All,

Hoping the collective WOFF braintrust can weigh in with opinions here....

I have begun selecting and buying parts for a new PC build which will be dedicated to WOFF3. My budget is tight. With the recent optimizations that OBD has made to v3 I am actually quite amazed at the good performance I'm getting from my lowly quad core 2.5gHz CPU. I've read that WOFF mostly relies on the primary core, so with this in mind I thought that I might be well served by going for an i3 6100 / 3.7gHz CPU. I really don't need multicore processing for anything else and it seems that with quad core and up I might be paying a lot more for something that WOFF won't really take advantage of. I already have a GTX950 sitting in its box, awaiting the rest of the components. That alone will give me a huge boost over my current (again, lowly) GT640

Thanks in advance for any thoughts / advice!

Harry

The devs always said, it should be fast.
Number of cores doesn't seem to matter.
That 3.7 GHz should be possible to overclock safely, if you dare - to over 4 GHz.

Then there will also be faster, newer CPUs, but they are costly, and you may need a new mobo too.

Having at least two real cores (not virtual cores) helps. Even though CFS3 only uses one core to play, the second core can be used by all the remaining programs and services running in the background so it does not hamper the core being used by the game.

just check on the listing what CPU does performe the best at a single core application. I know its al about Ghz but if I may have the choice between a 3ghz dual core or a 3ghz Quad (same generation) I would go for the Quad.
About overclocking if you do not have a k serie and a Z or P series motherboard then you can do only a small overclock that you proberly will not notice in game performance.
Can not see on what kind of motherboard you have but sometimes you can get the fastest CPU for your mobo for an low price.

Well, for one thing, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find gaming-grade dual-core processors nowadays - they've really been kind of relegated to second-line duties.

If price-for-performance is what you're really looking for most, I'd also suggest staying away from i7 - yes, they're more powerful and you'll usually find them with higher clock speeds, but their price is also at a premium for that performance. While some programs/games will benefit a lot from i7's various optimizations, WOFF is not one of them IIRC. I would also avoid the i3 because despite the good-looking clock speeds, they're bottlenecked in other areas. Their cache is barely half that of the i5. i3s are really not built for gaming, they're basically business/multimedia machine CPUs.

Personally, I'd recommend i5 6600 or 6600k. You can get them in the range of $230-260, and they're probably at the best price-for-performance point, and run at 3.3/3.5GHz.

I also am about ready to upgrade ( 4 Better WOFF-ing) I want to get the Brain Trust,s Opinion.

I would like to just upgrade the CPU or Should I just wait and redo the whole thing ? Game problems: In a blue moon Jaggies. Stutters, not always,but regular. The game remains playable.

Current specks: MB M4A88t-m Power: 650 Watts. R7 360 Radeon Graphics Card ( Budget, but works nice, I was limited by amount of Power) the CPU is AMD Phenom II X4 965 at 3.40 GHZ

I overclocked my Phenom 965 from 3.4 Ghz to 4.0 Ghz by altering the multiplier from 17 to 20. It has been running happily like that for a couple of years now. It needs a decent cooler though - the stock one supplied is rubbish. I use a Cooler Master Vertex Plus which is pretty quiet and keeps the temps low all the time. Running at 35°C now as I'm not doing much except surfing the net.

Thanks for all the info folks! Interesting about the i3 cache being a potential bottleneck. Thing is though, I can get a decent mobo (I need to build a whole new machine anyhow) along with the i3 for the same cost of an i5 alone. I've read that, paired with DDR4 memory, the i3 keeps up pretty darned well with the i5, and I could make sure to get a mobo that would allow a future upgrade of the CPU, if I find I'm still lacking.

H

I was looking around and was surprised to find I can buy an AMD Sempron 145 pretty cheap. It runs at 2.8Ghz and is AM3 and AM3+. Uses a mere 45 watts as well.... May be a good idea for a WOFF rig. Just to compare, the 965 quad I have uses around 95 watts.