A Decade Later: Does the Q6600 Still Have Game in 2017?

[MoeJoe]

Meh

 

[fps4ever]

DDR2 is just as much of a problem was the cpu but the old quad would have still run out of gas on any modern cpu intensive game with DDR3.

 

[bandit8623]

When I saw the benchmarks on the i5 2500k 6 years ago, I knew it was a rare gem that appears once every few tech generation. I'm still running that chip happily today and won't be upgrading again for the next few years.

Tbh its a good chip but overall cpu innovation has slowed from no competition. Back when the core2 quads came out there still was some push from amd.

 

[Kralnor]

When I saw the benchmarks on the i5 2500k 6 years ago, I knew it was a rare gem that appears once every few tech generation. I'm still running that chip happily today and won't be upgrading again for the next few years.

Tbh its a good chip but overall cpu innovation has slowed from no competition. Back when the core2 quads came out there still was sone push crom amd.

Indeed. AMD started falling behind when C2D / C2Q models were rolling out and Sandy Bridge really knocked them out.

It was a bit of dumb luck, but the i5-2500k is probably the best hardware purchase I have ever made.

 

[m-tec]

Still using my pc tower with the Q6600 in it. It does struggle, I can't play any 4K video on it (even youtube), I've maxed out the RAM to 4.25GB, put in a better graphics card, put windows 10 64bit, and it still won't play it. Does everything else I throw at it. it's slow, disk rendering runs the CPU at 100%.
But it still works! but gonna look into a custom pc this year

 

[penn919]

I wonder how my i7 920 would do with similar specs and tests...

Those perform almost as well as the AMD FX-8300 series.

 

[EClyde]

My brother had one of these. He sanded that mofo to get a more surface area to cool. I can't recall the proper name. I laughed. he hung up.

 

[BadThad]

I'm still running a Q6600 system. All it does DC projects 24/7 and runs well for it's age.

 

[hojnikb]

Pretty decent performance outta old chip to be honest.

also, if you¸re really cash strapped, getting a xeon e5440 (10$ off aliexpress, 12mb 45nm quad) and a cheap 775 mobo is the way to go.

 

[Ronald G]

I had a Q6600 back in 2007, and just last year in 2016, bought a i7 6700 in my new HP Desktop. The Q6600 was an advance over anything I had had in a previous computer and performed very good. I had it in a Custom Desktop with a Vista 32 bit O/S. At that time there was some possibility that Vista 64 bit might have not worked well with some of my legacy peripherals. I had 4 gig of ram in it, and all in all it was a good computer. 2016/2017 is just about a decade, but in computer terms it is several decades. Things have moved so fast that it is enough to make you head spin. I bought a Lenovo Desktop in 2010 that had W7 64 bit with an i7 processor and 8 gig of ram and that was also an excellent computer. I realize that every 5 years or so can bring major changes in computer products so even though the computer I am using at the moment is great, a newer one with more power is for me something worth considering.

 

[lripplinger]

Thank you for taking the time look at this old tech. There are a lot of people out there with these old systems still. I myself am running an i5-4440 now after retiring my old i7-860 from gaming duties, etc. Dang, now I wish I could see how my old i7 would fair in there with these tests. I still think the sweet-spot processors are the i5 chips these days. Also seeing the Sandy Bridge i5 in there to me just shows how little overall improvement Intel has made over the years among the generations from Sandy Bridge to current day Kaby Lake.

 

[deemon]

I just recently stopped using a q9450. It was pretty good in all but games from the last 2-3 years (and unusually CPU dependent games like GTA IV and skyrim) but the real limiter was the 4gb, DDR2 ram IMO. still sitting in a box and I dunno what ill do with it.

Same here, although I had 8GB RAM, it was still rather limiting. Finally upgraded July'16 to 6700K + GTX1070.

 

[Badelhas]

When I saw the benchmarks on the i5 2500k 6 years ago, I knew it was a rare gem that appears once every few tech generation. I'm still running that chip happily today and won't be upgrading again for the next few years.

Me too. And mine is overclocked to 4.4ghz so the gap is even lower. It's incredible.
I won't upgrade any time soon as well.

 

[cliffordcooley]

My upgrade path: Celeron D 352 > Core 2 Quad Q9400 > i7 2600K

For the first time ever I don't have a feeling that I may need to upgrade.

 

[JamesSWD]

One of my machines, built in 2009, is running a Core i7 860 on an Intel DP55KG motherboard, 16GB of DDR3, two HD6850 graphics cards for multiple monitors, and an 800W PSU. I don't play any games on her...and she's been working perfectly, although on rare occasions she's hinky with demanding stuff, especially with multiple web videos open or playing at the same time, such as news, etc.

If I was a game player, I'm sure I'd be suffering. And she's not the demon she used to be, compared to today's tech. But am I really missing out on anything and need to build a new rig?

 

[EndlessWaves]

"We set out to discover if the decade old Core 2 Quad Q6600 could cut the mustard in 2017"

And you did that by testing everything on Ultra?

It would have been much more interesting to see how it fared with the silly graphics options turned off. Whether it could run the games smoothly while still having them look as intended by using medium or similar settings.

 

[noel24]

OH MY GOD! In 2011 2500K platform cost in EU currencies was half of what 6700K cost today. Even in US$, 6700k cost of $339.99 vs $216 for 2011 2500K. It's not a stalemate, It's a regress! Forget slowdown, It's a miracle PC market hasn't halted dead already! Shouldn't some regulatory body look into possible Intel's monopoly practises?

 

[cliffordcooley]

And you did that by testing everything on Ultra?

Once you go all in gamer, you never look back, there are no other settings.

 

[CelebrityGamer]

This whole article is a funny. From someone who just had a Q6600 last year, and I had it for 2 years. I ran Over-watch, Rocket League, and other games just fine. Overwatch I played at 1600x900 nearly max settings and I got between 39-60fps, rocket league 1600x900 max 50fps. My specs was Intel Q6600 2.4ghz, 4gb ddr2 memory, Win764bit, PNY GTX 550 TI.

The main problem with this arctile is that the new cards are too powerful for the quad, thus massive bottleneck. So its basically a pointless inaccurate article.

 

[Tylerr]

Whats with running everything at ultra? Of course it's not going to be able to do that.

But running on low or medium? For the majority of games it will run them perfectly fine.

 

[CelebrityGamer]

Still using my pc tower with the Q6600 in it. It does struggle, I can't play any 4K video on it (even youtube), I've maxed out the RAM to 4.25GB, put in a better graphics card, put windows 10 64bit, and it still won't play it. Does everything else I throw at it. it's slow, disk rendering runs the CPU at 100%.
But it still works! but gonna look into a custom pc this year

How is watching videos at 1080p/1920x1080? If you're trying to watch videos at 4k , remember the q6600 came out in 2007, just saying. But you shouldn't have any problems watching videos at 1080p, which IMO I don't see any freaking difference between that and 4k and I have seen video at 4k, I see no difference. I hardly see any "major" difference between 720 and 1080p.

 

[bandit8623]

Still using my pc tower with the Q6600 in it. It does struggle, I can't play any 4K video on it (even youtube), I've maxed out the RAM to 4.25GB, put in a better graphics card, put windows 10 64bit, and it still won't play it. Does everything else I throw at it. it's slow, disk rendering runs the CPU at 100%.
But it still works! but gonna look into a custom pc this year

If all you need is 4k playability I would look into a gpu with 4k playback acceleration. Players like vlc and tools like klite can really make a difference.

 

[bandit8623]

How is watching videos at 1080p/1920x1080? If you're trying to watch videos at 4k , remember the q6600 came out in 2007, just saying. But you shouldn't have any problems watching videos at 1080p, which IMO I don't see any freaking difference between that and 4k and I have seen video at 4k, I see no difference. I hardly see any "major" difference between 720 and 1080p.

If you cant notice thats fine. But that basically means your blind. Or you don't know how to properly set up your hardware. They are easily noticeable. The biggest leap though is 1080p to 4k

 

[Steve]

"We set out to discover if the decade old Core 2 Quad Q6600 could cut the mustard in 2017"

And you did that by testing everything on Ultra?

It would have been much more interesting to see how it fared with the silly graphics options turned off. Whether it could run the games smoothly while still having them look as intended by using medium or similar settings.

So you want to take load off the GPU?

This whole article is a funny. From someone who just had a Q6600 last year, and I had it for 2 years. I ran Over-watch, Rocket League, and other games just fine. Overwatch I played at 1600x900 nearly max settings and I got between 39-60fps, rocket league 1600x900 max 50fps. My specs was Intel Q6600 2.4ghz, 4gb ddr2 memory, Win764bit, PNY GTX 550 TI.

The main problem with this arctile is that the new cards are too powerful for the quad, thus massive bottleneck. So its basically a pointless inaccurate article.

So it is "basically a pointless inaccurate" to see if the Q6600 can tackle the latest games using modern graphics cards? That is somehow inaccurate...

The point of the article wasn't to see if the Q6600 can handle low-end games using entry-level settings. If it were we would have tested using 1600x900 and medium to low quality settings.

 

[noel24]

And you did that by testing everything on Ultra?

Once you go all in gamer, you never look back, there are no other settings.

This is as true statement, as naive one. Testing both 1080 and 750Ti with same Ultra setting will give You objective performance comparison between the cards, but will not tell the relatively poor, Indian, Chinese or East European 750Ti owner if He should invest in a new game. Such test will look for him like a one performed by a sellout Intel/nVidia wh*re of a journalist. And then He will go to YT to look for "GTA5 on a q6600 and 750Ti". And then it will turn out this whole article might be a scam sponsored by Intel.