Q9650 Quad Core CPU vs. I7 Quads/Hexcores
I am currently running 4 toons on a Q9650 3ghz Quadcore overclocked at around 4.05ghz 8gig/ram @ 911mhz
From extensive testing and research ive found the reason why anything more then 4 toons on a q9650 is undesirable. I have been able to run 6, yes - but w/ much lag/slowness
The reason behind the lag n slowness is the limitation of the q9650 processor and anything prior to an i7. The Q9650 has 4 cores, 1 thread per core. Due to a lack of "Hyperthreading"
A QuadCore i7, has 4 cores, but 2 threads per core, with Hyperthreading enabled. -- in actuality, windows see's each thread on each core as a "processor"
if you were to go into the task manager and right click on the everquest2.exe process and click on set affinity... you will actually see 8 cores... 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7
A HexaCore i7 you should see 12 cpu's in set afinity. While each of these extra threads, isnt a "true" processor, because of hyperthreading, each process will run at 50% per thread... instead of using the entire 100% of 1 core on each instance...
If you ran eq2 instance 1, on core 0, it would run at 50% cpu on core 0, and if you ran instance 2 on core 1, it would use the other 50% of core 0. Hyperthreading doesnt let the 2 threads overlap per say, and doesn't "overwork" that first core on a i7 quad.
in theory... if you had 24gig ram and a hexacore i7, your could prolly run at least 12 toons on 1 pc. 6 cores w/ hyperthreading, 12 threads... each thread being a seperate eq2 instance.
I hope that makes sense, im not the best at explaining things =)
