Slashdot Mirror
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."
Yes of course they can drive these cards, will they do it at the same performance as a modern dual or quad core CPU, no.
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.
http://saveie6.com/
To save you a few clicks, here's the key conclusion (and much better said than the summary from /.) :
Intel Core 2 Q6600 chips aren't available new these days, but Ebay has a ton of them, regularly priced between $50-$70. (...) Is a new CPU worth the price? I'd say yes --especially if you've currently got a dual-core CPU in the 2.2 - 2.6GHz range. The combined cost of a used Q6600 and a GeForce GTX 660 should still come in below $300 while delivering far better performance than any bottom-end desktop you might assemble for that price tag.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
I recently upgraded my CPU from a E4400 to a FX-6100 and added an SSD. I would say the SSD was probably the only reasonable upgrade, in terms of gaming. The FPS certainly better, but it was already above 50-60 FPS in Team Fortress 2. What's the point in making a difference if your eyes aren't going to register it?
The SSD was an excellent upgrade. I used to launch TF2 and go heat up some dinner while waiting for it to load. Now it launches and loads levels in under 30 seconds. That's much, MUCH better than before.
On the other hand, I work a lot with Xen on my Linux partition. Upgrading from a CPU that didn't have any virtualization extensions to one that did made my life so much easier. Being able to launch any kind of OS with very good performance (for a VM) is such a nice upgrade from a VM that could only launch Linux guests.
Perhaps because they're still running plain old 32-bit XP.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Most corporations only have 512 - 1024 megs of ram. The ones who finished moving to Windows 7 have more sane amounts but many still have 512 and only have 5 tabs or less in Firefox or IE when browsing and that is perfectly fine for general use.
Not everyone is a slashdot geek with 8 gigs of ram, SSD, and decent video cards with their modded desktops.
http://saveie6.com/
It's no surprise that you can hook a fast GPU to a slow CPU and get good results, look at Raspberry Pi, who could imagine doing HDMI video with a single core 700 MHz processor?
Sadly PAE in my experience is iffy period, i got a q6600 machine has 2x2gb sticks in it and don't have even 3gb useable. it runs xp 32bit for a reason. PAE has never helped give full 4gb ram on any 32bit OS i have ever used.
Seriously? "up to 50% or more"? Can the submitter get any more vague?
When my q6600 was running XP it addressed 3.5GB of memory. As soon as I installed win7 it addressed all 6GB I had in the box.
PAE under FreeBSD and Linux works fine, it's just the amount of userland vs kernelland addressable memory that's the issue. On a PAE kernel you're still stuck with 3.5GB of kernel land addressable memory.
As the author:
Because the point was to test a system that was assembled using upper-midrange configuration in 2008. Back then, a majority of customers were still using 32-bit Windows and while 2GB DDR2 DIMMS were available, 1GB were the sweet spot.
My first configuration was a Q6600 with a GTX 260 and 3GB of RAM. I swapped in the E6850 to settle the dual-core question.
Also because that's all the DDR2 I still had on hand after so long.
But 3GB is reasonable. It's enough RAM that someone who upgraded to 64-bit Windows 7 (the OS I tested) might not have felt the need to upgrade more.
for about the same amount of money you can get a AM3 chip. It will work in a AM2 / 2+ system (but check with your montherboard maker first!)
80 bucks gets you a 3.2Ghz Phenom II quad core
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=HDZ955FBK4DGM-BP&cat=CPU
currently I am using a Phenom II tri core at 2.8Ghz with a GTS250 on a motherboard that is AM2+, but is "AM3 ready" whatever that means and it did make a noticable improvement, but not "OMFG punch your momma" improvement over the 2.5Ghz X2 I was using... just enough to smooth out many jitters
Seems quite silly to have such an old CPU (dual core 3GHz) with a (back then) top of the line GPU but it's working great! Note that I'm also using 6GB of ram at 800Mhz dual channel (1+1 + 2+2 GB).
I am able to play LOTS (if not all?) games with high / very high graphic detail since then. There are a few options that are tightly coupled with the CPU sometimes and I avoid these, but the rest works great at 1920*1200 (24" screen), even with new games.
My next upgrade will probably be a CPU upgrade, probably with the new Intel Haswell this time when it's released, but I'm not expecting a big boost in games, mostly a faster system overall (dual core is still a bit limited when you have so many programs launched in the background).
Speaking from experience, I can attest to the conclusions of the article.
The machine I am using as I write this is similar to the machine descibed, though I am running 3.25GB of DDR3 (the most this motherboard can utilize for some odd reason). This computer was one of the 1st-generation "Built for Vista" machines--it's a Gateway my daughter bought intending on putting XP on it. Turns out much of the hardware had no drivers for XP, and...well, to be honest, it sucked so bad she bought ANOTHER computer (Best Buy wouldn't give her a refund).
I ended up with it eventually. I up-graded the RAM as best I could (had sticks laying around), installed Windows 7, and dropped a HD7550 in it--While it isn't a screamer, I actually use it as my gaming machine. The biggest visually noticeable performance gains were, by far, from installing Windows 7. The drivers that Windows found worked great. The video card was the next increase in performance, and it was astounding.
But here is the important thing I discovered with this arrangement--the gains are entirely dependent on the software being used. Some games use massive amounts of CPU when they could be handing off some of that load to the video card, and those games don't run so well. Other games are better in this regard and take advantage of the video card and those games I can usually run at maximum settings.
I play an emulator of Star Wars Galaxies and most times I have two instances of the game running concurrently as well as a browser on a secondary monitor. I usually have Ventrilo running at the same time. Sure, only one instance of the game is actually being rendered, but the CPU load is doubled...and this machine handles it wonderfully, with game settings maxed out. I've also run Skyrim easily on this machine, mods galore.
I am quite pleased with the arrangement
why 3gb ram and not 4gb or 8gb++? at least have dual channel ram with 2 2gb sticks.
Because the defective Merom chipset in use in the Core2Duo systems did not support greater than a 4G memory mapping space, and 1G of that was taken up as I/O space, so it was unable to remap the extra 1G of physical RAM and.or move the I/O hoe, even though it had the physical address lines to do so.
The chipset was manufactured between Nov 2006 and Oct 2007, but was used far longer than that by many manufacturers, since Apple was soaking up almost the entire supply of the corrected chipset, which was manufactured between Nov 2007 and Oct 2009.
Intel screwed up, and then taped out anyway in order to meet market deadlines.
It typically wasn't a big deal for most people, since the 2G SIMMs were very unstable at that point, and even desktop systems rarely had more than 3 SIMM slots. This changed in 2009 when Hynix finally fixed their 2G SIMMs, but the company nearly bit the dust anyway, as by then it had defaulted on several loans and one debt-equity swap.
Most people only discovered the screwup in the Merom chipset that happened to be in their machine when they started trying to use 2 2G SIMMs in their Core2Duo machines with the old Merom, and were only seeing 3G of RAM show up to the OS.
It really comes down to what is holding back your games. Depending on the game it could be the CPU or it could be the GPU, or even both. I know that I'm seeing a nice boost moving from a 4670 to GT650 TI even though I'm still on a E5200 (OC'ed) CPU. But the games I'm playing tend to use the GPU more than the CPU. If I were playing a game like Civilization V I would have been better off upgrading the CPU and sticking with the 4670. So take a look at the games you play and how they stress the CPU. If they are regularly hitting over 75% CPU usage then it may be worth upgrading.
The GTX660 is memory limited, so no CPU will give good frame rates in Metro 2033 at that resolution. It can't even sustain 60fps with the game maxed out at 1920x1080.
Sounds like your IT guy needs to have his walking papers signed by HR.
Make a business case and document and report it. I am sure the beancounters will shit their pants when they see you wasted $30,000 in lost salary to save $3,000 on a workstation. My above example is for office users with 4,000+ computers where it is simply not possible to upgrade. Only a major refresh signed by the CIO all at once will get the dinosaurs out. IN that scenario 512 megs of ram is very slow but can work for light office work fine if you stick with Office 2k3, adobe 8, and IE 6.
Many of these systems are common for home users too. In this economy $11/hr is the new norm for college students. Simply pitching a perfectly working computer does not make economic sense more than replacing a video card if you saved money for awhile to do so if you are a gamer making that wage.
But you are more valuable than working off the click demonstrate it to your bosses boss with your boss around and casually mention how you can do half your days job in 15 minutes on a modern computer and see what he says?
Such backward thinking IT people who do not want to do their job are incomptentent and need to go.
http://saveie6.com/
I'm also an AMD fan but I wouldn't say the A10 is a good buy, not when you can get an Athlon triple WITH 8GB of RAM AND a nice case to put it in for just $135. This would give you a boost from dual to triple, much more RAM than the C2D system is gonna hold, and will play just about any game with a middle of the road card.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I just introduced an Intel fan to the wonders of AMD. He just knew that he'd always been told "Use Intel". I told him about my home machine. An air cooled AMD FX-8320 @4.01Ghz w/ 16GB RAM an a AMD 7770 w/ 1GB GDDR5. Every game I play, I crank all the settings all the way up, and the frame rate and quality is great.
I gave him some spare parts for his kids. Phenom II x6 1110T, motherboard, and a stack of RAM that he got 8GB to work together with, and a couple ATI 55xx video cards. He got the standard used parts disclaimer, "It all worked when I took it out, no guarantees that they do now." Not bad for a total of $0.
We spent some time comparing the Intel and AMD current pricing, and he didn't see any reason to use Intel any more.
Someone will reply, saying some benchmark says a comparable Intel is faster. Someone else will show a different benchmark says AMD is faster. For the price, I don't care, they just work, work well, and with the savings I don't mind upgrading again in 6 months. With the numbers we found that day, he can upgrade about 4 times and still come out under the Intel pricing.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.