Better for gaming?

[edm]

Hey guys, just wondering what everyone's thought are on these two chips?

Both will cost about the same price and looking at the benches, both are pretty similar.

Thanks

 

[F1shF4t]

Well the P2 940 is a quad the E8400 is only dual core.
For any games which can utilise a quad(like GTA4) the P2 will be much better.

 

[F1shF4t]

Sorry, double post.

 

[nyker96]

i think nowadays cpu isn't as important, just push up all settings and let the gpu be your bottleneck. but if you ask me newegg had the PII 920 i think for 135 over the weekend. that's like pretty cheap for a quad. if i got about 150 to spend that would be my choice.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: nyker96
i think nowadays cpu isn't as important, just push up all settings and let the gpu be your bottleneck. but if you ask me newegg had the PII 920 i think for 135 over the weekend. that's like pretty cheap for a quad. if i got about 150 to spend that would be my choice.

Lots of evidence to the contrary... CPU power is necessary for driving recent games with high res & high levels of detail.

 

[angry hampster]

Why does no one mention resolution?

 

[Sureshot324]

Get the Phenom. Most games out today won't be CPU limited on either processor, but as games start getting more multi threaded, you'll be glad you have a quad.

 

[richierich1212]

go with a phenom ii

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: Sureshot324
Get the Phenom. Most games out today won't be CPU limited on either processor, but as games start getting more multi threaded, you'll be glad you have a quad.

Exactly. A quad is the way to go. Unless you only intend to play current games, not future games that will actually be quad-optimized.

 

[nyker96]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Originally posted by: nyker96
i think nowadays cpu isn't as important, just push up all settings and let the gpu be your bottleneck. but if you ask me newegg had the PII 920 i think for 135 over the weekend. that's like pretty cheap for a quad. if i got about 150 to spend that would be my choice.

Lots of evidence to the contrary... CPU power is necessary for driving recent games with high res & high levels of detail.

well not as much as gpu upgrades does for most games.

 

[OCGuy]

Get the E0 E8400 and put it to 4.2ghz

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: OCguy
Get the E0 E8400 and put it to 4.2ghz

Get the X4 940 and put it to 4 Ghz...

Wait a minute, isn't the e8400 around $60 cheaper than the X4 940?

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: nyker96

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Originally posted by: nyker96
i think nowadays cpu isn't as important, just push up all settings and let the gpu be your bottleneck. but if you ask me newegg had the PII 920 i think for 135 over the weekend. that's like pretty cheap for a quad. if i got about 150 to spend that would be my choice.

Lots of evidence to the contrary... CPU power is necessary for driving recent games with high res & high levels of detail.

well not as much as gpu upgrades does for most games.

Quad Core vs Dual Core: Q9550S vs. E8600, Part III - CPU Scaling with CrossFire

In some cases, quad-core gaming performance is up to 50% faster than equivalently clocked dual core.

Not saying this is always (or even often) the case, or that a good dual-core is insufficient, just that quad is coming of age in the gaming arena.

 

[poohbear]

Originally posted by: OCguy
Get the E0 E8400 and put it to 4.2ghz

apparently that 4.2ghz overclock wont make an iota of difference in gaming (@ gaming resolutions):

http://www.overclockersclub.co...iews/intel_e8400/8.htm

and here:

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=4090&page=6 (4.25 overclock on 8600 vs 3.3 stock= 0% diff)

so whopti doo it can overclock to 4.2, its still an e8400. video encoding is a different story, but this thread is about gaming.

 

[Sylvanas]

Get the Phenom 2 for sure.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: poohbear

Originally posted by: OCguy
Get the E0 E8400 and put it to 4.2ghz

apparently that 4.2ghz overclock wont make an iota of difference in gaming (@ gaming resolutions):

http://www.overclockersclub.co...iews/intel_e8400/8.htm

and here:

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=4090&page=6 (4.25 overclock on 8600 vs 3.3 stock= 0% diff)

so whopti doo it can overclock to 4.2, its still an e8400. video encoding is a different story, but this thread is about gaming.

Still don't know if I buy this argument; one day the games will become CPU bound and the assumption is the chips that perform better on today's games at low resolution will perform better on tomorrows games at normal resolution (with a higher powered graphics card). Valid assumption to me.

In this case, the quad is definitely the better choice.

 

[poohbear]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux

Originally posted by: poohbear

Originally posted by: OCguy
Get the E0 E8400 and put it to 4.2ghz

apparently that 4.2ghz overclock wont make an iota of difference in gaming (@ gaming resolutions):

http://www.overclockersclub.co...iews/intel_e8400/8.htm

and here:

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=4090&page=6 (4.25 overclock on 8600 vs 3.3 stock= 0% diff)

so whopti doo it can overclock to 4.2, its still an e8400. video encoding is a different story, but this thread is about gaming.

Still don't know if I buy this argument; one day the games will become CPU bound and the assumption is the chips that perform better on today's games at low resolution will perform better on tomorrows games at normal resolution (with a higher powered graphics card).

i dont get what u mean? in the past (2d/early 3d days) yes cpu meant everything. But now w/ the 3d engines we have & gaming @ 1280x1024+ resolutions its all about the gpu, the cpu can only do so many calculations. The gpu is much more powerful for the calculations needed for games.

Try running crysis w/ a $1000 quadcore i7 and a cheap $30 video card. its not gonna happen. u CAN play crysis perfectly fine w/ a $30 cpu (say an old s939 A64 x2) and a gt 260 (dont even need an expensive vid card).

so, please elaborate as to how video games will become cpu bound one day?

 

[error8]

Get the Phenom II.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Originally posted by: poohbear

Originally posted by: soccerballtux

Originally posted by: poohbear

Originally posted by: OCguy
Get the E0 E8400 and put it to 4.2ghz

apparently that 4.2ghz overclock wont make an iota of difference in gaming (@ gaming resolutions):

http://www.overclockersclub.co...iews/intel_e8400/8.htm

and here:

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=4090&page=6 (4.25 overclock on 8600 vs 3.3 stock= 0% diff)

so whopti doo it can overclock to 4.2, its still an e8400. video encoding is a different story, but this thread is about gaming.

Still don't know if I buy this argument; one day the games will become CPU bound and the assumption is the chips that perform better on today's games at low resolution will perform better on tomorrows games at normal resolution (with a higher powered graphics card).

i dont get what u mean? in the past (2d/early 3d days) yes cpu meant everything. But now w/ the 3d engines we have & gaming @ 1280x1024+ resolutions its all about the gpu, the cpu can only do so many calculations. The gpu is much more powerful for the calculations needed for games.

Try running crysis w/ a $1000 quadcore i7 and a cheap $30 video card. its not gonna happen. u CAN play crysis perfectly fine w/ a $30 cpu (say an old s939 A64 x2) and a gt 260 (dont even need an expensive vid card).

so, please elaborate as to how video games will become cpu bound one day?

Not too fast there on Crysis. My old s939 4200+ @ 2.4ghz and an 8800GTS 320mb had a whopping 4-11fps on high settings. Overclocking the GPU gave me absolute zero noticeable difference. It sure was CPU bound.

And you can't call that CPU weak for 939 either. The only other normal Athlon that had the same mhz as my overclock was the x2 4800.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Scholzpdx

Not too fast there on Crysis. My old s939 4200+ @ 2.4ghz and an 8800GTS 320mb had a whopping 4-11fps on high settings. Overclocking the GPU gave me absolute zero noticeable difference. It sure was CPU bound.

It was cpu bound too, but it was more videocard bound in the sense that you didn't had enough video memory, to run the game at high settings and so, the computer chocked and performance dropped like a brick. Surely you'd have had a totally different experience with a gts 640 mb.

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: poohbear

Originally posted by: OCguy
Get the E0 E8400 and put it to 4.2ghz

apparently that 4.2ghz overclock wont make an iota of difference in gaming (@ gaming resolutions):

http://www.overclockersclub.co...iews/intel_e8400/8.htm

and here:

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=4090&page=6 (4.25 overclock on 8600 vs 3.3 stock= 0% diff)

so whopti doo it can overclock to 4.2, its still an e8400. video encoding is a different story, but this thread is about gaming.

So..what you're saying is that Crysis makes better use of quad cores. Don't generalize.

 

[poohbear]

Originally posted by: angry hampster

Originally posted by: poohbear

Originally posted by: OCguy
Get the E0 E8400 and put it to 4.2ghz

apparently that 4.2ghz overclock wont make an iota of difference in gaming (@ gaming resolutions):

http://www.overclockersclub.co...iews/intel_e8400/8.htm

and here:

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=4090&page=6 (4.25 overclock on 8600 vs 3.3 stock= 0% diff)

so whopti doo it can overclock to 4.2, its still an e8400. video encoding is a different story, but this thread is about gaming.

So..what you're saying is that Crysis makes better use of quad cores. Don't generalize.

my link had nothing to do w/ quad cores, i was showing that an overclocked cpu showed no noticeable benefit in games (my 1st link is of an overclocked e8400 cpu, not even a quad core). dont generalize that im generalizing. infact, why dont we all just read each others posts before commenting, ok?

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: poohbear

Originally posted by: angry hampster

Originally posted by: poohbear

Originally posted by: OCguy
Get the E0 E8400 and put it to 4.2ghz

apparently that 4.2ghz overclock wont make an iota of difference in gaming (@ gaming resolutions):

http://www.overclockersclub.co...iews/intel_e8400/8.htm

and here:

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=4090&page=6 (4.25 overclock on 8600 vs 3.3 stock= 0% diff)

so whopti doo it can overclock to 4.2, its still an e8400. video encoding is a different story, but this thread is about gaming.

So..what you're saying is that Crysis makes better use of quad cores. Don't generalize.

my link had nothing to do w/ quad cores, i was showing that an overclocked cpu showed no noticeable benefit in games (my 1st link is of an overclocked e8400 cpu, not even a quad core). dont generalize that im generalizing. infact, why dont we all just read each others posts before commenting, ok?

Not only did you cherry pick one example, the bolded statement is rediculously false, according to this review.

http://www.tomshardware.com/re...-marathon,1963-19.html


There are plenty of CPU bound games where a higher clock is beneficial. Anyone who plays RTS games can tell you this.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: angry hampster

Originally posted by: poohbear

Originally posted by: OCguy
Get the E0 E8400 and put it to 4.2ghz

apparently that 4.2ghz overclock wont make an iota of difference in gaming (@ gaming resolutions):

http://www.overclockersclub.co...iews/intel_e8400/8.htm

and here:

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=4090&page=6 (4.25 overclock on 8600 vs 3.3 stock= 0% diff)

so whopti doo it can overclock to 4.2, its still an e8400. video encoding is a different story, but this thread is about gaming.

So..what you're saying is that Crysis makes better use of quad cores. Don't generalize.

here are alienbabeltech's thoughts on crysis:

We sense a further disappointment here, perhaps. We see Crysis apparently only uses 2 CPU cores. Core speed is king. Let?s look at 1650×1080:
Again, E8600 edges out Q9550S. However, the difference is usually by a single frame rate or two. Crysis does not appear to take advantage of Core 2 Quad?s ?extra? two cores.

 

[snakeye]

Even if games one day become CPU bound again, it won't matter which of the two CPUs the OP gets, they will both be kind of slow by that time. Regardless, the 940 is better choice because of the two extra cores, which might become useful in the future when more programs take advantage of them.