New CPU

[Briggykins]

Hi all,

So my CPU, a C2D E6600, is currently the bottleneck in my system - haven't really had any noticeable problems with it but apparently it's going to be near the bottom of what Bad Company 2 needs when it comes out, which is pretty much the light in my gaming life at the moment.
I'd rather replace just the CPU, as I'm happy with everything else, so obv I don't want a new motherboard, which means sticking with a Socket 775 chip.
I'm looking to spend no more than £200, and not even that if the situation warrants it. I could either go for a low-end quad-core (a Q6700), or a high-end dual core (an E8600), both of which are around that price. Or I could go with a not-much-worse E8500, which is almost £70 less. OR, someone could tell me that this isn't going to improve my performance much and an E6600 is fine until I need to upgrade the whole machine.
Any thoughts? :)

Thanks!

[Zirax]

Have you considered clocking the E6600? There are reports of 3.4-3.6Ghz on them and I imagine higher (not looked thoroughly). Quick look on ocuk brings up this:-
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18042480&highlight=username_hlxbravo

To save a few bob it might be worth clocking the nads off your E6600, dropping £40 on a decent air cooler and go from there. That all depends on what board and memory you are running.

All depends on how you value your time really. Do you mind tweaking and leaving the machine running prime95 overnight or just dump in a faster chip? :)

[Stan_Lite]

I see the system requirements recommends a quad core so I'm assuming the game can utilise all four cores. That being the case, I'd be inclined to go for a quad - maybe a Q9550 would be better value. You can get one for £170 and they have 12MB L2 cache as opposed to 8MB on the Q6700. It's also clocked higher at 2.83GHz as opposed to 2.66GHz.

If you prefer a dual core, the E8600 is supposed to be very good and overclocks very well.

Edit: Or, as Zirax suggests, if you don't mind getting stuck in, overclock the E6600.

[divine]

Stock Q9550 will perform better than a clocked E6600 if it does use 4 cores.

[Zirax]

Stock Q9550 will perform better than a clocked E6600 if it does use 4 cores.

Agreed. I would go with this approach...

1. Clock the nads off your E6600 using the board and memory that you have. Thereby learning overclocking and the limits of your board and memory as well.
2. See what the game performs like with the clocked chip.
3. If it's rubbish then get a better chip as it's a quick job to swap over a CPU. Then on your new chip use your overclocking knowledge gained in #1 and clock the new chip silly.

The best outcome is that it'll play fine, the worst you'll get a new chip and then know how to clock it :cool: