Return of Socket 775: Core 2 Extreme QX9650 with GTX1070 - Gaming + Benchmark Thread

It has been a while, years perhaps, since I have posted on here. I'm still really fond of this community and I'd like to share my recent experience with a new GPU and old hardware. My lack of posting has primarily come from the fact that I have not significantly upgraded my computer in the time since I joined this site nearly 10 years ago. Up until last weekend, this is what I was running in my computer:

CPU: Core 2 Extreme QX9650 at 3.8GHz with Zalman 9700 (9.5x400)
Motherboard: Gigabyte P45 UD3P
RAM: Crucial Ballistix 4x2GB DDR2 800
GPUs: 2x EVGA GTX560Ti 1GB in SLI (using DifferentSLI) - Now Gigabyte GTX1070 Windforce OC 8GB
HDD: Intel 740 480GB SSD

Last Friday, I went out and bought the first part for my new computer build, a Gigabyte GTX1070 Windforce OC card. I wanted to know if my nearly 9 year old computer could run modern games. I also wanted to see what benchmark results looked like compared with modern processors. I will be continually updating this thread, but lets start off with some new releases, Forza Horizon 3 and Battlefield 1.

Forza Horizon 3:

Minimum system requirements (Source: Microsoft Store):
CPU: i5 3570 3.4 GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti or AMD R7 250X
VRAM: 2 GB
RAM: 8 GB

Recommended system requirements:
CPU i7 3820 @ 3.6GHz
GPU NVIDIA GTX 970 or NVIDIA GTX 1060
AMD R9 290X or AMD RX 480
VRAM 4GB
RAM 12GB

Starting out, Forza Horizon 3 had noticeable input lag on controller inputs. Raising or lowering graphics settings had no noticeable impact, so for the purposes of this writeup, I am running Ultra settings. Closing out any other apps on the computer allowed me to nearly eliminate this lag, where it is nearly unnoticeable during normal gaming. Even having Firefox and Skype running in the background used enough CPU resources to interfere with my gaming. My four CPU cores are pegged between 95% and 100% constantly, with my temperatures reaching around 50*C.

Playable graphics settings: 1080p30 on Ultra Settings

Changing the game to the 60fps setting, the game runs in the low 40s for FPS, and has an occasional dip. I found playing at 1080p30 to be smoother with the constant 30fps framerate. I am very impressed by how playable this game is on a Socket 775 platform.

Battlefield 1:

Minimum system requirements:
CPU i5 6600K
GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB
AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB
VRAM 2GB
RAM: 8GB

Recommended system requirements:
CPU i7 4790
GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 3GB
AMD Radeon RX 480 4GB
VRAM 3GB
RAM: 16GB

Starting out, this game runs adaptive settings and automatically put the game on Medium graphical fidelity. I found the game to run extremely well, so I increased the settings to Ultra with full AA and all other settings maxed out running DX11.

On Ultra settings, running in 1080p, this game runs around 45fps on average, but the gameplay is surprisingly smooth. Depending on scenery the framerate goes into the 50s, and there is no meaningful lag impacting the gameplay experience. The game is flat out gorgeous, even running in 1080p. I am fully aware that with a modern CPU, motherboard, and RAM, my framerate would easily double. However, this current system provides no impediment to my ability to play the game smoothly. Switching to DX12 mode caused the game to run poorly, and provided little noticeable improvement in graphics. Under DirectX11, the Core 2 Extreme QX9650 holds up as a viable gaming platform in 2016. All four cores are between 90% and 100% at all times, leading me to believe that my RAM could be the bigger bottleneck in this situation.

Overall, running a platform far older, and far below the minimum system requirements of these games has been perfectly functional.

Let me know what benchmarks you'd like me to run, and I will report back here with results!

Conner

GTA:V: Cranking up every possible graphical setting at 1080p will not slow down this machine. I've maxed out every setting, and the game reports that it is using upto 6GB of RAM. The game holds a solid 45-50FPS.

Titanfall 2: This is tremendous. The game runs at an average of 70FPS fully maxed out in 1080p. I did have to turn off the reflective sound setting, which reduced CPU usage and improved FPS.

I'd like to run 3DMark or some other benchmark, but I don't know whats relevant anymore. I haven't messed with it much since like 3DMark06 or 3DMark Vantage.

Reminds me of this silly youtuber called Random gaming something, he had a $50 gaming PC recently........then a $25........now a $5...........

Yes gaming has more to do with your GPU than CPU's.
Nice job man !

I suspect some games might struggle with older CPU's and perhaps the chipset on the motherboard used.
From my experience with my 5960x, 1080gtx system and moving to a dual E5-2699 v3 platform with same GPU I saw no difference at all in game play so its not really a matter of CPU speed also. Only game that would not work was GTA V as it seems to not be NUMA aware. I did figure out a fix for it and it runs very nice.

I have a friend running a 990x system I built for him long ago and its still running like a champ, its a beast of a rig even by todays standards.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kingcarcas

Reminds me of this silly youtuber called Random gaming something, he had a $50 gaming PC recently........then a $25........now a $5...........

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Sounds awesome. Its interesting because I certainly wasn't trying to build on the cheap, I just haven't upgrade for a really really long time. :p:

I will have been on Socket 775 for 11 years, this January. :eek:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Buckeye

Yes gaming has more to do with your GPU than CPU's.
Nice job man !

I suspect some games might struggle with older CPU's and perhaps the chipset on the motherboard used.
From my experience with my 5960x, 1080gtx system and moving to a dual E5-2699 v3 platform with same GPU I saw no difference at all in game play so its not really a matter of CPU speed also. Only game that would not work was GTA V as it seems to not be NUMA aware. I did figure out a fix for it and it runs very nice.

I have a friend running a 990x system I built for him long ago and its still running like a champ, its a beast of a rig even by todays standards.

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Thanks! I was really impressed that a twelve year old platform (socket 775) and a nine year old processor could still run modern games. This really is the last stand of socket 775. This is the 2nd fastest CPU ever to be sold for 775, and it is overclocked (by 27%) to its stable limit on air cooling. Back when I was a regular poster here, 5-8 years ago, people spent a lot of time and energy getting the most out of these systems. I was happy to find out that they are still capable.

I'd still like to run synthetic benchmarks if you have any suggestions, and I will also be testing more games. :)

Fallout 4: This game is essentially a polished turd. While still a great game, it seems to utilize much of the same underpinnings of Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Because of this older engine, the game runs very smoothly on older hardware with very high framerates, even maxed out.

Doom (2016): I am incredibly impressed by games running on this engine. The new Wolfenstein games ran superbly well with just one 560Ti, while looking better than nearly everything out there. This new Doom, with everything on Ultra settings, returns 90+ FPS in firefights with a lot of stuff going on. I was not expecting it to run this well, but I am not complaining. Bethesda/iD/Whoever have built a great engine. This may come down to the fact that this game is OpenGL, and all of the textures are there. The download for the game was roughly 70GB. There is no lag running it off of my storage drive, a WD Blue 2TB hooked up via SATA II.