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BEEAH

Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2008
Location
Detroit MI
I stumbled on this said in the EVGA forums.

"You would need a i7 cpu to take advantage of 470 sli or the 5970. "

Is this true? As I'm sure at some point ill be ordering a second 470.
 
Generally speaking, probably somewhat correct, but I would say, "to take full advantage....".. An i5 would also be fine, as well as the latest AMD offering in the mid-to-high end range. Even a C2D or C2Q would be fine.. Your Q6600 GO is probably okay, but certainly near the lower end of the scale. If you don't want to switch sockets, and upgrade to a Q9450/9550/9650 would be worthwhile - but your Q6600 is still acceptable.
 
mattspalace is in the right ballpark. It will work on C2Ds and C2Qs but it will definitely be faster if you're running an i7/i5/Phenom II. Tomshardware has done a piece on this very subject.

Bear in mind that these tests are done at stock clocks. When you overclock an i5/i7 the benefits will be even more apparent, and this article is also comparing a Q9550S to them as well not your Q6600, which is faster to begin with.

There will be a difference and you will be missing out on performance with your Q6600 unless you're running at 2560x1600 and turning the GPU into the bottleneck (even then it's probably impossible to do that to the cards you're asking about).
 
Depends mainly on the resolution, if you're gaming at 1280x1024 you aren't likely to see any difference at all between a 470 or 480 or crossfire of either one.
At higher resolutions the CPU has the same workload but the GPU has a higher one, that's where crossfire/SLI really come into play.
 
Depends mainly on the resolution, if you're gaming at 1280x1024 you aren't likely to see any difference at all between a 470 or 480 or crossfire of either one.
At higher resolutions the CPU has the same workload but the GPU has a higher one, that's where crossfire/SLI really come into play.

I think it's safe to say that anyone contemplating 5970/470 SLI isn't going to be gaming at anything less than 1920x1200. Least I'd hope not. :D
 
One hopes :D

Even then if they aren't playing horribly demanding games the frame rate for one 470 or 480 or 5870 is likely to be >60fps anyway, adding a second gives nothing visible.
 
One hopes :D

Even then if they aren't playing horribly demanding games the frame rate for one 470 or 480 or 5870 is likely to be >60fps anyway, adding a second gives nothing visible.

True. Given how overclockable the 5850s and 5870s are they are more than enough for 1920x1200 gaming. The 10.5 beta drivers have also significantly increased tesselation performance in Unigine as well.
 
I am gaming @ 19x20 with my Q6600 @ 3GHz.

Quick newb question here, With a Q6600 OC'ed at 3GHz and lets say the Q9650 running at stock 3GHz are they basically the same? Or are there other determining factors like the Cache that makes a large difference?
 
I am gaming @ 19x20 with my Q6600 @ 3GHz.

Quick newb question here, With a Q6600 OC'ed at 3GHz and lets say the Q9650 running at stock 3GHz are they basically the same? Or are there other determining factors like the Cache that makes a large difference?

The cache makes little difference in gaming, but the architecture of the Q9xxx is more efficient which makes it better clock for clock.
 
Ill prolly just end up squeezing a bit more OC out of the 6600 then. Its not worth $300 at this point. If I'm going to spend that kinda money may as well get the new socket CPU's and Mobo for a bit more.

Thanks for the info guys.
 
Ill prolly just end up squeezing a bit more OC out of the 6600 then. Its not worth $300 at this point. If I'm going to spend that kinda money may as well get the new socket CPU's and Mobo for a bit more.

Thanks for the info guys.

The added cache makes a difference, so much so that it was difficult to recommend the 45nm 6MB C2Qs that came out (Q9300) compared to the 12MB versions (Q9450 and up). Clock for clock the Q9550S is roughly 10% quicker than your Q6600.

When I went from my 3.2Ghz Q9300 to a 3.6Ghz 920 the difference was night and day. On the Q9300 GTA:IV ran at 30fps average using 500MB of VRAM on a 4870X2, moving to the 920 resulted in a 50fps average using 990MB of VRAM. This will be an exception rather than a rule but it illustrates how the Q6600 will be showing its age in some titles and certainly later upcoming ones.

If you were going to upgrade, my advice would be to get the cheapest Quad i5 you can find, get a entry level Gigabyte or Asus mobo, and overclock the bejesus out of it.
 
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