I have a pc with a 3.2ghz core 2 duo e8500 processor, i have 2gb of pc6400 installed, a 1tb hard drive, 19" lcd monitor, dvdrw, 512mb graphics card.

What could i do to make my pc even faster? upgrade the processor? add more ram?

That's a reasonable machine already. Do you find it struggles much when you use it? ie. why do you want to try and speed it up?

Only two cores?

You could get a better graphics card.

what motherboard are you using?
but right off the bat id say:
a quad core processor
another 2 gig of Ram
a newer GFX card.

Two cores and more gb RAM would ramp it up a notch :)

Two cores and more gb RAM would ramp it up a notch :)

I already have 2 cores or are you saying to get a quad core?

what motherboard are you using?
but right off the bat id say:
a quad core processor
another 2 gig of Ram
a newer GFX card.

Thanks for that, do i need a quad core processor?

I was thinking of upgrading the ram to 4gb so that is something i will definitely do.

bear in mind that unless your running 64bit xp or vista. windows will only use around 3gig of the 4 gig.
your need for a quad core is determined by you. does the pc do everything you want it to?
list what motherboard and GFX card you have an i could advise you further.

I have a Foxconn G31MX-K motherboard and a Radeon HD 4870 graphics card.

well that Graphics card is fine. i have the same one ;)
your board supports the newer 45nm quad cores so something like a q9550
and an extra 2 gig of ram should ramp it up a bit more.

no body NEEDS a Quad Core, only a limited number of programs actually make use of the Quad Core CPU's, and that is if the OS lets it. i'm running a Core 2 Duo E8400 and have been for the last year, and it outperforms my m8s Q6600 and some other Q6600's I have put it against side by side.

Sure, the Q9550 will come out on top, but I don't think anyone NEEDS QuadCore yet, unless your using 6GB Ram+, and doing realtime 3d modelling or video editing / rendering etc, in which case, go i7

never heard of setting affinity in task manager? i run a lot of driving sims like GTLegends although its made to only use 1 core. if i set it to use all four i get far better performance.
also its nice to be able to author a dvd from a avi, serch the web download torrents and play music without any slowdown.
why go i7 and have to buy a new board and RAM ?

I have a Foxconn G31MX-K motherboard and a Radeon HD 4870 graphics card.

I might be interested in the graphics card if you do upgrade.

no body NEEDS a Quad Core,

*Throws Dual Quad core Xeon Mac Pro out of window*

That's a great graphics card, super fast. I have the earlier HD 3870 in my... oh wait, I just threw it out the window.

*Throws Dual Quad core Xeon Mac Pro out of window*

That's a great graphics card, super fast. I have the earlier HD 3870 in my... oh wait, I just threw it out the window.


nooooooo!!!








oh nvm...only a mac
:hihi:

I have a 3870X2 and a 3870 in crossfire in my machine... I recently saw a 4890 and was like "I want an x2 version" :) lol.

Ghozer, Rumor has it that there might be one in the pipeline (http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,678181/Ati-Radeon-HD-4890-and-Radeon-HD-4890-X2-Rumors-from-the-Cebit/News/)

I think overclocking could be the way to go although i have never done it before.

From what i have seen on the net i could easily overclock my processor to around 4ghz.

How would i go about doing this and what sort of things would i need to purchase?

if you want to goto 4ghz id recommend water cooling.

Do not disregard the above comments, charlies advice would also be the maintenence of your computer, such as browser information that can be stored, history, other related issues that are registered within the registry, also clearing private data, and many other simple issues if maintained will improve your computer performance without costs and stress, if you would like a free diagnosis then call us.

never heard of setting affinity in task manager? i run a lot of driving sims like GTLegends although its made to only use 1 core. if i set it to use all four i get far better performance.
also its nice to be able to author a dvd from a avi, serch the web download torrents and play music without any slowdown.
why go i7 and have to buy a new board and RAM ?

You can set whatever affinity you like, it only runs on one core, unless you've got a lot of other stuff running in the background to assign to the other 3 cores it will make no difference moving from 2 to 4.

The graphics card is pretty good, not quite top of the range anymore, you could add another one in crossfire if the motherboard supports it, or a 4870*2 in triple crossfire.

The extra memory definitely wouldn't hurt, I don't think there's any point in changing the processor though.

Personally, if I had money to spend a setup like that, I'd get a decent monitor, it's the bit you stare at all the time, 19" must be like going back to 2001.
Get one of these
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=5588

You can set whatever affinity you like, it only runs on one core, unless you've got a lot of other stuff running in the background to assign to the other 3 cores it will make no difference moving from 2 to 4.

your quite wrong, the performance of GTL, Rfactor and GTR2 increases when you set affinity to all 4 cores. if you doubt it, try for your self.
you can see the cores being used in the cpu history. the FPS goes up. and the games run smoother.

My friends got a ati 9600 agp graphics card and yes!....................it's crap!

your quite wrong, the performance of GTL, Rfactor and GTR2 increases when you set affinity to all 4 cores. if you doubt it, try for your self.
you can see the cores being used in the cpu history. the FPS goes up. and the games run smoother.

You should inform the developers. A game that by design can only run on one core, is evolving by itself to use more than one. The process goes exponential and within 28 minutes the system has become self aware, mankind's fate is sealed at that point.

instead of being sarcastic, go try it for yourself. Or are you afraid to find that it can achieve better performance than your mighty all powerful 2core cpu.

I have a pc with a 3.2ghz core 2 duo e8500 processor, i have 2gb of pc6400 installed, a 1tb hard drive, 19" lcd monitor, dvdrw, 512mb graphics card.

What could i do to make my pc even faster? upgrade the processor? add more ram?

You should overclock the 8500 to 4Ghz. Rude not too. You will disappointed in how many games are optimised for 2Gb and will not gain from having more. However, if you are one to run user mods in games, then this is the time you can see gains from more than 2.

Hard drives in raid (and presumably a decent SSD - Intel/Samsung). I like having windows loading by the time I've sat in my chair and got comfortable.

Unrelated to speed, but directly related to gaming pleasure, you should really be using a bigger monitor. I can think of a couple of games with user customisable interfaces, where you wouldnt have enough screen space left with only a 19". Your 4870 is good for 24/26" for all bar the most demanging games, even if its the 512Mb version.

After that, there is watercooling. Computer noise was driving me insane. Just knowing water is flowing makes me happy. Even when I've forgot to turn my loop on (yes, it really makes no noise), and my computer crashes 10 minutes later, this makes me happy. Its like owning a bonzie tree. You have to spend time managing it once per year, but it rewards you with kama.

Is this the same computer we're talking about here (http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=472697)?

instead of being sarcastic, go try it for yourself. Or are you afraid to find that it can achieve better performance than your mighty all powerful 2core cpu.

I'm not going to spend money to prove something that is a) patently obvious and b) patently obvious.

You don't know what CPU I'm running, but I do know how multi core programming works and what setting the affinity on a single thread program will do.
Maybe that's the advantage of being a programmer though.

Get a £400 Dell. At least it'll keep working :D

Is this the same computer we're talking about here (http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=472697)?

Not having much luck with this PC eh :(

I'm not going to spend money to prove something that is a) patently obvious and b) patently obvious.

You don't know what CPU I'm running, but I do know how multi core programming works and what setting the affinity on a single thread program will do.
Maybe that's the advantage of being a programmer though.
im glad your not programming anything for me.
setting affinity does achieve better performance.
any programmer worth their salt would be wanting to test and see this.

Setting affinity can give a slight improvement in performance as the load is shared across all cores (controlled by the operating system) instead of just a single core..

example:
Game 1 is running on one core
Program 1 is running on one core

each using 50% of the core.

Set affinity for Game 1 to Core 2 only (as example) the Game can then use 100% of said core 2, and Program 1 can use 100% of core 1

Being able to use 100% of the cpu (in the game's eyes) allows the game to run at its full potential.

... if the games mentioned in this thread were written for multiple cores, you would not NEED to set affinity, or setting affinity would reduce the performance, or make no difference at all.

its purely a sharing situation, where multiple things are trying to fit into one small area, and you are just giving them more space to stretch their legs. like broadband vs narrow band in terms of internet connections.

so in effect, both the above posters are correct in some way..

now can we keep on track of the original subject please.?

im glad your not programming anything for me.
setting affinity does achieve better performance.
any programmer worth their salt would be wanting to test and see this.

Maybe you could explain how something written to run in a linear fashion can be helped in any way by setting an OS tick box that tells it to distribute the load between multiple cores?
Particularly in the situation we were talking about where 3 cores are pretty much idle (ie there are no other significant cpu loads to distribute).
If you can explain that, get yourself a job with intel, they're spending millions on research into how to parallelise things.

Edit - Ghozer, I said in my original post on this particular little gem that it would help if you could distribute other load onto the alternate cores. But 2 cores is more than sufficient for that unless you have a need to encode video or run your virus scan at the same time as playing your game.

Setting affinity can give a slight improvement in performance as the load is shared across all cores (controlled by the operating system) instead of just a single core..

example:
Game 1 is running on one core
Program 1 is running on one core

each using 50% of the core.

Set affinity for Game 1 to Core 2 only (as example) the Game can then use 100% of said core 2, and Program 1 can use 100% of core 1

Being able to use 100% of the cpu (in the game's eyes) allows the game to run at its full potential.

... if the games mentioned in this thread were written for multiple cores, you would not NEED to set affinity, or setting affinity would reduce the performance, or make no difference at all.

its purely a sharing situation, where multiple things are trying to fit into one small area, and you are just giving them more space to stretch their legs. like broadband vs narrow band in terms of internet connections.

so in effect, both the above posters are correct in some way..

now can we keep on track of the original subject please.?

thanks for the sensible reply. i rest my case :hihi:

You could have 'rest your case' then when you read my first sentence on the issue, which Ghozer appears to be aggreeing with.

You can set whatever affinity you like, it only runs on one core, unless you've got a lot of other stuff running in the background to assign to the other 3 cores it will make no difference moving from 2 to 4.

If you set all your other processes to affinity on core 1 for example, and the game on core 2, you might get a small improvement. Adding another 2 cores to the machine will not help at all with non multi core aware games.

You could have 'rest your case' then when you read my first sentence on the issue, which Ghozer appears to be aggreeing with.



If you set all your other processes to affinity on core 1 for example, and the game on core 2, you might get a small improvement. Adding another 2 cores to the machine will not help at all with non multi core aware games.

you really are getting tiresome now. if you set a very CPU intensive game like GTL or GPL to run on all 4 cores. the high load is shared between all the 4 cores. FACT!
either go try it on someone you knows 4core rig and see for yourself or shut up.

you really are getting tiresome now. if you set a very CPU intensive game like GTL or GPL to run on all 4 cores. the high load is shared between all the 4 cores. FACT!
either go try it on someone you knows 4core rig and see for yourself or shut up.

Any chance you could put up a screenshot of a process manager showing one of these games running across all 4 cores since Cyclone's not alone in feeling incredulity? Thanks....

you really are getting tiresome now. if you set a very CPU intensive game like GTL or GPL to run on all 4 cores. the high load is shared between all the 4 cores. FACT!
either go try it on someone you knows 4core rig and see for yourself or shut up.

The FACT is that unless written specifically to run on multiple cores, what you are saying is impossible. The program is linear in nature, one instruction follows another with only a few branch points and no parallelism inherent in it. The only options the OS has regarding cores is to switch the operation of the thread from one completely to another, which is a massively time consuming process.
A single threaded programs load CANNOT be shared by multiple cores.
Go away and learn about about multi core development, writing and compiling for parallel environments and how single threaded programs run, once you've done that, you'll understand that what you are claiming is simply impossible.

I will go get Jerry shall I?

ok cyclone is too ignorant to listen. this is for you cinderella...
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/gtr21core.jpg
GTR 2 running 1 core
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/GTR22009-04-1311-02-17-78.jpg
note the FPS in top right.

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/gtr24core.jpg
gtr 2 running 4 core affinaty, clearly sharing the load.
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/GTR22009-04-1311-04-45-59.jpg
note the performance gain in top right FPS.
if you would like video evidence i can provide.
or maybe some international delegation of programmers (who cant think outside what they have been told to think) could call round my house and tell me i and many of my simracing friends are seeing the imposable.

ok cyclone is too ignorant to listen. this is for you cinderella...
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/gtr21core.jpg
GTR 2 running 1 core
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/GTR22009-04-1311-02-17-78.jpg
note the FPS in top right.

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/gtr24core.jpg
gtr 2 running 4 core affinaty, clearly sharing the load.
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/GTR22009-04-1311-04-45-59.jpg
note the performance gain in top right FPS.
if you would like video evidence i can provide.
or maybe some international delegation of programmers (who cant think outside what they have been told to think) could call round my house and tell me i and many of my simracing friends are seeing the imposable.

Thanks for putting those up; don't think me rude if I say they don't actually offer proof. There are 38 processes spread across the 4 cores, and I would have guessed that GTR2 has exclusive use of core 2 on the second set of screenshots, eliminating the 100% clipping on the first set; no-one would dispute that would offer a gain in performance.

If you used the Sysinternals Process Explorer (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx) rather than Windows Task Manager (I'm surprised you don't already), and moved the cursor between the cores while it was running, it would show which process was consuming the greatest percentage of each core at that point. If it said GTR2 across all four I'd not argue with that. Screenshots for each core would be terrific.

Thanks again.

But who needs 250 fps? The human eye/brain can only process about 55fps any ways..
yes, I know the game feels and looks smoother with higher fps, but anything past about 120 is pointless... since you already have 150+ on your first screen shot, what's the point?

and yes, I do/have played GTR and yes, I have played it on 60 fps, 150 and 200+ and there's not any noticable difference past about 150 (and that 200+ fps is on my DUAL core machine)

@ Cinderella, no problem. i will do what you ask when i find the time this week.

@ Ghozer well that's missing the point. also another debate completely. suffice to say if those screens were from one of my online league races with 20+ cars on track the FPS would be lower. but always the FPS is higher when on 4 cores. :clap:

You've proven that when it has a dedicated core (core 2 apparently) it runs faster than when it's sharing core 1.
Which seems to indicate that windows isn't very good at delagating processes to different cores efficiently, but also clearly demonstrates that the game is running on a single core only, and thus a move from a 2 core to a 4 core system will be pointless for gaming (which was what I originally said).

I doubt you'll try this, but if you want to verify what I've just said, set it's affinity to core 2 (or 3 or 4, your choice), and set the affinity for every other process to core 1.
You'll see exactly the same behaviour.

screenies as requested by cinderella...
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/gtr24corePE1.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/gtr24corePE11.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/gtr24corePE111.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/gtr24corePE1111.jpg
quite difficult to show it under full load as the game pauses when i alt-tab out to take each screen.
oh and i did a little experiment for the doubting programmer here..
Race 07 is optimised for 2 cores but looky here!
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/race074coreTM.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/race074corePE.jpg
there she blows! running more than two!
You can set whatever affinity you like, it only runs on one core, unless you've got a lot of other stuff running in the background to assign to the other 3 cores it will make no difference moving from 2 to 4.

still stand by that Cyclone?
here try some further reading from 2007!!
http://www.yougamers.com/news/13735_core_blimey_-_theyre_finally_all_getting_used/

You naughty thread hijackers :P

I don't pretend to understand what you guys are talking about in half of the above, but it would seem that there's a sliver of difference between what you're saying.

Is this one of those times to agree to disagree? Or perhaps start a new thread :D

I should imagine that in general a quad core PC is faster by some degree, in some characteristics, that a dual core one - can we at least agree on that? Fair enough it may not be a massive improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.

It seems this is spiralling towards virtual fisticuffs - How about best of three on Streetfighter to decide?! :P

You naughty thread hijackers :P

I don't pretend to understand what you guys are talking about in half of the above, but it would seem that there's a sliver of difference between what you're saying.

Is this one of those times to agree to disagree? Or perhaps start a new thread :D

I should imagine that in general a quad core PC is faster by some degree, in some characteristics, that a dual core one - can we at least agree on that? Fair enough it may not be a massive improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.

It seems this is spiralling towards virtual fisticuffs - How about best of three on Streetfighter to decide?! :P

Hehe, no malice or ill intent here. just very nice debate. thread hijacking apart. in my experience the best debates are usually hijacked threads. :love:

I don't mind a debate, so long as it's rooted in the evidence.
Your game is an old one (I think you'll agree), so from the link you posted this would seem to be relevant and to agree with exactly what I posted.

a real blast from the past: Final Doom, running via Steam and a DOS emulator. The test system used a quad core CPU, so each line on the graph represents the % usage over time for each core. You can see that it's mostly using just the one core, the rest are almost certainly being used in background operations by the operating system

It goes on to say (and I'll summarise) that some modern games are finally able to take advantage of multiple cores, at the moment thought that 'some' is 'very few', it will increase in the future, but it's a minority of games right now.

So, then we come back to down to whether an upgrade from dual core to quad core is worth it. For a given price a dual core processor is about 25% (by clock speed) than the quad core. And EVERY game that you buy can most definitely make full use of at least one core, whilst the OS can make use of the other core for all the background processes.
Don't take my word for it, get on some gamer forums, they all recommend (specifically for gaming) the fastest dual core you can get, although that may have changed with i7 on the market now, I've not been keeping up with anything more than the early benchmarks on i7.
Most modern games are gpu throttled, there are a few that will cpu throttle and a few of those few will be multi core enabled, at the moment for game performance, for the OP, replacing the graphics card will see a greater increase in performance than going quad core.
The article by the way makes no mention of setting the affinity, maybe these articles might be interesting to you since we're link swapping now;

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/page-258321_10_0.html
By default windows sets the affinity to use all available cores, that program is mainly for setting the affinity to less cores to help older programs that don't work on multi-core systems.


You might get a performance increase by setting the game to use an idle core while running all background processes on another but you can't force a program to use multiple cores unless it was specifically designed to do so.

http://developer.amd.com/documentation/articles/pages/51220064.aspx
Just interesting this one.

I don't mind a debate, so long as it's rooted in the evidence.
Just interesting this one.

and heres your evidence...
screenies as requested by cinderella...
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/gtr24corePE1.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/gtr24corePE11.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/gtr24corePE111.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/gtr24corePE1111.jpg
quite difficult to show it under full load as the game pauses when i alt-tab out to take each screen.
oh and i did a little experiment for the doubting programmer here..
Race 07 is optimised for 2 cores but looky here!
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/race074coreTM.jpg
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/race074corePE.jpg
there she blows! running more than two!

or did you conveniently just look for things in links that support your unfounded theory that a 4 core cpu will give no performance gain. the guy that wanted advice already has a HD 4870. he has only 1 pci-e port and therefore cant go crossfire route. an x2 graphics card may well give him a little more of a boost but they are still very expensive. but if hes playing crysis or cod4 then a 4 core cpu will give a large boost.
now suck it in soldier and stop confusing the issue.
4 cores are useful to gamers.

LINKS FIXED!

I just read the links, it's not my fault that the link you posted agrees with the statements I made.
You were talking about old single threaded games and claiming that multi core used with affinity will somehow make them multi threaded. Admit that that's wrong and we can stop batting this back and forth.
Your links don't work by the way, I was trying to view the Race 07 ones.

never heard of setting affinity in task manager? i run a lot of driving sims like GTLegends although its made to only use 1 core. if i set it to use all four i get far better performance.

Where are the screenshots for GT Legends then, showing it using multi core? This is the statement I originally took exception too.

my statement says games like GTL this would include GTR2, Race 07, GTR evolution and Rfactor. i have used these games a long time, ALL THESE GAMES GET BETTER FRAMES ON 4 CORES!
you took exception to me saying a 4 core cpu is an upgrade and the truth is... it is! hard lines mate.
links in above post are fixed now..

It is, if your software can take advantage of it. Good wishes and tick boxes will not alter the way a single threaded program runs. Do some research, find out what single threaded means and how a core operates, then find out what being multi threaded means.
Once you understand these topics you'll realise how silly your statement about setting the affinity is.
As I already explained, setting everything else to another core to give your single thread a full 100% of a core is the best you can do. Which means that a dual core in those situations is better, since they invariably run faster.

YAWN! http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/race074corePE.jpg
RACE 07 using 3 of 4 cores. trot on boyo!

Looking at your Process Explorer screenshots proves what I said, and what Cyclone have been saying..

take a look, it's not even using 100% TOTAL across all 4 cores, (26%, 24%, 10% and 25%), if it was a true multi threaded game it would be using more than 100% across all 4 cores. it would be using (for example) 80% on one, 40% on another 30% on another etc...

Just goes to show what I said, about giving it more leg room to do what it needs to do.

now can we PLEASE stop this debate..

YAWN! http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd261/SJ_DRokK/affinaty/race074corePE.jpg
RACE 07 using 3 of 4 cores. trot on boyo!

The game is running on core 2 and not even maxing out that core, your background processes are running on the other cores, hence they hardly have any activity.

take a look, it's not even using 100% TOTAL across all 4 cores, (26%, 24%, 10% and 25%), if it was a true multi threaded game it would be using more than 100% across all 4 cores. it would be using (for example) 80% on one, 40% on another 30% on another etc...
Ghozer, you seem to be ignoring the fact the my games runs smoother and its a Q9550 @3.4 ghz i could give you screens from the wifes q6600 that also runs much smoother on 4 cores but evidence is wasted on ignorance it seems. the game is using all 4 cores, and when doing so gives better performance, why dont you keep from posting rubbish and maybe the debate could conclude ?

The game is running on core 2 and not even maxing out that core, your background processes are running on the other cores, hence they hardly have any activity.

Cyclone, the game is faster running 4 cores than 2 simple FACT face it. a 4 core CPU IS better than a 2 core even with old games. new PC games will only make this FACT more apparent.
thank you and goodnight.

Well I have to have a say on this:

Firstly, thanks to Ghoz, Cyclone, DR and Cin for this eye opening 'introduction' to x2 vs x4 core CPUs. :P

But. . . . When I recently built my new rig I looked at this issue from a gamers perspective, and the research I did firmly pointed towards a high end x2 Core. I've now read the Toms Hardware thread Cyclone posted above (which is an excellent link and should have really resolved this).

The most pertinent post reads:
" By default windows sets the affinity to use all available cores, that program is mainly for setting the affinity to less cores to help older programs that don't work on multi-core systems. You might get a performance increase by setting the game to use an idle core while running all background processes on another but you can't force a program to use multiple cores unless it was specifically designed to do so."

The performance increase therefore comes from the other cores taking up the slack on the background processes. If you're running Windows and a game at the same time, what justification is there for more cores? I think that everyone above agrees that a performance increase can be obtained by upgrading to a x4 CPU, but the game itself will never run over the cores unless it was meant to specifically multi-thread. It would be interesting to see what the performance was on a dual core processor of a comparable level to a quad. That would seem to be the only way to finally resolve whether it would be worth upgrading to x4. You all know PC's - you get what you pay for. And is it really worth paying for FPS that are wasted on the magnificent human eye/brain?

I really don't want to fall out with anyone either, and definitely don't want it to look like I'm taking sides or being critical for being criticals sake, but DR. . . Please remember that debate doesn't always have to have comments like "evidence is wasted on ignorance it seems" You're only damaging your reputation. Remember; Anyone who sees your ad promoting PC repair can click to see your previous posts. If you're putting yourself out there and linking to a business, you're representing that business. While you may feel that you're right - sometimes you just have to suck it up.

I personally would find some of them, taken out of context as they are if you click view previous posts, quite intimidating, combative and off-putting.

Take care Cin, Cyclone, DR and Ghoz. . . . All 4 cores of you :D

Ghozer, you seem to be ignoring the fact the my games runs smoother and its a Q9550 @3.4 ghz i could give you screens from the wifes q6600 that also runs much smoother on 4 cores but evidence is wasted on ignorance it seems. the game is using all 4 cores, and when doing so gives better performance, why dont you keep from posting rubbish and maybe the debate could conclude ?


Cyclone, the game is faster running 4 cores than 2 simple FACT face it. a 4 core CPU IS better than a 2 core even with old games. new PC games will only make this FACT more apparent.
thank you and goodnight.

It isn't. 3 of the cores have very low usage and it's simply impossible for a single thread game to run on multiple cores. It's actually impossible.
Did you read anything about parallel programming as I suggested, do you understand what a core is, what a thread is and how the entire thing must be written differently to take advantage of 2 cores. You're in denial, and I don't mean you're on a river cruise in Africa.

look i was asked to provide screen shots to show the performance gain in my driving sim games. i have done so. all ive had back is hair splitting technical rhetoric stating its impossible. you can think what you like, i will continue to use all 4 cores and reap the benefits. like when starting a race with 20 to 30 cars on grid. my FPS will not drop to a dangerously low number at the 1st turn and cause me to shunt into my fellow sim racers car. sim racing games FPS rates fluctuate dependant on the load to the CPU as modern GPU's are more powerful. so 200fps down a long straight on a low demanding track like Donington may seem pointless. maintaining 100fps at turn 1 is not.

comments like these below are what brings out my annoyance at what is a very small issue. why a couple of guys want to maintain that a 2 core cpu is all you need when clearly 4 cores give better performance and ive not even touched on modern games.
i came to this thread to give advice to someone wanting to upgrade. i stand by that advice and have provided the evidence i was asked to . but still hairs are split?:
Go away and learn about about multi core development
You should inform the developers. A game that by design can only run on one core, is evolving by itself to use more than one. The process goes exponential and within 28 minutes the system has become self aware, mankind's fate is sealed at that point.
it will make no difference moving from 2 to 4.
no body NEEDS a Quad Core,
I don't mind a debate, so long as it's rooted in the evidence.
you boys can try to bully me into saying black is white all you like. the advice i gave was, is and always will be correct.
well that Graphics card is fine. i have the same one
your board supports the newer 45nm quad cores so something like a q9550
and an extra 2 gig of ram should ramp it up a bit more.

The only gain you're likely seeing from older gains is because other processes running on the OS can be done on the other cores now. It's not the same as having a game written from the ground up to support multiple cores.

Tho currently from all benchmarks I've seen around dual cores will provide better performance in a lot of games clock for clock and at a lower price.

It's not the same as having a game written from the ground up to support multiple cores.

i never said it was the same. so whats your point or the point of saying so here?

Tho currently from all benchmarks I've seen around dual cores will provide better performance in a lot of games clock for clock and at a lower price.
yes a very general term indeed. so how many games is a lot of?
benchmarks are fine, but in the real world. who wants to have to turn off all background programs just to get a particular game to run without problems. who would rather wait 2 hours to encode a DVD(wasting time and energy = money), when they don't have to?

oh and while were on the 2 core 4 core debate and the question of cost
lets have a little look shall we?
these are from eclipse computers:


Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 3.33Ghz LGA775 Processor - Retail
# CPU Speed: 3.16 GHz
# Bus Speed: 1333 MHz
# L2 Cache Size: 6 MB
Price : £210.25

Intel Core 2 Quad 9650 3.0GHz LGA775 Processor - Retail
Capacity : 3.0GHz
Front Side Bus : 1333 MHz
L2 Cache : 12MB
Price : £227.95

not a lot in it is there?
also note the L2 cache. twice the amount and another reason that games perform better on quads :hihi:

look i was asked to provide screen shots to show the performance gain in my driving sim games. i have done so. all ive had back is hair splitting technical rhetoric stating its impossible. you can think what you like, i will continue to use all 4 cores and reap the benefits. like when starting a race with 20 to 30 cars on grid. my FPS will not drop to a dangerously low number at the 1st turn and cause me to shunt into my fellow sim racers car. sim racing games FPS rates fluctuate dependant on the load to the CPU as modern GPU's are more powerful. so 200fps down a long straight on a low demanding track like Donington may seem pointless. maintaining 100fps at turn 1 is not.

comments like these below are what brings out my annoyance at what is a very small issue. why a couple of guys want to maintain that a 2 core cpu is all you need when clearly 4 cores give better performance and ive not even touched on modern games.
i came to this thread to give advice to someone wanting to upgrade. i stand by that advice and have provided the evidence i was asked to . but still hairs are split?:





you boys can try to bully me into saying black is white all you like. the advice i gave was, is and always will be correct.

You misunderstand your own 'evidence' and you don't like it when it's suggested that you learn more about the topic :confused:
Why would you choose to remain ignorant about how multiple cores can be used and what setting the affinity in the OS can do? I'd say it's because you don't want to learn enough to realise how wrong you are and have to acknowledge it.

I also had a quick look at affinity today, and it defaults on every thread to being set to all available processors. So once again, your advice that you can alter the behaviour seems to be based on ... well, nothing. If I'm correct then reducing the affinity on many processes and leaving a single core for the game will help, if you're correct then it's already in the most efficient setting and you've never any reason to look at the affinity.
By your rather wooly standards of evidence I could prove right now that the single thread of firefox is running on 2 cores, just by the fact that both happen to show some activity, it would be complete baloney of course, a single thread can only ever run on a single core. A thread is indivisible as anyone who'd ever written a threaded application would know (and many who hadn't).

oh and while were on the 2 core 4 core debate and the question of cost
lets have a little look shall we?
these are from eclipse computers:


Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 3.33Ghz LGA775 Processor - Retail
# CPU Speed: 3.16 GHz
# Bus Speed: 1333 MHz
# L2 Cache Size: 6 MB
Price : £210.25

Intel Core 2 Quad 9650 3.0GHz LGA775 Processor - Retail
Capacity : 3.0GHz
Front Side Bus : 1333 MHz
L2 Cache : 12MB
Price : £227.95

not a lot in it is there?
also note the L2 cache. twice the amount and another reason that games perform better on quads :hihi:

The E8600 is priced particularly badly at the moment, consider an E8500 instead.

3.16Ghz and £162 at dabs.

I'll have to stick with your price for the 9650 as dabs have it for £285.

Oh, I see, you were quoting pre VAT prices and the E8600 has dropped in price at Eclipse to £202...

For comparison to your prices, the E8500 is £140 pre VAT, or £90 cheaper than the Q9650, or approx 60% of the price, whilst still having 2 faster running cores.

Regarding the cache, the reason the Q range has twice as much is that it's actually 2 physically separate wafers placed in the same package, each wafer is a core 2 duo, they don't share that cache, to transfer anything between cores not on the same bit of silicon is a hugely time consuming operation going over the south bridge.

And as I've already provided links to back up, games do not run better on quads, at least not the current crop, they will in the future, at the moment they run better on the fastest single core you can get (which for serious game players means an over clocked core 2 duo).

walk around all day long in those blinkers and be as arrogant as you want son...
http://www.yougamers.com/news/13735_core_blimey_-_theyre_finally_all_getting_used/COD4demo_cpu/
http://www.yougamers.com/news/13735_core_blimey_-_theyre_finally_all_getting_used/bioshock_cpu/
http://www.yougamers.com/news/13735_core_blimey_-_theyre_finally_all_getting_used/crysisdemo_cpu/
:rolleyes:

For comparison to your prices, the E8500 is £140 pre VAT, or £90 cheaper than the Q9650,
yes dear we can all come down 1 in the cpu list..
Q9550 £194.95
L2 Cache : 12MB yes 12 not 6,, oh wait 6 is better right lol :thumbsup:

ok, I think this thread has run its course, the original question(s) have been answered and this is now just turning into arguments.

I'm taking a decision to lock this thread, please take this debate to email or PM and not on the forums.. Thanks.