Core 2 Duo Vs Everything else??

niceguyrichy · Jul 24, 2006, 12:45 AM

So I'm looking to sell up and head back to Intel (opty is great for gaming, but I hardly game, and it's starting to piss me off).

So, just looking at OCUK as a price comparison, they have Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 (1.86GHz, 1066FSB) @ £150. seem's pretty good.

then they have Intel Pentium 4 945 Dual Core (Presler 3.4GHz, 800FSB) @ £126, which atm sounds like a good price.

So what is my best bet

What else should I consider? (price range is limited to what I posted

)

I barely game, a bit of BF2 , CS:S or DoW every now and again.
Mostly just music production, vid re-authoring etc is what I use my comp for.

I wouldn't mind a bit of OC'ing either, but 'm not Tulc or anything (or is it 'Reduced Sugar' (?), I forget)

Opinions please

oh yeah, I'd be selling up everything and buying new ram, gf card at the same time, but keeping my Hiper Type R psu if that makes any difference.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jul 24, 2006, 01:22 AM

dude core 2 duo is up to like 180% faster then thier predisesors, thier not compairable
clock for clock, so with less clock rate, it's faster then the old. e6300 is faster then a 3800+ AMd 64

niceguyrichy · Jul 24, 2006, 02:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Neon_Cowboy

thier not compairable
clock for clock, so with less clock rate, it's faster then the old. e6300 is faster then a 3800+ AMd 64

well I know that

what I want to know, is whether or not it's worth £30 extra to get a Core 2 DUO E6300 ahead of a Pentium 4 945 Dual Core for example (which, obviously, is £30 less) ???

and of course, should I be considering anything else??

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jul 24, 2006, 03:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by niceguyrichy

well I know that

what I want to know, is whether or not it's worth £30 extra to get a Core 2 DUO E6300 ahead of a Pentium 4 945 Dual Core for example (which, obviously, is £30 less) ???

and of course, should I be considering anything else??

It's also a good over clocker
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...duo-e6300.html

the high end 9XX are discontenued due to the new core chips
deside for your self http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=2795&p=8

DevTech · Jul 24, 2006, 03:21 AM

the core2 a much better buy. reviewers have OC'd the 1.8ghz model to 3.4ghz on air, but only on the gigabyte motherboard i believe. to get a decent OC you'll have to get a good motherboard that can handle higher fsb (since the multiplier is very low on the E6300).

I'd say realisticly you can get a nice 800mhz OC and have a cpu nearly 60% faster than the 945

H3X4D3C1M4L · Jul 24, 2006, 03:32 AM

I'd go for the E6600 which has the 4MB of L2 cache... that thing matches or excells a FX62 in 98% of the benchmarks I've seen

The_Neon_Cowboy · Jul 24, 2006, 04:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by H3X4D3C1M4L

I'd go for the E6600 which has the 4MB of L2 cache... that thing matches or excells a FX62 in 98% of the benchmarks I've seen

no point 1-2% to up to 7% isnt worth the $$$ forthe 2 more MB of level 2 cache
if you plan to o/c the other is just as good lest that wahat was siad in one of
my above links the that e6300 has the best p/p ratio

H3X4D3C1M4L · Jul 24, 2006, 04:23 AM

It's $100CDN more from a pre-order stand point and its far more future proof... things will only ever need more L2 cache. So arguably its a better investment, especially since newer games will definately use more cache (a single core can allocate the entire 4MB for example), and multi-tasking scenarios would benefit. If you've got F@H on one core it could use say 25% of the L2 then you could run a DVD encoder on the other core and it'd use the other 75%...speeding both tasks up by perhaps 15 - 20%.

It just seems more future proof in my opinion, and the cash delta isn't THAT bad. When you're spending the cash to get a chip may as well go for that 'little extra' to make the upgrade worthwhile.

I will agree that at this point in time the E6300 does have a VERY good price to performance ratio but then again so does the whole Conroe line up vs. the AMD or Netburst based chips.

Tipstaff · Jul 24, 2006, 09:33 AM

No offence here, Hex, but God, I soooo hate that word. Futureproof. Just remember that futureproof has a time limit, and you'll be fine.

mkk · Jul 24, 2006, 09:58 AM

If you buy a P4 today we'll tease you indefinitely.

Just don't do it man.

PangingJr · Jul 24, 2006, 11:34 AM

the larger the L2 cache the greater the number of data items can fit into it and the less likely a cache miss will occur,
the lesser data cache misses - the lesser latency and transfer - the lesser processing involved the better system performance.

i really don't have any idea whether or not increase the processor clock speed can also improve the L2 cache size limit?

but anyway, the 2MB L2 cache on the Core 2's processor chip can be more than enough... Intel has made a major change on the L2 cache... (google Intel Advanced Smart Cache) so i like to say that it's best for you to buy the processor that's within your budget, niceguyrichy.

niceguyrichy · Jul 24, 2006, 02:58 PM

thanks for the input guys

looking at that link you put up neon, it's a no-brainer.

time to read up on mobo's and write up some Ebay ads...

H3X4D3C1M4L · Jul 24, 2006, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tipstaff

No offence here, Hex, but God, I soooo hate that word. Futureproof. Just remember that futureproof has a time limit, and you'll be fine.

OK I'll rephrase... more cache = bigger ePenis

I just think that it'll bode well in the long-ish run. It just looks like a better investment to me, what with the chip already costing upwards of $200

HawgsHead · Jul 24, 2006, 11:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by niceguyrichy

So I'm looking to sell up and head back to Intel (opty is great for gaming, but I hardly game, and it's starting to piss me off).

So, just looking at OCUK as a price comparison, they have Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 (1.86GHz, 1066FSB) @ £150. seem's pretty good.

then they have Intel Pentium 4 945 Dual Core (Presler 3.4GHz, 800FSB) @ £126, which atm sounds like a good price.

So what is my best bet

What else should I consider? (price range is limited to what I posted

)

I barely game, a bit of BF2 , CS:S or DoW every now and again.
Mostly just music production, vid re-authoring etc is what I use my comp for.

I wouldn't mind a bit of OC'ing either, but 'm not Tulc or anything (or is it 'Reduced Sugar' (?), I forget)

Opinions please

oh yeah, I'd be selling up everything and buying new ram, gf card at the same time, but keeping my Hiper Type R psu if that makes any difference.

Is Core Duo Extreme out in the UK now?

niceguyrichy · Jul 24, 2006, 11:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawgsHead

Is Core Duo Extreme out in the UK now?

apparantly available in 1 day in a couple stores I frequent

:
Conroe Core™ 2 Extreme X6800 2x 2.93 4Mb 1066 MHz LGA775

damn I wish I had that kinda money.

£770 is around what I'm seeing it at here (not looked hard/at all really), that's US$1400+

which is a lot.

Jul 24, 2006, 01:22 AM	#2
The_Neon_Cowboy HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 16,009 Rep Power: 92 System Specs	dude core 2 duo is up to like 180% faster then thier predisesors, thier not compairable clock for clock, so with less clock rate, it's faster then the old. e6300 is faster then a 3800+ AMd 64 __________________

Jul 24, 2006, 09:33 AM	#9
Tipstaff HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Real capital of Canada: Torauna Posts: 6,773 Rep Power: 190 System Specs	No offence here, Hex, but God, I soooo hate that word. Futureproof. Just remember that futureproof has a time limit, and you'll be fine. __________________ Portal: The Flash Version _________________________________ Brain: So, you sacked the cocky khaki Kicky Sack sock plucker? Mr. Sackett: The second cocky khaki Kicky Sack sock plucker I've sacked since the sixth sitting sheet slitter got sick.

Jul 24, 2006, 03:21 AM	#5
DevTech DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 7 Rep Power: 0	the core2 a much better buy. reviewers have OC'd the 1.8ghz model to 3.4ghz on air, but only on the gigabyte motherboard i believe. to get a decent OC you'll have to get a good motherboard that can handle higher fsb (since the multiplier is very low on the E6300). I'd say realisticly you can get a nice 800mhz OC and have a cpu nearly 60% faster than the 945

Jul 24, 2006, 03:32 AM	#6
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	I'd go for the E6600 which has the 4MB of L2 cache... that thing matches or excells a FX62 in 98% of the benchmarks I've seen

Jul 24, 2006, 04:23 AM	#8
H3X4D3C1M4L DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 6,794 Rep Power: 0	It's $100CDN more from a pre-order stand point and its far more future proof... things will only ever need more L2 cache. So arguably its a better investment, especially since newer games will definately use more cache (a single core can allocate the entire 4MB for example), and multi-tasking scenarios would benefit. If you've got F@H on one core it could use say 25% of the L2 then you could run a DVD encoder on the other core and it'd use the other 75%...speeding both tasks up by perhaps 15 - 20%. It just seems more future proof in my opinion, and the cash delta isn't THAT bad. When you're spending the cash to get a chip may as well go for that 'little extra' to make the upgrade worthwhile. I will agree that at this point in time the E6300 does have a VERY good price to performance ratio but then again so does the whole Conroe line up vs. the AMD or Netburst based chips.

Jul 24, 2006, 09:58 AM	#10
mkk Cthulhu/Dagon 2012 Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Gefle, Sweden Posts: 4,489 Rep Power: 132 System Specs	If you buy a P4 today we'll tease you indefinitely. Just don't do it man.

Jul 24, 2006, 11:34 AM	#11
PangingJr Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 5,989 Rep Power: 71	the larger the L2 cache the greater the number of data items can fit into it and the less likely a cache miss will occur, the lesser data cache misses - the lesser latency and transfer - the lesser processing involved the better system performance. i really don't have any idea whether or not increase the processor clock speed can also improve the L2 cache size limit? but anyway, the 2MB L2 cache on the Core 2's processor chip can be more than enough... Intel has made a major change on the L2 cache... (google Intel Advanced Smart Cache) so i like to say that it's best for you to buy the processor that's within your budget, niceguyrichy.