Core 2 Quad upgrade?

[kenkku]

Hello!

 

TL;DR right off the get-go - I am considering upgrading from a Core 2 Duo E8400 to something else, but my options are limited. Is it worth (performance-wise) getting a Core 2 Quad Q8200 or a Q6600?

 

I am switching to a Dell Optiplex 755 with a Core 2 Duo E8400 come next Monday, and it'd be nice to get the most performance out of it. I realize this sounds a bit like a meme, but I test drove it for a bit and meets my requirements - writing code and light Internet browsing. I'm running Gentoo on it, and the heaviest load on it will probably be YouTube. Currently it performs quite well, with some visual stuttering (on YT) every now and then. There are some really cheap Core 2 Quads near me though, so I've been wondering if its worth picking one of them up. Seems like they all have slower base clock speed though, so I am not sure. The DELL has an NVIDIA GeForce GT 520 if it matters any (if anyone knows a GPU that could be better for this system, I'd appreciate any suggestions on that front too, but the PSU is only 280W). Its not a need by any means, however I'll take any extra chance to tinker with a system if I can.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Tetras]

9 minutes ago, kenkku said:

Seems like they all have slower base clock speed though, so I am not sure.

If you get the Q6600, you're doubling the core count, but you're technically going back a gen and if the cooling is marginal, it does have a potential to cause you problems.

 

The Q8200 is newer, but my concern is that the single core performance of the Q8200 is quite a lot lower than what you have and if you're already struggling with stutter, going from 3 Ghz to 2.3 Ghz is not a wise decision, even if the general multitasking performance of the PC improves.

 

What about a Q9400? The clock speed is lower than the E8400, but the single core performance is more similar.

 

11 minutes ago, kenkku said:

The DELL has an NVIDIA GeForce GT 520 if it matters any (if anyone knows a GPU that could be better for this system, I'd appreciate any suggestions on that front too, but the PSU is only 280W). Its not a need by any means, however if I'll take any extra chance to tinker with a system if I can.

Unfortunately, it is too old to be included in this table, so I'm not sure how the decode abilities compare with more modern cards. If you can get something that is capable of doing more work with YouTube, it could help the system perform better when browsing. Does Task Manager indicate what share of the load the CPU/GPU have while you're watching your videos?

[kenkku]

2 minutes ago, Tetras said:

If you get the Q6600, you're doubling the core count, but you're technically going back a gen and if the cooling is marginal, it does have a potential to cause you problems.

 

The Q8200 is newer, but my concern is that the single core performance of the Q8200 is quite a lot lower than what you have and if you're already struggling with stutter, going from 3 Ghz to 2.3 Ghz is not a wise decision, even if the general multitasking performance of the PC improves.

 

What about a Q9400? The clock speed is lower than the E8400, but the single core performance is more similar.

 

Unfortunately, it is too old to be included in this table, so I'm not sure how the decode abilities compare with more modern cards. If you can get something that is capable of doing more work with YouTube, it could help the system perform better when browsing. Does Task Manager indicate what share of the load the CPU/GPU have while you're watching your videos?

The stock cooling setup is great as-is, I've added an additional fan and even at max load when building packages it runs cool. There's a Xeon X3330 that the seller says is "equivalent to a Q9400" for sale, but thats about the best socket 775 processor available for purchase right now.

 

I'll check the load in a bit.

[Tetras]

3 minutes ago, kenkku said:

There's a Xeon X3330 that the seller says is "equivalent to a Q9400" for sale, but thats about the best socket 775 processor available for purchase right now.

I used to run those Xeons and if I recall correctly, they worked in practically any board, but I suppose a Dell might be more locked down.

 

The big difference between the Q8 and Q9 was that the Q9 had more cache.

[kenkku]

1 minute ago, Tetras said:

I used to run those Xeons and if I recall correctly, they worked in practically any board, but I suppose a Dell might be more locked down.

 

The big difference between the Q8 and Q9 was that the Q9 had more cache.

I checked online and it doesn't seem like anyone knows if it'll work, but most people just recommended updating the BIOS. Its only 10 bucks though, so if you think it'll be a solid upgrade chance I don't mind getting it to check if it works.

 

Also, CPU load is hovering between 20% and 60% depending on video quality. Watching at 1080p settles at about 40%. I'm using Nouveau drivers atm, so I don't really have any GPU monitoring tool to reference unfortunately.

[Tetras]

3 minutes ago, kenkku said:

Also, CPU load is hovering between 20% and 60% depending on video quality. Watching at 1080p settles at about 40%. I'm using Nouveau drivers atm, so I don't really have any GPU monitoring tool to reference unfortunately.

If you right click on the video, can you click on "stats for nerds" and share the codec? Might be able to google the first card that supported it and then see if there are any cheap server/workstation or low-end GPUs that could do more in hardware.

 

A quad core CPU would at least get the overall CPU usage down, even if you can't offload it to the graphics card.

 

6 minutes ago, kenkku said:

I checked online and it doesn't seem like anyone knows if it'll work, but most people just recommended updating the BIOS. Its only 10 bucks though, so if you think it'll be a solid upgrade chance I don't mind getting it to check if it works.

What I usually do is google the model number of the system and try and find some tech specs which list the available CPUs, since I'd assume that any CPU that shipped with the same model is compatible. When I check for the Optiplex you quoted, I can't find one with the same CPU generation (e.g. it is quoting Q6600 and E6600).

 

With the Xeon specifically: from what I can recall, Intel kept the same identifier for these CPUs as the desktop equivalents, which is why they worked on practically on any motherboard.

[kenkku]

3 minutes ago, Tetras said:

If you right click on the video, can you click on "stats for nerds" and share the codec? Might be able to google the first card that supported it and then see if there are any cheap server/workstation or low-end GPUs that could do more in hardware.

 

A quad core CPU would at least get the overall CPU usage down, even if you can't offload it to the graphics card.

 

What I usually do is google the model number of the system and try and find some tech specs which list the available CPUs, since I'd assume that any CPU that shipped with the same model is compatible. When I check for the Optiplex you quoted, I can't find one with the same CPU generation (e.g. it is quoting Q6600 and E6600).

 

With the Xeon specifically: from what I can recall, Intel kept the same identifier for these CPUs as the desktop equivalents, which is why they worked on practically on any motherboard.

The codec is listed as "vp09.00.51.08.01.01.01.01.00 (248) / opus (251)". I tried finding a list of compatible CPUs but unfortunately the only things I found are people asking on the forums, and the answers are inconclusive at best.

[Tetras]

2 minutes ago, kenkku said:

The codec is listed as "vp09.00.51.08.01.01.01.01.00 (248) / opus (251)".

Hmm, it looks like VP9 is not fully hardware decoded even on some very modern GPUs, so unfortunately I doubt there's anything available for a low cost.

 

I'm using a RX 550 right now, which I don't think can hardware decode VP9 either and according to task manager: watching a VP9 video uses 20% of the CPU and 40% of the graphics card in 3D mode (it reports 0% of the decoder is active).

 

8 minutes ago, kenkku said:

I tried finding a list of compatible CPUs but unfortunately the only things I found are people asking on the forums, and the answers are inconclusive at best.

The only other method I'm aware of is looking for other systems that ran the benchmarks on userbenchmark.

 

https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Dell-OptiPlex-755/3939

 

If you scroll down to "user benchmarks for this motherboard" there's a large list and you can click on each profile, which will report the BIOS date and the operating system.

[kenkku]

1 minute ago, Tetras said:

Hmm, it looks like VP9 is not fully hardware decoded even on some very modern GPUs, so unfortunately I doubt there's anything available for a low cost.

 

I'm using a RX 550 right now, which I don't think can hardware decode VP9 either and according to task manager: watching a VP9 video uses 20% of the CPU and 40% of the graphics card in 3D mode (it reports 0% of the decoder is active).

 

The only other method I'm aware of is looking for other systems that ran the benchmarks on userbenchmark.

 

https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Dell-OptiPlex-755/3939

 

If you scroll down to "user benchmarks for this motherboard" there's a large list and you can click on each profile, which will report the BIOS date and the operating system.

Alright, thank you! I think I'll stick with my current build and keep an eye out for some other options CPU-wise. I've also looked at the tape mod but it seems like its unstable on the Optiplex specifically, which sucks, but oh well.

[Tetras]

Just now, kenkku said:

Alright, thank you! I think I'll stick with my current build and keep an eye out for some other options CPU-wise. I've also looked at the tape mod but it seems like its unstable on the Optiplex specifically, which sucks, but oh well.

You're welcome. Yeah.., I don't think I'd be modding an Optiplex either.

 

There's a few Xeon profiles I noticed, like this one:

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/48679984

 

So it looks like it might be promising, for the future!

[Pasi123]

Blocking VP9 and AV1 with h264ify browser plugin might help a bit with video playback since the GT 520 has H.264 hardware decoding, if you have hw decoding enabled in your browser.

I personally wouldn't go with anything slower than a Q9550 2.83GHz or Q9650 3.0GHz, maybe a Q9450 2.67GHz. C2Q Q9650 3.0GHz would of course be the optimal one because it's literally two E8400's on one CPU.

I also wouldn't go with the Q6600 because it's older generation and lacks SSE4.1, and even at 3.0GHz it's only comparable to a Q9400/Q9450 2.67GHz.

 

Q9505, Q9500, Q9400 and Q9300 only have 6MB L2 cache while the Q9450, Q9550 and Q9650 have the full 12MB. The lower end Q8400, Q8300 and Q8200 are even worse with only 4MB cache. Though I'm not sure how much that affects real world performance but technically the 6MB and 4MB quads are a downgrade from the E8400 6MB when it comes to cache per core.

 

I still use a Q6600 @ 3.0GHz (with a Radeon HD 6570 and Ubuntu 18.04) in my HTPC and it plays 1080p YouTube videos fine when hardware decoding is enabled, and newer codecs disabled with h264ify. It is also usable without hardware decoding but the CPU usage is of course higher and there might be some dropped frames when playing 1080p60 videos. My other C2Q system with a Q9550 does a bit better and I don't remember it dropping frames even without hardware decoding

[kenkku]

2 hours ago, Pasi123 said:

Blocking VP9 and AV1 with h264ify browser plugin might help a bit with video playback since the GT 520 has H.264 hardware decoding, if you have hw decoding enabled in your browser.

I personally wouldn't go with anything slower than a Q9550 2.83GHz or Q9650 3.0GHz, maybe a Q9450 2.67GHz. C2Q Q9650 3.0GHz would of course be the optimal one because it's literally two E8400's on one CPU.

I also wouldn't go with the Q6600 because it's older generation and lacks SSE4.1, and even at 3.0GHz it's only comparable to a Q9400/Q9450 2.67GHz.

 

Q9505, Q9500, Q9400 and Q9300 only have 6MB L2 cache while the Q9450, Q9550 and Q9650 have the full 12MB. The lower end Q8400, Q8300 and Q8200 are even worse with only 4MB cache. Though I'm not sure how much that affects real world performance but technically the 6MB and 4MB quads are a downgrade from the E8400 6MB when it comes to cache per core.

 

I still use a Q6600 @ 3.0GHz (with a Radeon HD 6570 and Ubuntu 18.04) in my HTPC and it plays 1080p YouTube videos fine when hardware decoding is enabled, and newer codecs disabled with h264ify. It is also usable without hardware decoding but the CPU usage is of course higher and there might be some dropped frames when playing 1080p60 videos. My other C2Q system with a Q9550 does a bit better and I don't remember it dropping frames even without hardware decoding

Thanks! I'll keep an eye out for a Q9650. The stuttering isn't too bad, really, just a little distracting. I'll try the plugin you suggested if I can't deal with it.