Q9550 Bottleneck? How bad?

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teatime0315

Limp Gawd
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Hey everyone, I'm debating on whether to get an i5 2500k or not. Currently MC has it on sale for 180 dollars. Would that be a substantial upgrade over my Q9550? And what is this Ivy Bridge I keep hearing about? Should I wait for that? I'm just worried that my current CPU will not be able to take advantage of an HD6950 1GB.

Current rig:

Intel Q9550 (stock)
8GB RAM
4850 512mb (soon to be 6950 1gb)
Intel 160GB G2
1920x1200 Resolution

Games that I play:

SC2
Bad Company 2
Battlefield 3 (hopefully I can handle it with the HD6950)

What would you guys do in this situation?
 
if you are running your cpu at stock, then that would be a big upgrade. if you oc your cpu to 3.6-3.8 range not as much.
 
So would you guys say its all "hype" then? I read a thread about how someone upgraded to an i5 and basically doubled his fps in BC2.

Turns out that the Q9550 is selling on ebay for around 150 dollars. What do?
 
Even if you do overclock your current Q9550, jumping to an overclocked 2500K or 2600K would be a pretty big leap forward. It was for me at least. I went from a Q9550 @ 3.8Ghz to a 2600K @ 4.8Ghz. Roughly doubled my overall CPU power.

Note that you aren't really hampered with a CPU bottleneck with your Q9550 though, especially if you choose to overclock it a bit. You would have a bottleneck if you hooked up some serious (high end) GPU action though like a pair of 580GTXs or 6950's in crossfire.
 
BC2 is notably CPU dependent - you likely won't see such big gains with other games. Overclocking the Q9550 is probably a much better option - especially considering the GPU you have (and are getting). i7s are a bigger help when driving high-end graphics setups. I only noticed about 10-20% framerate improvements (in several games, I don't have BC2) when going from a Q9550 at 4.0 to a 2600K at 4.8 with a GTX 480 - but the games you mention may benefit more than that.

Don't forget to allow for the cost of the motherboard and memory as well. Ivy Bridge is the next iteration of Intel CPUs, which includes a die shrink, which should yield some significant performance increases when it releases later this year.
 
I will just copy and past my reply to you from anandtech forums... I would just oc the Q9550 and get that 6950. 2500k would be okay upgrade but nothing massive for gaming over an oced Q9550 while using a single 6950. plus you will need new mobo and ram so its not really worth it IMO. then next year you can go with Ivy Bridge which is basically going to be a 22nm Sandy Bridge.
 
oc and get the video card. My 860 in sig at 4ghz, with gtx 570, running blackops, pegs at 90 fps all the time, which I believe is the cap. This is on a 24 lcd with eyecandy. My cpu usage is about 25%, gpu is at 70%. I see no reason at this time for me to upgrade my cpu either. The newer cpu will be more powerful, but wont show in any game I am playing.
 
and these people talking about BC 2 are a little nuts. yes the 2500k would be faster than an overclocked Q9550 but it would not be anything you would notice. even my E8500 can average 50 fps so an overclocked Q9550 with a 6950 would probably be average at least 80 fps on highest settings.
 
cannondale06 said:
and these people talking about BC 2 are a little nuts. yes the 2500k would be faster than an overclocked Q9550 but it would not be anything you would notice. even my E8500 can average 50 fps so an overclocked Q9550 with a 6950 would probably be average at least 80 fps on highest settings.
Click to expand...

+1, totally agree.

@ 3.6+ the q9550 can push any single gpu just fine @ 1080p with high settings.
 
Sigh... does anyone ever read responses that are posted?

"Note that you aren't really hampered with a CPU bottleneck with your Q9550 though, especially if you choose to overclock it a bit. You would have a bottleneck if you hooked up some serious (high end) GPU action though like a pair of 580GTXs or 6950's in crossfire."

The inference here is that you are NOT cpu bottlenecked. Stick with your Q9550. Overclock it a bit. Your bottleneck is the 4850.
 
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