OT: Is Core 2 Duo E6400 Slower Than P4 For Gaming?

[Fidelis K]

I'm building a new system based on the Bad Axe, the Core 2 Duo E6400
(2.13GHz) & X1900GT and my current system has a P4 2.8GHz & an X850Pro.

Someone told me that *if* the two PCs use equivalent graphic cards, games
will
run slower on my new system because (1) games ignore the 2nd core and (2)
thus game will be powered by a 2.13GHz processor instead of a 2.8GHz
processor. Is that true???

 

[Barry Watzman]

The question can't be answered without knowing what the other CPU is
(exactly), but I'd say that it's generally not true.

First, both cores are used (to varying degrees). Remember that Windows
itself is running alongside the game, and Windows does support dual
cores. It's likely that the game gets one core and Windows functions
get the other core.

Second, the Cores are "Pentium M" type cores. These are far more
efficient (more "IPCs", in AMD's terms (IPC = instructions per clock))
than an old style (Netburst) Pentium 4. They are almost twice as fast,
a 2.13 GHz core of this type will probably beat a 3GHz Netburst core.

However, I'd have spent the extra money to have gone with an E6600. Not
only would you have gotten a faster clock (2.4 GHz vs. 2.13), but far
more importantly the cache was doubled (4 megabytes vs. 2 megabytes).

Core 2 Duo is absolutely destroying all previous chips (even the $1,000
"extreme edition" chips) in all benchmarks, although most of the
benchmarks are being run with the E6600 and faster.

 

[Clas Mehus]

I'm building a new system based on the Bad Axe, the Core 2 Duo E6400
(2.13GHz) & X1900GT and my current system has a P4 2.8GHz & an X850Pro.

Someone told me that *if* the two PCs use equivalent graphic cards, games
will
run slower on my new system because (1) games ignore the 2nd core and (2)
thus game will be powered by a 2.13GHz processor instead of a 2.8GHz
processor. Is that true???

So far there ain't many games really taking advantage of dual core
CPUs. This will change, not just for how the games are developed, but
also optimalizations in drivers and APIs.

GHz doesn't tell you much unless you are comparing the same
architecture. For an example a single-core 2,4 GHz Athlon 64 will be
MUCH faster than a 2,4 GHz Pentium 4.

Even with only one core used a 2,13 GHz Core 2 Duo will be quite much
faster than a... well, at least a 3,4 GHz Pentium 4*. As we have said
now, not many games takes real advantage of two cores yet -- still, if
you look at benchmarks, the Core 2 Duos are faster than P4's on lower
clock.

* I once did a comparison using a 1.8 GHz Pentium M, which has the
architecture the Core 2 is based on, towards a Pentium 4 3,2 GHz. For
gaming these was about the same.... basicly: the Pentium M/Core 2 Duo
is much more efficient compared to the clock. You can say it "does
more for each clockcycle".

And with upcoming games, the difference will be larger and larger
between single- and dual core CPUs....

Conclution: "Someone" is wrong....

 

[Fidelis K]

Thanks for the replies. Now, I know I'll enjoy building my new system next
week

 

[Dodgy]

I'm building a new system based on the Bad Axe, the Core 2 Duo E6400
(2.13GHz) & X1900GT and my current system has a P4 2.8GHz & an X850Pro.

Someone told me that *if* the two PCs use equivalent graphic cards, games
will
run slower on my new system because (1) games ignore the 2nd core and (2)
thus game will be powered by a 2.13GHz processor instead of a 2.8GHz
processor. Is that true???

I shall echo the previous 2 replies.

Having been an owner of a Pentium 4M 1.86Ghz laptop for a while now, I
can tell you that that CPU design is far better than the desktop P4
chip. I regularly play games like Battlefield 1942 and TFC on my
laptop and it's only got x300 graphics.

I have recently put together an E6600 (2.4Ghz) based desktop machine
for more serious gaming (only an X1600 card though), and to be honest
the performance of the Duo is devastating, even from the windows
desktop you can feel the extra oomph. (Previously my desktop machine
was 3.2Ghz Hyperthreaded P4 based). Re-encoding one of my DVDs with
DVDshrink to fit a single layer DVD-R took approx half the time the
old machine took, plus the machine was still useable at the same time,
it didn't get bogged down.

And just like everyone else, I had to play with the overclocking,
wound up the FSB from 266Mhz to 300Mhz (moving the CPU from 2.4Ghz to
2.7Ghz, past the E6700 at 2.66Ghz) and it didn't bat an eyelid, it
just ate the benchmarks for dinner and didn't even need any silly
cooling.

Probably the most telling thing about the speed is that after my
overclocking test, I didn't bother pushing further, and I clocked it
back to standard, I just don't feel the need for any more power at the
moment (I'll let XP clog itself up a bit before I resort to that!
lol!)

Dodgy.

 

[Benjamin Gawert]

* Fidelis K:

I'm building a new system based on the Bad Axe, the Core 2 Duo E6400
(2.13GHz) & X1900GT and my current system has a P4 2.8GHz & an X850Pro.

Someone told me that *if* the two PCs use equivalent graphic cards, games
will
run slower on my new system because (1) games ignore the 2nd core and (2)
thus game will be powered by a 2.13GHz processor instead of a 2.8GHz
processor. Is that true???

Nope! The person that told you this probably does not really have a
clue. Just comparing the clock speed numbers is stupid when talking
about the performance of cpus of a different architecture.

If you don't limit the Core 2 Dou system artificially (i.e. by only
using 256MB RAM only) even one core of the Core 2 will wipe the floor
with a P4 2.8GHz every time.

What's right is that especially older games don't profit from the second
core. But even then a single core of the Core 2 Duo is still much faster
than the P4.

Benjamin

 

[Jean]

| * Fidelis K:
....snip
|
| What's right is that especially older games don't profit from the second
| core. But even then a single core of the Core 2 Duo is still much faster
| than the P4.
|
| Benjamin

If you force the OS to the 1st core and force the old game to the 2nd core
(via Windows "affinity" settings), can an old game get a performance boost
by not having to share the processor with the OS?

Jean

 

[Benjamin Gawert]

* Jean:

If you force the OS to the 1st core and force the old game to the 2nd core
(via Windows "affinity" settings), can an old game get a performance boost
by not having to share the processor with the OS?

Not really. Just let the Windows scheduler handle it.

Benjamin

 

[Dodgy]

| * Fidelis K:
...snip
|
| What's right is that especially older games don't profit from the second
| core. But even then a single core of the Core 2 Duo is still much faster
| than the P4.
|
| Benjamin

If you force the OS to the 1st core and force the old game to the 2nd core
(via Windows "affinity" settings), can an old game get a performance boost
by not having to share the processor with the OS?

Jean

Windows will do that for you anyway, it'll assign the game to the core
least busy core.

Dodgy.

 

[Geoff]

I'm building a new system based on the Bad Axe, the Core 2 Duo E6400
(2.13GHz) & X1900GT and my current system has a P4 2.8GHz & an X850Pro.

Someone told me that *if* the two PCs use equivalent graphic cards, games
will
run slower on my new system because (1) games ignore the 2nd core and (2)
thus game will be powered by a 2.13GHz processor instead of a 2.8GHz
processor. Is that true???

1 is true
2 is not true (see the 'mhz myth')

 

[Clint]

Actually, 1) is not true. Newer games like Oblivion, Call of Duty, Quake 4,
GRAW, etc support dual cores. What benefit you get from it seems
debateable.

A search for "dual core games" turns up 17,200,000 hits. Plenty of info...
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/games/Dual-Core-supported-games-ftopict94969.html

Clint

 

[Barry Watzman]

And even if the game truly doesn't support dual Cores, Windows XP does.
So the OS and game can run more independently of each other.

 

[Bill]

Actually, 1) is not true. Newer games like Oblivion, Call of Duty, Quake 4,
GRAW, etc support dual cores. What benefit you get from it seems
debateable.

<snip>

Call of Duty doesn't, Call of Duty2 does.

Bill

 

[Clint]

You're right; sorry.

Clint

<snip>

Call of Duty doesn't, Call of Duty2 does.

Bill