The architecture of modern CPUs is far more efficient, but a high-clocked (3GHz+) Quad Core 771/775 system can still show reasonable performance. The Dual Cores, however, are obsolete.

I think there needs to be a distinction between "modern games" and "software." My C2D 6550 has no problems with modern web browsers, office apps, Windows 7, etc. I would not call that obsolete. It is not unuseful, it just isn't up to the task of modern DX11 gaming. There are plenty of brand new machines that also fit that description too.

obobskivich wrote:

My C2D 6550 has no problems with modern web browsers, office apps, Windows 7, etc. I would not call that obsolete.

The C2Ds (I have a couple of them myself) handle these tasks you mentioned just fine, individually. But in multi-tasking they begin to suffer noticeably compared to the C2Q and modern CPUs. And of course in games that can utilize more than 2 cores.

The CPU tests in 3dmark 11 on the other hand isnt realistic for gaming or my dual Xeon X5690 would be the best gaming rig in the world 😁

The 4 GHz socket 775 Quad core system isnt nearly as fast as a 2nd or 3rd gen i7 but it is fast enough to run most of the latest games.

Here are some more benchmarks, this system did not have a high res screen.

Unigine Valley

Unigine Heaven

honestly, I played Watchdogs on a q6600 OC'd to 3.6, with my GTX 660 and it was very playable, also not my FX6300 frequently looses to my old core 2 Quad, even at 4.5ghz it runs slower in alot of tasks compared to the old q6600, so I'd say yes, a Core 2 Quad is enough for today's games

dr_st wrote:

obobskivich wrote:

My C2D 6550 has no problems with modern web browsers, office apps, Windows 7, etc. I would not call that obsolete.

The C2Ds (I have a couple of them myself) handle these tasks you mentioned just fine, individually. But in multi-tasking they begin to suffer noticeably compared to the C2Q and modern CPUs. And of course in games that can utilize more than 2 cores.

Nothing I've ever noticed - maybe I'm doing it wrong though.

Gaming isn't a factor for that machine so I have no idea how it would do. My Q9550 had no trouble with newer-ish games like Hitman 5, but I don't demand full max ultra at 99999 FPS. It ran it pretty well (~50 fps) at med-high.

candle_86:
It really depends on what is the definition of playable. If 30fps AVG is enough for you, then it is playable. For me it is not. Watch dogs at ultra details + 4xAA (i5 3330 + R9 290) "only" scores 45fps in the city and 60 outside. 60 is good, 45... not so much, but still playable. R9 290 is fast enough to deliver 60+ the whole game, unfortunately i5 @ 3,4GHz is not and because of that it drops to 45 quite often.

FX-6300 vs C2Q is not that different. They are both slow for my standards.

3Dmark CPU tests scale very well with multiple cores/threads. Current games are using four at best. I hope this will change when windows 10 and DX12 hits the market. With DX12, games should be less dependant on the CPU performance.

obobskivich wrote:

I think there needs to be a distinction between "modern games" and "software." My C2D 6550 has no problems with modern web browsers, office apps, Windows 7, etc. I would not call that obsolete. It is not unuseful, it just isn't up to the task of modern DX11 gaming. There are plenty of brand new machines that also fit that description too.

My laptop has a similar CPU (c2d T8100) and it is very hard to use because of the slow CPU. Web browsing is sluggish, video playback results in high CPU load (especially online video - flash), java programming is pain as well. I guess I'm too spoiled by the i5 performance. 🤣
Multitasking is indeed too demanding for c2d to handle.

havli wrote:

candle_86: It really depends on what is the definition of playable. If 30fps AVG is enough for you, then it is playable. For me […]
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candle_86:
It really depends on what is the definition of playable. If 30fps AVG is enough for you, then it is playable. For me it is not. Watch dogs at ultra details + 4xAA (i5 3330 + R9 290) "only" scores 45fps in the city and 60 outside. 60 is good, 45... not so much, but still playable. R9 290 is fast enough to deliver 60+ the whole game, unfortunately i5 @ 3,4GHz is not and because of that it drops to 45 quite often.

FX-6300 vs C2Q is not that different. They are both slow for my standards.

3Dmark CPU tests scale very well with multiple cores/threads. Current games are using four at best. I hope this will change when windows 10 and DX12 hits the market. With DX12, games should be less dependant on the CPU performance.

obobskivich wrote:

I think there needs to be a distinction between "modern games" and "software." My C2D 6550 has no problems with modern web browsers, office apps, Windows 7, etc. I would not call that obsolete. It is not unuseful, it just isn't up to the task of modern DX11 gaming. There are plenty of brand new machines that also fit that description too.

My laptop has a similar CPU (c2d T8100) and it is very hard to use because of the slow CPU. Web browsing is sluggish, video playback results in high CPU load (especially online video - flash), java programming is pain as well. I guess I'm too spoiled by the i5 performance. 🤣
Multitasking is indeed too demanding for c2d to handle.

well anyone still using a Core2 isn't going to max their games out, I ran it medium, with low physics 1680x1050 and I was fairly smooth, only a few hiccups, but overall very very playable.

True.
Not all games can adjust the physics complexity though. Most of the time you can only lower graphics effects and details... which doesn't really help when CPU bottleneck occurs.

I'm still using an E8400 Core 2 Duo (3GHz) and my PC is fast enough for everyday tasks.
However, I do agree that it probably will struggle a bit to cope with modern games (even if I upgrade my graphics card).

Just as a matter of interest.

How fast do you want the frame rate of your games to be?
Standard film is 24 fps, PAL tv is 25 fps and NTSC tv is 29.97fps.
I'd always thought that so long as the frame rate of your game doesn't drop below 30fps, the graphics should be smooth enough? Or, am I missing something here? Is it because the higher the resolution, the higher the frame rate should be?

In theory - as fast as possible.
In practice it depends on type of the game, the person playing it and of course actual hardware limitation. The more action is on the screen and faster reaction needed, the faster framerate you want to have. Higher framerate greatly reduces inputlag, even when the monitor can't display it (fps is above the refresh rate). Playing Q3A multiplayer at... lets say 60 fps is a suicide. 125 or more is much better. Something like Age of Empires on the other hand runs fine even at 30 fps, altrough it feels smoother at 60+. 😀

Greater resolution (or more like the screen size) reqires better framerate.
Let me put it this way - if your screen is 30cm wide, an object travells at constant speed from one end of the screen to the other in 1 second (@ 30fps). Then every frame moves the object by 1cm. The same process on 60cm wide screen will result in 2cm step per frame. Of course this is much less smooth.

Check this test - http://www.testufo.com/#test=framerates&count … nd=none&pps=720

I don't really understand how 60 FPS is not enough for anything. That is 16.7 mS per frame. No normal human can react anywhere near 16.7mS. Even with triple buffering, that is only a 50mS lag.
Very close to best/worse case for human abilities to notice.

The total score is better by 28% for the i5 and the physics score is by 46% higher. So the i5 is almost 50% faster while clocked 600 MHz less.

Significant but not necessarily relevant. It shouldn't be a surprise that CPUs made 6 years newer would be faster. But in many games, you will be GPU bound unless you have a really high end GPU anyway
so a faster CPU won't help.

60fps is enough for any game, as far as graphics are concerned. But when the input lag is tied to the framerate, a high and stable fps count makes a difference.

Anyway, I have a 120Hz monitor and I do notice when something messes up my configurations and drops me back to 60Hz while in the desktop (the mouse pointer moviment looks a bit less smooth), though I'm not sure I'd notice anything in games;

jesolo wrote:

Just as a matter of interest. […]
Show full quote

Just as a matter of interest.

How fast do you want the frame rate of your games to be?
Standard film is 24 fps, PAL tv is 25 fps and NTSC tv is 29.97fps.
I'd always thought that so long as the frame rate of your game doesn't drop below 30fps, the graphics should be smooth enough? Or, am I missing something here? Is it because the higher the resolution, the higher the frame rate should be?

interlacing is key for the older formats, now progressive scan im not sure how they trick us into not seeing the stutter, but I notice it in games below 45FPS i will notice a stutter

candle_86 wrote:

jesolo wrote:

Just as a matter of interest. […]
Show full quote

Just as a matter of interest.

How fast do you want the frame rate of your games to be?
Standard film is 24 fps, PAL tv is 25 fps and NTSC tv is 29.97fps.
I'd always thought that so long as the frame rate of your game doesn't drop below 30fps, the graphics should be smooth enough? Or, am I missing something here? Is it because the higher the resolution, the higher the frame rate should be?

interlacing is key for the older formats, now progressive scan im not sure how they trick us into not seeing the stutter, but I notice it in games below 45FPS i will notice a stutter

At 45 FPS, it may not be the framerate but rather frametime variance that is bothering you. Unfortunately CPU bottlenecks are more likely to cause frame rate variances.

Here's a number for a more modest 775 system that I just built, mostly from stuff I already had around. The motherboard is kinda crap but it gets the job done for now. I didn't really plan on playing anything newer than say 2008 on this machine, but hey maybe now I'll give it a try.

Significantly lower score than the 8763 posted before. No plans to go all out with this system, so I'm happy. Also just noticed my command rate is at 2T...time to go see if 1T will work or not...

C2D is a great platform. But I found it not so cheap to obtain, even to this day. Especially C2Q are holding their value very well.

For an awesome Windows XP machine, I prefer going with Socket 1156 or 1155 or AMD AM3. They are XP compatible and boards paired with cheap Pentium or Athlon processors are cheap and plentiful. I've done some benchmarks in games such as Far Cry, Doom, FEAR but haven't put them together in a write up yet. But the experience was great, no issues or incompatibilities to report.

jesolo wrote:

PAL tv is 25 fps and NTSC tv is 29.97fps.

Not entirely true. While interlaced TV takes two passes to draw an entire frame, if the source is a plain interlaced video camera then both fields of a particular frame will most likely capture motion at two distinct points in time, therefore motion is perceived at the field rate (50/60) instead of the frame rate (25/30). This is why television is classified as "high motion" and the cause of the "video look", also known as "the soap opera effect". Telecined movies, television shows shot on film and other generated content are an exception to this.