Ihatethedukes

You're not entirely off base. This would be the niche argument I was talking about in my disclaimer. I seriously don't any dualcore CPU would have trouble handling the CPU in those games. It probably has just as much to do with memory as CPU and outside the scope of what I'm saying.

However, I'm curious, did your D ever become unplayable in that environment versus your conroe, not? If so, did underclocking any one of your ram/GFX/CPU exacerbate the problem?

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(Dr.) Bottlenecks: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Just Buy the GPU
Bottlenecks Re-examined: Lightmark an OpenGL Benchmark
Importance of CPU and GPU in HL2: Lost Coast benchmarks.

mariogreymist

Unplayable? No. Civ4 on a huge map runs much faster between turns (the near-infinite interplay scenario) on the Conroe. This makes the game far more fun to play than it was. I imagine RTS games would see even more benefit from processing than the turn-based ones I prefer.

Memory aids in that as well, but the gains I have seen are unrelated to memory, as I've been using the same 4 sticks as w/my 805. I have 2x1 DDR2800 coming from newegg...I'll let you know if the performance jump is as noticeable with the improved memory.

Ihatethedukes

Really more the size over the speed. But it'll help.

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(Dr.) Bottlenecks: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Just Buy the GPU
Bottlenecks Re-examined: Lightmark an OpenGL Benchmark
Importance of CPU and GPU in HL2: Lost Coast benchmarks.

mariogreymist

Frankly, 2Gb w/XP should be enough unless I take up playing Quake4 and Civ4 simultaneouly.

b3ar

Congratulations on a fantastic argument. As you can see from my sig rig, I've got a supposedly obsolete CPU and a great GPU, and am running everything on a 22" LCD.

I haven't seen my FPS drop below 30 while playing Oblivion, with all the settings cranked and resolution at 1680x1050. I've got all the proof I need right there that you're right.

...and as to the 'future-proofing' argument towards getting a C2D, just give it a few years until Intel puts out 'many-core' chips with hundreds of cores.

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Ihatethedukes

What some people seem to be misconstruing is that I'm against all that is Conroe and a fast processor. NO... look at my sig rigs. I've got THREE C2D rigs all with MISERABLE cpu/gpu performance characteristics. The reason I have three is because I do a lot of Folding@Home and require heavy CPU computing hardware, which C2D does, and does well. For gaming, I've two rigs, the sig rig and my bro's. You'll notice BOTH are 20.1" screens (16x12, 1680x1050) and BOTH well matched in processing power to the Monitors' refresh rate in the games we play with the 1900XT(X)s but VASTLY different in CPU speed. 3.6 Conroe versus 2.6 X-2. We get identical performance at like GFX clocks in HL2/FEAR/BF2142/C&C3 at native resolutions and eye candy on.

__________________

(Dr.) Bottlenecks: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Just Buy the GPU
Bottlenecks Re-examined: Lightmark an OpenGL Benchmark
Importance of CPU and GPU in HL2: Lost Coast benchmarks.

DELL-HATER

Wow, very nice!
1+ to you! Now I can feel better thinking what I should get!

DELL-HATER

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Ihatethedukes

For you, be careful. I think a P4 may or may not be riding the ragged edge of that 60FPS limit in some games. Multithreaded future games, more so. But, even a cheapy x-2 rig with a 8800GTX and a huge monitor to use up all that graphics power, you will be fine.

__________________

(Dr.) Bottlenecks: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Just Buy the GPU
Bottlenecks Re-examined: Lightmark an OpenGL Benchmark
Importance of CPU and GPU in HL2: Lost Coast benchmarks.

Ihatethedukes

bump for posterity

__________________

(Dr.) Bottlenecks: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Just Buy the GPU
Bottlenecks Re-examined: Lightmark an OpenGL Benchmark
Importance of CPU and GPU in HL2: Lost Coast benchmarks.

CyberDruid

I second the motion

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