Intel Q9000 to X9100/T9900...worth it for gaming?

Well, got my Asus W90 recently and am LOVING IT! However, I feel the itch to change the CPU. Currently it has a Q9000 @ 2.7ghz...and while its a nice CPU and all, I feel that going to something like a X9100 or T9900 would yield better performance as most games are dual core only and they should be able to overclock pretty well (been seeing them hit 4Ghz on a few sites.).

So this begs the question...should I suffer so-so CPU performance with the overclocked quad core and wait til better more optimized PC games come out, or should I go ahead and get a high performance dual core and overclock it?

 

What game have you found that is in any way limited by a 2.7gHz quad core?

You could put a 6gHz quad in your system and you arent going to improve your gaming experience all that much. Most all games are GPU bound and benefit minimally if any at all with increase CPU power over a certain point.

It becomes a demenishing returns situation. is the cpu swap worth it for a 1% increase or less?


Heck why dont you check your CPU usage while you are gaming and even see if you are getting any of the cores to 100%.

 

A quad @ 2.7 is more than enough to handle any game you throw at it , whether they are optimized for it or not. Don't waste your money.

 

What about Q9000 vs. Q9100? 6MB vs. 12MB cache as well as the potential to maybe overclock higher?

 

Again... whats the point? Have you started maxing your cores out? If not upgrading isnt going to give you any benefit what so ever.

Now if you are just trying to win benchmarks than yeah go ahead and knock yourself out with the QX9300, but if its just to game and enjoy your computer then honestly i see no point to the upgrade

 

Why not? lol...

I mean, the Q9100 is going for ~$200 on eBay, Im sure I could get at least $150 for my Q9000...so an extra ~$50 for double the cache and faster clocks...

 

Its your money, you can use it as you please.

Your not going to get a different usage expirence out of the machine, but if spending the money makes you feel better about you computer than i'm all for the purchase

 

Increasing CPU speed will increase maybe the minimum fps in game (and as consequence the avg a little) where GPU is the bottleneck. It's quite likely increasing GPU core speed without touching the ddr frequency...

 

Increasing CPU clocks increases the placebo effect.

 

Yeah, reading your signature it does

 

just get a QX9300 or ES Q9200... personally i would QX9300 as it will cost as much as X9100... but IMO , Q9000 at 2.7GHz is quite lot...