AMD processors generally like higher clocks and can stay stable under higher clocks, which only increases performance.

[TerranUp16]

ibfreeekout, on 10 November 2010 - 01:15 AM, said:

I wouldn't say AMD processors don't perform as well. In most cases, that is only in synthetic benchmarks, which doesn't necessarily show real-world results. For most people who just play games, either brand is fine. Besides, AMD processors generally like higher clocks and can stay stable under higher clocks, which only increases performance.

Higher clocks don't matter when the ISA is inferior. Clock for clock, an i5 beats a Phenom II. The only way the Phenom II can compensate is by having... durp, a much higher clock, but i5s tend to OC damn well so it's an incredibly murky argument.

Anyway, while I generally dislike synthetics, there are some synthetic tests with some truth to them. That truth often simply isn't utilized or leveraged in real-world applications at the time though, but in a year or two that often changes (easy example is that synthetic benchmarks between the original Intel quad cores and their dual core counterparts would show superior multithreaded performance in favor of the quad cores, with superior singlethreaded performance going to dual cores; the real-world tests at that time would have included mostly single-threaded games, a couple optimized for dual-cores, and only one like Supreme Commander or another "early adopter" that actually used the quad core; if you were to take those exact same cpus today, the synthetic benchmarks should still show the same results more or less, with the same trends, but the real-world benchmarks would now mostly consist of multithreaded games and real-world tests would favor the quad core).

TLDR, the current Phenom II quad cores are cheap and plenty good enough for gaming and most tasks. While i5s and i7s may bring more computing power to bear, there's a pretty good chance you won't need or use it right now. As well, the Phenom IIs largely use the AM3 socket, which Bulldozer will supposedly be backwards compatible with. Thus, by the time i5 or i7 performance might matter for you, Bulldozer should be out and you might be able to pop one of those in your machine (and that's supposed to compete with Sandy Bridge, which is Intel's successor to the i5s and i7s).

[ibfreeekout]

TerranUp16, on 10 November 2010 - 02:03 AM, said:

TLDR, the current Phenom II quad cores are cheap and plenty good enough for gaming and most tasks. While i5s and i7s may bring more computing power to bear, there's a pretty good chance you won't need or use it right now. As well, the Phenom IIs largely use the AM3 socket, which Bulldozer will supposedly be backwards compatible with. Thus, by the time i5 or i7 performance might matter for you, Bulldozer should be out and you might be able to pop one of those in your machine (and that's supposed to compete with Sandy Bridge, which is Intel's successor to the i5s and i7s).

Bulldozer will be using AM3+ and will NOT be backwards compatible with AM3 sadly. I believe that has already been confirmed. Bummer actually.

[TerranUp16]

ibfreeekout, on 10 November 2010 - 04:01 AM, said:

Bulldozer will be using AM3+ and will NOT be backwards compatible with AM3 sadly. I believe that has already been confirmed. Bummer actually.

That sucks if true. I mean, I didn't really expect Bulldozer to be backwards compatible, but both AMD and Intel have been moving away from prolific socket types like LGA 775 and Socket 939 to shorter-lived, narrower socket types. Builds these days are starting to come down to that the motherboard also has to be somewhat expendable (despite that really it should be one of the highest quality parts in your machine). Would be nice if at least one of the two vendors stepped-up and challenged this trend.

[Thunderg0d]

TerranUp16, on 10 November 2010 - 03:36 PM, said:

That sucks if true. I mean, I didn't really expect Bulldozer to be backwards compatible, but both AMD and Intel have been moving away from prolific socket types like LGA 775 and Socket 939 to shorter-lived, narrower socket types. Builds these days are starting to come down to that the motherboard also has to be somewhat expendable (despite that really it should be one of the highest quality parts in your machine). Would be nice if at least one of the two vendors stepped-up and challenged this trend.

Reason why neither manufacturer will do this:

They make the board chipsets. The more often you need a new board = more revenue for them as well. They have enough data to know how often the average consumer would swap out a PC, or more simply how often an enthusiast tries to hold onto a CPU before upgrading. I'm pretty sure they goals are set to 6 months prior to that swap out date to guarentee even the enthusiast to be screwed into a new board, whether it be due to memory standard change (which isn't horribly limiting as DDR2 isn't a big enough hindrance to "need" DDR3) or a socket refresh. Nvidia has essentially lost the chipset war IMO and will try to outlast the others in the IGP segments for as long as they can, before being forced back into their roots as a graphics manufacturer.

[TerranUp16]

Yeah, I know. But it's always a card that one side could pull to try and win favor (I mean, lifetime warranties on graphics cards were never a good idea for any vendor, but that became just about standard for a bit because eVGA pressed the issue and backed it up with good hardware).

But yeah, interestingly I've been shoved into a position on my last two builds where I am literally just a few months ahead of a generational leap in CPUs and chipsets. Last time I had to settle for a Core 2 Quad because I couldn't wait any longer for Nehalem (my aging Socket 939 build was at the end of its rope after 4+ years; unfortunately that board died just a month short of the big price drop on the Q9550 and also came at a time where I didn't have the funds I needed for the quality computer I wanted to build, so I settled for a very high-end 750i board instead of a 790i and the Q6700 instead of Q9550; those factors have put me where I am right now actually as my confidence level in the 750i build is shaken pretty hard at this point, so I am looking to put that into a back-up role and to get something new in my primary role). This time... Sandy Bridge and Bulldozer are around the corner. Solace I suppose is that both are probably going to be more expensive than I'd like on release (particularly Sandy Bridge, but AMD wanted Bulldozer to compete with Intel's high-end finally so we may see some prices there that we haven't been used to for quite some time).

[Mr.E]

Thanks for the help guys. I decided that quad core is the way to go. That's what I figured but the old forum posts that I were finding online were saying the opposite based on the tech a couple years ago. I just needed to verify that that was no longer the case. Appreciate the help.