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| | | Tuesday, April 29, 2008 |  | Dual vs Quad Core Gaming
By John @ 5:15 AM :: 26400 Views :: 13 Comments ::  :: PC Hardware Guides |  | The Video Card
The video card I used was a single inno3D 8800 Ultra. 
The card is overclocked above the default core clock set by NVIDIA. This overclocked version of the GeForce 8800 Ultra has a GPU core clock of 640MHz. When I bought it, this was the only Ultra card available. Not only was it the only model I could find, it was the only card in the country (Australia). Apparently they just don't sell well. I started to test with Windows Vista 32bit but I experienced some abnormalities with some of the games. I wasn't able to get consistent results. I switched over to Windows XP 64bit and instantly got consistent results. This article focuses on how the CPUs work, so being able to test in 64bit seemed more important than being able to test with DirectX10. (For graphics reviews, I will test with Vista 64bit.) Test setup:
| Mainboard |
MSI X38 Diamond |
| Chipset |
Intel X38 |
| Video Card |
inno3D 8800 Ultra |
| ForceWare Drivers |
169.21 |
| Memory |
Corsair XMS3 running at 1333 MHz, 9-9-2-4 and 1.50 V |
| Hard Drive |
Western Digital Raptor 74.3GB, 10 000rpm x2 (not in RAID) |
| Optical Drive |
ASUS DVD RW |
| Operating System |
Microsoft Windows XP 64bit |
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| Variable Processors: |
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 |
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Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 |
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| Comments |  By
Scyphe @
Thursday, May 01, 2008 9:28 AM | |
For gaming and non-intensive desktop work a higher frequency dualcore CPU is a better choice than a quadcore. Besides, the new 45nm E8x00-series of Dualcore CPU's are cheap and easily overclocks better than equivalent quadcores which gives the price/performance-prize to Intel's current C2D's. It will change once developers have got the right tools to make truly multithreaded applications. In 2009 we should see a majority of top-tier games being truly multithreaded for more than 2 cores. I hope. |
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| By
provoko @
Thursday, May 01, 2008 8:23 PM |
i liked your conclusion
thanks for the tests |
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| By
daemon @
Friday, May 02, 2008 5:27 AM | |
Why do a one sided arguement? Testing of games such as UT3 and Supreme Commander should have been added to see real world benefits from quad core cpus. |
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| By
John @
Friday, May 02, 2008 5:46 AM |
So you want me to Hunt out games that are optimized for quad cores and test them?
I know there are games out there that are optimized and I even play UT on my Core 2 Duo 6700 and it run smooth as silk on 2 cores with max settings. What makes you think it will run smoother with 4? I did start to test Supreme Commander but we had problems testing it with fraps – it wouldn’t give consistent results. Feel free to list any other games that are optimized for Quad cores. If the list gets big enough it might make me think twice about recommending people spend 5x the price on a CPU…. |
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| By
blzd @
Friday, May 02, 2008 9:07 AM |
World in Conflict does take advantage of more then 2 threads, and the developers of Crysis insist it does too, but as you can see it makes little difference in the end. People like to buy quads because its the next step, eventually people will have to go quad, but for now it does little for gamers.
Only thing I would disagree with is that quads cost alot more, Q6600 and 6700 are selling for very cheap, only $30 or $70 more then an e8400, not to mention only $195 for the cheapest Phenom, slightly cheaper then an E8400. |
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| By
kilroy67 @
Friday, May 02, 2008 4:51 PM | |
Good article john. But I disagree with your comment that Quads cost 5 times more then Dual core. Currently the Q6600 goes for $219 here in the USA. The charm of this CPU is its ability to overclock easily to 3GHZ on air!! If one is looking to future proof ones machine,then I cant see buying a dual core CPU when for $20-$40 more they can have a quad core. More and more games are coming out with multi-threaded support and take full advantage of 4 cores or more. |
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| By
kurmis @
Friday, May 02, 2008 10:19 PM |
"The megahertz race came to an end with Intel's limit of 3.4GHz with their Prescott core""
Prescott was maxed out at 3.6 and prescott extreme at 3.8 so its higher than 3.4 |
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| By
Criswell @
Saturday, May 03, 2008 1:37 AM |
This article is stupid. Who cares about the numbers, I don't even read the results..
I just know that on my Quad Core I can game just as fine as I used to, if not better on particular games. But on the other hand, with the Quad Core I can now Fold for the cure AND play my games at the same time. I definitely could not do that previously with my E6700. |
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| By
Nonfanboy @
Monday, May 05, 2008 12:38 AM | |
You got to love the fan boys that take the time to post a comment about an article but do not take the time to read it Criswell your comment make yo look stupid. The article confirms that quad core is faster in multi tasking and its not about seeing what is faster its about showing people how the CPU cores work in gaming. Take the blinkers off kid. |
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| By
Matt @
Friday, May 09, 2008 9:00 PM | |
Correct me if I wrong, but the two processors tested were the QX6850 and the E6850. The QX is Intel Extreme Processor which is supposed to be the speed demon for gaming and HD video editing. The above test shows that an ordinary 2 core can go the distance against the Extreme CPU. The extreme CPU's are 5x more expensive. |
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| By
Scyphe @
Friday, May 09, 2008 11:50 PM | |
Actually, the X in Intel's model-scheme signifies that the multiplier is unlocked, aimed at enthusiasts who want to overclock to the max. Other than that they're the same as the non-X versions. It's marketing. |
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| By
Den_of_Earth @
Sunday, October 19, 2008 2:33 PM | |
A sales rep from Fry's told me that the "Q" series quad cores have locked multipliers. The "E" series duo cores are not locked and can handle considerable overclocking. So its a choice between locked quad core and unlocked duo core. |
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| By
Adam @
Sunday, November 23, 2008 9:49 PM | |
Keep in mind that he's comparing cpu's of identical frequencies. You can get a much cheaper quad now but at reduced freqs and from what i can tell from the article this would mean significant drops in performance. I thought the article was excellent. Influenced my decision very much. |
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