Can Legacy Dual-Core CPUs Drive Modern Graphics Cards?

MojoKid writes "A few weeks back, we discussed whether a new GPU like the GeForce GTX 660 could breathe new life into an older quad-core gaming system built in mid 2008. The answer concluded was definitely yes — but many readers asked to reconsider the question, this time using a lower-end dual-core Core 2 Duo. The Core 2 Duo CPU chip used was a first-generation C2D part based on Intel's 65nm Conroe core. It's clocked at 3GHz with 4MB of L2 cache and has a 1333MHz FSB. The CPU was paired with 3GB of DDR2-1066 memory. The long and short of it is, you can upgrade the graphics card on a six year-old dual core machine and expect to see a noticeable improvement in game performance — significant gains in fact, up to 50 percent or more."

Comments

Not really

[Billly Gates]

At least not reliably.

The issue is PCI express 1.0 and 1.1 performance on 2.0 cards and later. Geforces have been known to crash using an earlier slot technology or on lower end systems. Maybe that has changed since the 9600GTX, but I switched to ATI for this reason. Even many Radeons are only tested with later hardware and instability and other bottlenecks happen as many games as Windows swaps video ram to the system ram even when there is plenty of ram available.