Using a Core 2 Quad in a build

[Alexander Nicholi]

I have a mission of making all computers under the rainbow, and part of that besides building extreme budget PCs, vintage 486 boxes, ultimate gaming rigs or even crazy server hardware with multiple sockets, is... right, legacy hardware. The old stuff no one wants anymore. Surely I could find some use for that, right? I mean, the rating for a C2Q isn't all that bad, albeit it does run kinda hot...


Basically, I'm needing a living room "family" PC that we'll be using to watch movies, play some old DirectX games on (like Age of Empires, SimCity 4, etc), and would like to know how exactly a Core 2 Quad Q6600 would fare for me as a CPU. I will be booting from an SSD, and I will be buying a GT 720 for graphics, so those two potential pitfalls are closed. Does it sound like an alright idea or am I forgetting something?

 

[Kanzler]

Jesus christ, a Core 2 Quad Q6600 should be more than enough. I built my first computer when the Q6600 was the gold standard for high-end builds (of course there were the crazy intel black label QX9001 but those cost like $600 each lol). I went with a Core 2 Duo E6750 which was in a price-performance sweet spot, but iirc the Q6600 beat it out in most benchmarks. Also I ran Crysis on that machine, but I suppose that's more of a function of the graphics card but hey that means a Q6600 would not be a limiting factor in the performance for those resource-intensive games.

I think a GT720 would cut it for most old games, but it's a -20 model so I can't take it seriously. Would you pay $20-30 bucks for the next tier card or perhaps double or so for a GT750? Might be an ego buy for your situation, but personally I like components with a good price-performance ratio.

 

[Legendary Silke]

You should be fine, though CPU power consumption is definitely less than ideal.

Also, as for the GT 720, you probably really should consider stepping up to a 730 or better. It should be fine, otherwise, for what you intend to do with it, but it never hurts to have more graphics card inside.

 

[Kanzler]

You should be fine, though CPU power consumption is definitely less than ideal.

Also, as for the GT 720, you probably really should consider stepping up to a 730 or better. It should be fine, otherwise, for what you intend to do with it, but it never hurts to have more graphics card inside.

Oh that's true I didn't think about that. Q6600 ran 95W, but do new chips use less power? I mean, it can't be more significant than 1/3 less power I imagine.

 

[Legendary Silke]

Oh that's true I didn't think about that. Q6600 ran 95W, but do new chips use less power? I mean, it can't be more significant than 1/3 less power I imagine.

Well, given a Q6600's TDP and performance, you can either get a dual-core Intel with identical or slightly better performance for 54W, or you can get a quad-core Intel with significantly better performance for 84/88W. Either way, yeah, your power bills will probably thank you for it.

(At this point, even an AMD Athlon X4 860K, a 95W, would be a bit faster, The Core 2 CPUs are old enough to be considered ancient. :))

By the way, if you do grab a Core i3 or better that's Haswell or Broadwell, skip the GT 720. HD Graphics 4xxx and better are more than fast enough.