Can Core 2 CPUs still be used???

[Daniel Z.]

Just want your opinions!

[Daniel Z.]

I made this thread on a Thinkpad T61. It has a very good keyboard that doesn't slow my typing down even though I usually use a G710+. It is actually very fast with a T7300. The web browsing experience is almost as good as on my i5 4460, GTX 960 PC. 

[Unimportant]

Why not? Besides the handful of applications that require the latest and greatest there's a million more where a core 2 still does fine. Heck, my q6600 can still hold it's own in many games.

[PCGuy_5960]

Core2Quads aren't the best, but are still usable

Core2Duos are very bad performers

[aisle9]

One of my HTPCs runs on a Q6600, Windows 10. My dad's PC runs on an E8500, with Windows 10. Yes, Core 2 CPUs are still very usable.

[Clyne]

I wouldn't consider one for gaming, my Q6600 was bottlenecking all over the place...

Q6600 and a HD 5830 was getting 30FPS at 648P in GTA 5....

[Daniel Z.]

Yeah my T61 cant even play minecraft at over 15 fps. Web browsing on it is actually really good. Would my laptop run win10?

[SenioRR]

As long as you do not plan on gaming with it, the CPU will still be fine during tasks such as web browsing or some MS Office work. 

Windows 10 should run on it without major problems. 

[Daniel Z.]

OK. would you recommend getting a 250 gb ssd and 4 gb ram to make it faster? I have a windows key

[SenioRR]

An SSD will definitely speed it up. Additional RAM will help too.

[QueenDemetria]

15 minutes ago, Daniel Z. said:

I made this thread on a Thinkpad T61. It has a very good keyboard that doesn't slow my typing down even though I usually use a G710+. It is actually very fast with a T7300. The web browsing experience is almost as good as on my i5 4460, GTX 960 PC. 

They can be used, just not for all things. For browsing the web, documents, slide presentations, etc. they are totally fine, just more demanding tasks(gaming, rendering) will beat it down.

[Glenwing]

25 minutes ago, Daniel Z. said:

Yeah my T61 cant even play minecraft at over 15 fps. Web browsing on it is actually really good. Would my laptop run win10?

I have a T61 with a T7300 too. Runs Windows 10 just fine, very snappy with an SSD. As long as I don't open games, it does pretty much everything smoothly.

[Ostwind]

If you have a higher clocked C2D like 2.6Ghz plus then it is overkill for normal tasks like browsing/youtube/etc. There are also a lot of older games that work perfectly fine with a C2D clocked around that range or better. Lower clocked ones will obviously fare worse, the closer to 2Ghz you get the worse off you're going to be. C2Q's are more usable in the game department when it comes to more recent games so long as you have one that's at minimum 2.4Ghz(which would be the Q6600). They fare better in the multitasking department too due to the extra cores.

 

Overall they do still work though if you're going to seek out a system with this kind of hardware you really need to be aware of the cost of such a thing. You definitely need to be aware of what it would cost to build a budget system with current hardware to make sure you dont overspend on some outdated stuff.

[DELTAprime]

Only negative thing I can think of is a current day equivalently performing computer would use less power.

[Dabombinable]

A 45nm Pentium 2GHz dual core is fine for my Grandmother who primarily uses MS office+IE (which is light AF on computers due to its bugs), so it depends on the use case. A Core 2 uad can still be used even now for gaming. Even a 65nm model from pre 2007.

[WaterproofBeanie]

59 minutes ago, Bubblewhale said:

I wouldn't consider one for gaming, my Q6600 was bottlenecking all over the place...

Q6600 and a HD 5830 was getting 30FPS at 648P in GTA 5....

I don't think the Q6600 was the bottleneck there at all.

[Clyne]

4 minutes ago, ShaolinBear said:

I don't think the Q6600 was the bottleneck there at all.

Yeah it was...pinned at 100% at all cores while GPU was around 30-40%.

[WaterproofBeanie]

3 minutes ago, Bubblewhale said:

Yeah it was...pinned at 100% at all cores while GPU was around 30-40%.

Well colour me surprised, my Q9400 isn't much newer and doesn't bottleneck my GTX 960, which is a completely different tier.

[Clyne]

1 minute ago, ShaolinBear said:

Well colour me surprised, my Q9400 isn't much newer and doesn't bottleneck my GTX 960, which is a completely different tier.

I ended up selling the Q6600 was it was subpar for gaming. 

[Dabombinable]

22 minutes ago, ShaolinBear said:

Well colour me surprised, my Q9400 isn't much newer and doesn't bottleneck my GTX 960, which is a completely different tier.

Well, it is 45nm and does have architectural improvements over the 6600 (which was pretty much 2x Conroe dual core die in the same package, not a single 4 core die)

[moebius8]

for generic use and medium resolution video core2is fine.

for gaming not so much. However as I think about it a 35 dollar PI would work just as well for generic use and medium resolution video.

pick your poison i guess

[david cassar]

I can play the witcher 3 decently with a core 2 duo (overclocked) So yeah the core 2 series are still pretty good.

[TheLaserCucumber]

3 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Well, it is 45nm and does have architectural improvements over the 6600 (which was pretty much 2x Conroe dual core die in the same package, not a single 4 core die)

The Q9400 is a Yorkfield CPU, which is 2x Wolfdale dies in 1 package.

Don't Quote me on this, but i think every C2Q CPU has 2 dies on 1 package.

 

I can game pretty well with the Q9450 in my HTPC.

I would say that Core2 Quads are usable for gaming. The Q9650 can beat the i3 6100 in some games.

But the C2D aren't that well anymore. I had a C2D E6550 in my HTPC before, and it struggled very hard.

[TheLaserCucumber]

lol something bad happened, please don't pay Attention to this post

(not the one above this)

[gdb123]

i use a core 2 duo as a fileserver for backups mainly, it runs linux.