Why buy Quad Processors??

[dudethatrocks]

I think folks get locked into a "keeping up with the Jones" kind of attitude. My rig is starting to get a little "old" tech wise and I run both Crysis and Crysis Warhead at Max everything. I run that garbage GTA4 at max and its known for what a pita it is for running smooth. I think it has more to do with a well matched and spec'ed rig than how many cores and how much money. Mine cost about $700 and it is nearly 2 years old at this point

AMD x2 Black Edition @3.1g dual core
4g DDR2
Dual 8600GT 1g DDR2 running in SLI
Gigabyte S4 series MB
250g HDD
windows XP Pro
lots of fans and tunnel rams to channel air

Simple rig that at the time was top shelf as the quads were just coming out and were still kinda exotic. I havent found anything to make my rig stumble I always play at max graphics etc. Besides, I find it very hard to believe that any game maker would produce a product spec'ed out of the average gamers league ... its not good for business. Look what happened to GTA4 ... that has really hurt that franchise as new out of the box it was unplayable on most machines. I may be wrong on this but it will be awhile before we see quads being a minimum spec, maybe recomended soon ... but not minimum.

What resolution do you play at?

 

[PewPewBangBang]

What resolution do you play at?

lol was gonna ask that also.........i can barely play Crysis on all max with tri-fire 4850's @ 1680x1050

 

[dudethatrocks]

lol was gonna ask that also.........i can barely play Crysis on all max with tri-fire 4850's @ 1680x1050

Yeah i can max out crysis at 1440x900 and get a constant 40-50 FPS. (my monitor will do 1920x1200 but i get about 20-25 FPS maxing it out with it) Am using a extremely overclocked 4890 BTW)
Almost any computer can max it out if they are playing at 800x600 :glare: or a real low resolution. Plus, I can guaranteed that 2 8600 gt's in sli with DDR2 ram are not going to max crysis of all games out. Id guess that would give around 15-20 FPS at a resolution like 1680x1050.

 

[FTen]

What resolution do you play at?

I'll have to load it up and look ... 1200x somthing I think ... whatever my puny little 19 inch monitor will do.

ok edit .. had a second and loaded it up ... 1280x768 any higher and my old monitor does stupid crap like graphic shear and tearing etc (really need a new bigger monitor) ... all settings on enthusiast (max) Running AMD dual core optimizer and N-Tune to optimize my dual cards. No oc'ing just tuned nice like having all my pipelines unlocked etc, would have to go through that to remeber all the little adjustments dont have time for that right now.

oh it turns out my memory isnt what it used to be ... both my cards are DDR3 not DDR2 ... its my mb memory that is DDR2

 

[Boo-Yeah!!]

Trust me, you'll want one for the future. Huge performance increase once games start utilizing them.

Bad Company 2 will benefit greatly from quads. Dual cores are struggling in the beta.

I have not seen any information about dual cores struggling in the beta. I have a Dual core AMD Athlon 64 X2 5800+ 2.9GHZ clocked to 3.1 and its running it just fine. What was slowing me down more than anything before was that i had only 2 gigs of DDR2 whereas now i have 4 gigs of DDR2 with a 4-4-4-12 timing. The only issues I have run into in the game is server lag....

 

[iOprah]

So you can say you have a quad processor DUH!!! No but really newer programs and newer games can use quad processors. Also MAC OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard can use and utilize quad processors. Most video editing programs today, like adobe premier and final cut also utilize quad processors.

 

[FreakingHell]

When you can get quad cores for less than $50 more, same architecture, it's clearly silly to buy a dual core desktop right now, unless you are on a SUPER TIGHT budget.

That does not mean that if you have a dual core right now you need to get a quad, only if you are planning on upgrading anyways.

 

[DragonD]

When you can get quad cores for less than $50 more, same architecture, it's clearly silly to buy a dual core desktop right now, unless you are on a SUPER TIGHT budget.

That does not mean that if you have a dual core right now you need to get a quad, only if you are planning on upgrading anyways.

I agree with this...

No need to upgrade to a quad core JUST to have a quad core. BUUUUT...if you ARE upgrading (for whatever reason), the smart thing to do would be to go ahead and get the quad...

 

[Maj.Emish]

When you can get quad cores for less than $50 more, same architecture, it's clearly silly to buy a dual core desktop right now, unless you are on a SUPER TIGHT budget.

That does not mean that if you have a dual core right now you need to get a quad, only if you are planning on upgrading anyways.

^agree