Trench

Need help?
Post Reply
User avatar
fluffy
Member
Posts: 135
Joined: July 26th, 2011, 8:58 pm

Trench

Post by fluffy »

I seek your great knowledge of all that is computers.

I currently have these 2 machines.

i5 650 3.2ghz and q8300 2.5ghz

My older son and I are the ones using the q8300. And my younger son uses the i5.

I have all the better peripherals on the q8300. FWIW a GTX 650 ti. Not the greatest card. But the better of the 2 I have.

Would it be worth anything to me to swap over to the i5 with a fresh format and my better components? My older son plays more machine demanding games that I do. Seeing as DC is the only thing I play. So would it be worth it for me to switch over to give him a little better machine?

Thanks in advance for your sharing your great wisdom.. :D
Online
User avatar
Trench
Admin
Admin
Posts: 2908
Joined: May 22nd, 2012, 3:19 am
Location: Dallas / Fort Worth
Contact:
United States of America

Re: Trench

Post by Trench »

fluffy wrote:Would it be worth anything to me to swap over to the i5 with a fresh format and my better components?
My prediction would be that the observable difference would not be worth the time spent rejiggering the two installations. It's essentially a dual-core i5 at 3.2GHz with hyperthreading (only looks like 4 cores), versus an actual four-core Core2 at 2.5Ghz.

If the question was which of those two to buy today, the i5's greater feature set is probably the way I would lean towards investing new money. But for two machines you already have, I think the trade-offs of "more cores at 2.5" versus "less cores at 3.2" would end up showing little if not flat noticeable performance difference.

The trade-off in my mind being "I have faster CPU cycles on the i5, but am now sharing those cycles more often with Windows and other code, because there are less real cores to schedule on." If it had been a 2nd-generation or later i5 with four actual cores, the recommendation would have definitely gone the other way, with four 3.2Ghz cores up against four 2.5 cores.

But for the specific machines you have now, I think you'll be just as happy without investing time in the swap. I don't spend time diving deep into performance, so feel free to prove me wrong. This is just what I would expect and what I would do, based on the prominent features of these two choices.

-Trench
User avatar
fluffy
Member
Posts: 135
Joined: July 26th, 2011, 8:58 pm

Re: Trench

Post by fluffy »

As always, I thank you for your wisdom...
Post Reply