Trying to figure out what my PC is cabable of running

[Dumo31]

I had to step away from gaming when I had kids. I now have time again but a few years changes a lot.

Q6600
8gig ddr3
r9 270

I would rather not overclock at this point since my cpu has been going strong for me for 9 years. At this point I think the money spent on cooling would be best served saved for a rebuild. In the mean time I was wondering if anyone has, or know someone who has, tried a Q6600 on gears of war 4?
I know GTA V can be done but unfortunately I am just not interested in those.
Any game suggestions are welcomed. I usually enjoy rpgs.

 

[BlackRayPlayer]

Intel Core 2 Quad-Processor @2.4GHz, 8MB of L2 Cache
8GB DDR3 @1066MHz
AMD Radeon R9 270 2GB @900MHz/925MHz

Grand Theft Auto V indicates that you've reached the minimum requirement to run the game, GPU being above.
Gears of War Ultimate - Intel Core i5 @2.7GHz or Above, 8GB RAM, 2GB VRAM ~ Questionable.
Gears of War 4 - intel Core i5-3470 @3.0GHz, 8GB RAM, 2GB VRAM ~ No, Better CPU Recommended

 

[erickmendes]

1. Divinity Original Sin 2 looks like a blast, it's out on Steam.
2. Shadowrun reboot, there's like 3 or 4 littles, also on Steam.
3. Like hack n' slash RPG's? Diablo 3 is cool, but I suggest Torchlight 2, it's a little different, more like Diablo 2, and it's lots of fun.
4. Like turn based? Invisible Inc. is a really different setting for an RPG, it's turn based, spionage RPG.
5. Also on hack n' slash, there's Magika, not quite an RPG, but with really innovative game mechanics. It's kind of a hack and slash of mages. It's a great game.
6. FTL (Faster Then Light), really lightweight game, an unforgiving sort like RPG of space exploration. Love this game.
7. Evoland is more of an homage to RPG's in general. You start in 2D monochromatic and go on evolving to full 3D, it's sweet, easy cool, and you end it in few hours.
8. The XCOM reboot is turnbased, I love it. There's also the new XCOM 2 but it's more demanding. Should try them, both are superb.
9. Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3: uncompromised RPG like the ones from the old days. Classic RPG mechanic. Nice to spend some spare time in a casual RPG, 2 more like this one: 9.1 cthulhu saves the world
10. Knights of Pen and Paper series: a different mechanic, you play it with your characters sitting in a table as if they were playing tabletop RPG. It's cool to see them talking with the gamemaster lol. Casual gameplay, there's a lot of missions, it's also on mobile, but it's a cool game.
11. Trine series: Well it's a platformer, with LOTS of physical puzzles on your way. Take a look at a gameplay trailer.

Enjoy!

 

[Dumo31]

Thanks. I will check out those game.
If I were to be able to overclock my cpu to 3GHz, would I be able to run Gears 4 or is the cpu still to weak? Not about to do it but curious anyways. Thanks for the info.

 

[erickmendes]

I think I found something useful for you: https://www.techspot.com/article/1313-intel-q6600-ten-years-later/
Reading this article, even at 3.1GHz, paired with a GTX 1070, the Q6600 won't break 30 fps on Gears 4...

Hope this helps.

 

[erickmendes]

By the way, most of the games in my suggestion list runs smooth on your rig.

 

[Dumo31]

Thanks for the article. Quick question, does bumping the settings to ultra add more stress to the cpu? Or does that fall entirely on the gpu?
Sorry, last time I gamed on my PC I didn't have to think about any of this and never bothered to learn.

 

[Dumo31]

Evoland looks fantastic. Thanks for that suggestion!

 

[ErikNZ]

I'm running a Q9550@3.4Ghz, 8GB RAM, GTX 760GB 2GB myself with a Cooler Master Hyper 212X. If you get a decent tower cooler, you can't go wrong with the CM Hyper 212-line if you ask me if you're on a budget, you can overclock that Q6600 just fine. Unless you purposely set the voltage to ridiculous settings, I've never known anyone to actually kill their CPU by overclocking. We're not talking about delidding your CPU here but merely increasing the FSB slightly. The Core2Quads overclock very nicely actually and with the Hyper 212X, my Q9550 isn't running that much hotter than at stock speeds.

Having said that, I mostly stick to games until about 2012-ish, those will run fine at 1080p and high/full detail. BF3 runs fine, I tried BF4 beta but that just didn't wanted to run smooth for some reason, could have been the beta. Fallout 4 runs fine at 1080p. I assume Skyrim (the re-made/upgraded version) should therefore work fine as well though that's not really my cup of tea. I've recently started playing Dishonored (I'm what you can call a patient gamer.. I don't mind older titles at all) and besides it being an amazing game, it's actually running quite well. Borderlands 2 is fine too, love the music and atmosphere. Planet Coaster and City Skylines work fine as well.

And two titles that will definitely run well on your PC are Limbo and Inside. I'm not sure if those games are your thing, they are both very short but, in my opinion, master pieces that will leave a greater and longer lasting impression that some AAA titles.

 

[erickmendes]

How could I forget Borderlands! It's one of the few shooters I love... And there's strong elements of RPG in it.
Worth look on all 3 titles.

 

[delrey]

I had a Q9550 and was unable to play Overwatch with it. Blizzard said the C2Q's are no longer supported. The beta played fine but when the game was released, they removed C2Q's support. This prompted me to upgrade, quickly.

 

[BlackRayPlayer]

Thanks for the article. Quick question, does bumping the settings to ultra add more stress to the cpu? Or does that fall entirely on the gpu?
Sorry, last time I gamed on my PC I didn't have to think about any of this and never bothered to learn.

That is a good question because it is dependent on the game. A good example of a CPU intensive game would be Ashes of the Singularity, real-time strategy game (RTS). You have a top down view and you tasked of creating, quickly, a military base that seeks to collect the planet's natural resources to sustain your factions survival in whatever galaxy your from. So what makes it CPU intensive is all the math being used for the millions of ships that exist on the screen at once, you telling thousands to go this way and another set this way while still having to perform individual animation, animation as you get caught by surprise from enemy faction or just wanted to rage war yourself war monger, buildings, buildings animation, animations of them shooting or blowing up, along with what they're doing, and still sending information to the RAM and GPU.

Then you have the Witcher III: Wild Hunt, very beautiful Game, with Nvidia Hairworks which is incredibly stressful even on GTX 1080 Ti (Especially when 4K is used). My GTX 1060 6GB had to have some areas altered to maintain 60fps, but I settled at an area it can handle even if dips do occur, but overall, goodness it's intensive.