Core 2 Duo E6300 or Pentium D 945?

[TC10284]

Hey all.

I know this question has probably been asked a lot. I am looking to upgrade my system. I currently have a Pentium D 805 @ 2.66GHz with 2GB of DDR2-533 (PC4300) and an Asus P5LD2 mobo. My current mobo will support a Pentium D 945 (3.4GHz dual core) for $155 on Newegg. However, I was also looking into getting a Core 2 Duo E6300 for $180 I believe from Newegg. I would have to get another mobo for the C2D of course. I've read that even the 6300 C2D will outperform any Pentium D CPU.

I mostly play FPS games (video card is a Radeon x1600, and I might upgrade that too if I find the right deal).

Do you guys have any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[adairusmc]

People are gonna chime in telling you how you should get the C2D and a new motherboard, but I would just save the money and go with the Pentium D 945 myself. Cheaper than the C2D, and you don't have to buy a new motherboard to go with it.

 

[TC10284]

I kind of like your thinking. Get the 945 now and wait for the C2D CPUs and mobos to come down some and perhaps get a better vid card.

 

[Bobthelost]

If you're gaming then why bother upgrading the CPU at all? It might make a tiny difference but it won't be economical.

 

[dexvx]

Its just a motherboard change. You already have the ncessary DDR2 to run the Core2 at full potential. However, the 945 is a pretty significant upgrade from the 805, as it will run cooler and much faster. Although for the money, a 945+Video upgrade > Core2+Mobo upgrade.

 

[TC10284]

I'm not looking to upgrade my gaming performance. I know better than that. Gaming performance = fine.


I think I'm looking more toward the 945 and a vid. card. To decide for sure, I'll have to price compare on Newegg some more.

 

[o1die]

Fry's has the e6300 with ecs board for $179 this weekend. You could use your old 805 heatsink with it. The board works with ddr or ddr2, but is for agp only.

 

[Kromis]

Originally posted by: o1die
Fry's has the e6300 with ecs board for $179 this weekend. You could use your old 805 heatsink with it. The board works with ddr or ddr2, but is for agp only.

Where!?!? I'm in the LA area and I don't see it in the ad!

Nvm, it was on Friday's ad.

 

[TC10284]

Originally posted by: o1die
Fry's has the e6300 with ecs board for $179 this weekend. You could use your old 805 heatsink with it. The board works with ddr or ddr2, but is for agp only.

Crud....that would be very nice except I'd like to keep my PCI-E x1600 =(

 

[TC10284]

The price difference of what I have for a PD 945 and a C2D E6300 would be: $114.21 (shipping and all). The cart with the P4D would be: $366.38. The C2D would be: $500.59 before a $20 rebate. I have a few things that are the same in both carts. Such as a Geforce 7600 GT, mouse, keyboard, and mousepad.

What do you think?

 

[dexvx]

If you really wanna poke around:

Buy the Fry's E6300 combo.
Sell your 805D / ECS motherboard
Buy a decent 965board.

 

[HomeyFoos]

What would a decent 965 board be? I'm certainly not opposed to such a deal if it were me, but I also do like the suggestions of moving to the 945. It's cheap, simple and will not require a new install of Windows XP. Changing the Motherboard may (most likely will). However, I'm also sort of partial to saying forget the CPU for now and just dump all the money into the Video Card and an after-market cooler for the CPU which will take a nice hit from the addition of a hotter GPU. This will most likely give you an immediate improvement in gaming performance. You will eventually bottleneck the CPU (someone who knows more than me will have to say where that is - I would imagine it has to do with the native resolution of your display) but if that is the case, the $155 for PD 945 should fix that for a reasonable price.

The thing is, C2D is expensive and there aren't many good boards out there. In a few months, things will settle down and you will have some better options and won't be paying a premium for Mobo's. And if you take this path, you will have a great video card that will go in any C2D system you put together down the road.

X1900XT/256 $300
X1900XT/512 $345
X1900XTX $399
7900GTX $399
7950GT $295
7900GT $260

Some of these even have rebates, like the 7900GTX gets you down to like $373 after MIR.


Good luck,

 

[LordSnailz]

Any link to the performance difference between the 945 and the E6400 or E6600? price aside?

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: LordSnailz
Any link to the performance difference between the 945 and the E6400 or E6600? price aside?

This is what a E6300 does to a 945:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2duo-e6300_11.html

Easy to extrapolate how much better faster clocked C2Ds will do.

 

[Roguestar]

How about the x1950Pro to go with that, HomeyFoos? Isn't it something like $230? (UK prices here so guesstimating)

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Accord99

Originally posted by: LordSnailz
Any link to the performance difference between the 945 and the E6400 or E6600? price aside?

This is what a E6300 does to a 945:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2duo-e6300_11.html

Easy to extrapolate how much better faster clocked C2Ds will do.

I have 5 X2.s and the fastest I could get mine was 2.5 ghz. I have 2 E6300's both @3.43. Its not even close...... Why anybody would even consider a Pentium D today is insanity. X2' for price only if you already had memory and vid card you couldn;t part with, but otherwise, no choices here......

 

[mgacam2]

the e6300 and 7600 gt are a great combo..it was the best upgrade iv ever made. I must say that the core2duo does make a big difference compared to the p4 pig processors. I deffinitly suggest it. Also for your 7600gt i really suggest spending the extra bit for the 7900 gs. Also make sure you get the XFX XXX version of either of those cards. My xfx came stock overclocked 200 mhz memory and 100 mhz core which is the max of the other 7600gt manufalctuers when overclocked. I then had enough leeway for another 100 mhz memory clock and 75 mhz core over clock which was exceptional. My 3D mark standings on my E6300 at 2.6 ghz and my card overclocked at that setting was completely destroying e6400's armed with 7900gt's. I was pretty pround of this and i saved quite a bit of money. You will also be able to overclock the core2duo much farther then i did if you go with the gigabyte s3 board. Anyway get the XFX XXX 7900 GS if you can foot the bill along with the e6300 on a s3 board. You wont regret the performance.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: HomeyFoos
What would a decent 965 board be? I'm certainly not opposed to such a deal if it were me, but I also do like the suggestions of moving to the 945. It's cheap, simple and will not require a new install of Windows XP. Changing the Motherboard may (most likely will). However, I'm also sort of partial to saying forget the CPU for now and just dump all the money into the Video Card and an after-market cooler for the CPU which will take a nice hit from the addition of a hotter GPU. This will most likely give you an immediate improvement in gaming performance. You will eventually bottleneck the CPU (someone who knows more than me will have to say where that is - I would imagine it has to do with the native resolution of your display) but if that is the case, the $155 for PD 945 should fix that for a reasonable price.

The thing is, C2D is expensive and there aren't many good boards out there. In a few months, things will settle down and you will have some better options and won't be paying a premium for Mobo's. And if you take this path, you will have a great video card that will go in any C2D system you put together down the road.

X1900XT/256 $300
X1900XT/512 $345
X1900XTX $399
7900GTX $399
7950GT $295
7900GT $260

Some of these even have rebates, like the 7900GTX gets you down to like $373 after MIR.


Good luck,

Screw those vid card prices...There are tons of them for sale on the boards...I got an XTX 512mb card for 250 shipped...work and OCs like a dream...dude sold it to offset his 8800GTX cost....

There prices are plummeting due to newer cards but retailers haven't adjusted them...XTX fpr 399??? in their dreams

Picked up a CF edition (512mb card at XT speeds) for 255 shipped...



I would get a E6300 = 180ish new retail
I would get an S3 gigabyte = 116 new retail
I would get 1gb now (1 stick add 2nd later) of gskill or Ballistix PC2-6400 = 170ish

 

[nZone]

The best thing to do is keeping the Pentium D 805. A Pentium D 945 cost you approx. $170. While a C2D E6300 cost you approx. $180 + a new motherboard $75-300 (depends on the feature sets, take $100 mark for this sample); this would equal to about $280. How about a new 8800GTS 320; around $280? Or may be a step up to GTS 640; around $369. Upgrade the video card is more economical and will see performance increase at the same time.

FPS games like FEAR, PREY, QUAKE to name a few will not benefit from a faster CPU.
test: http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=618&p=3

I was in the same situation like you. I had Pentium D 805@2.66; 7600GS SLIed; 1GB Ram; Raid 0 HD.
The first thing I did was OC my 805 to 3.4GHz -- no improvement there. Upgraded my memory to 2GB -- my naked eyes don't see any improvement there. Upgrade my video card to 8800GTX; major performance increase in gaming. I've read alot of reviews in the internet saying that a GTX needs the fastest CPU etc.. So I tested my 805 between 2.66 and 3.4GHz; with a GTX; again cpu speed has no effect for gaming. So found it debatable. I was thinking hmm...may be the 805 only has 533 FSB..may be that is the bottleneck; I decided to get a Pentium D 945 since it has 800FSB. What I found was it doesn't perform any better than my Pentium D 805 at stock speed. So I wasted $170 for no gain.

By the way; PD 945 does not run cooler than a PD 805. 805@3.4GHz was 30c max while 945@stock is 35C and max at 42C.

 

[KayKay]

overclock the 805? probably will give you a modest boost in performance

 

[f4phantom2500]

Originally posted by: TC10284
I'm not looking to upgrade my gaming performance. I know better than that. Gaming performance = fine.

So why do you want to upgrade then? Just stick with your rig until you're not satisfied, then overclock your 805, and just keep using that until you're no longer satisfied. Next upgrade I think should be a video card one, but if you're satisfied with what you have definitely wait at least until the R600's come out.

 

[nickfd]

Originally posted by: nZone
The best thing to do is keeping the Pentium D 805. A Pentium D 945 cost you approx. $170. While a C2D E6300 cost you approx. $180 + a new motherboard $75-300 (depends on the feature sets, take $100 mark for this sample); this would equal to about $280. How about a new 8800GTS 320; around $280? Or may be a step up to GTS 640; around $369. Upgrade the video card is more economical and will see performance increase at the same time.

FPS games like FEAR, PREY, QUAKE to name a few will not benefit from a faster CPU.
test: http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=618&p=3

I was in the same situation like you. I had Pentium D 805@2.66; 7600GS SLIed; 1GB Ram; Raid 0 HD.
The first thing I did was OC my 805 to 3.4GHz -- no improvement there. Upgraded my memory to 2GB -- my naked eyes don't see any improvement there. Upgrade my video card to 8800GTX; major performance increase in gaming. I've read alot of reviews in the internet saying that a GTX needs the fastest CPU etc.. So I tested my 805 between 2.66 and 3.4GHz; with a GTX; again cpu speed has no effect for gaming. So found it debatable. I was thinking hmm...may be the 805 only has 533 FSB..may be that is the bottleneck; I decided to get a Pentium D 945 since it has 800FSB. What I found was it doesn't perform any better than my Pentium D 805 at stock speed. So I wasted $170 for no gain.

By the way; PD 945 does not run cooler than a PD 805. 805@3.4GHz was 30c max while 945@stock is 35C and max at 42C.

It should be stated that only *CERTAIN* games do not benefit from cpu performance. However, MOST new games, and ALL future games will be heavily cpu/gpu bound. If you look at the 3dmark06 benchmarks you'll see the scaling move up as you add additional CPU performance. This will only continue in the future as game programmers will use cpu clockpower to assist with physics and AI.

 

[nZone]

Originally posted by: dexvx
Its just a motherboard change. You already have the ncessary DDR2 to run the Core2 at full potential. However, the 945 is a pretty significant upgrade from the 805, as it will run cooler and much faster. Although for the money, a 945+Video upgrade > Core2+Mobo upgrade.

945@stock runs 10C hotter than my previous 805@3.6

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: nZone

Originally posted by: dexvx
Its just a motherboard change. You already have the ncessary DDR2 to run the Core2 at full potential. However, the 945 is a pretty significant upgrade from the 805, as it will run cooler and much faster. Although for the money, a 945+Video upgrade > Core2+Mobo upgrade.

945@stock runs 10C hotter than my previous 805@3.6

There is definatly something abnormal about that, at 3.7ghz neither of my 920's got close to hitting the same temps as my 830 or my overclocked 805@3.6ghz.

 

[nZone]

Originally posted by: stevty2889

Originally posted by: nZone

Originally posted by: dexvx
Its just a motherboard change. You already have the ncessary DDR2 to run the Core2 at full potential. However, the 945 is a pretty significant upgrade from the 805, as it will run cooler and much faster. Although for the money, a 945+Video upgrade > Core2+Mobo upgrade.

945@stock runs 10C hotter than my previous 805@3.6

There is definatly something abnormal about that, at 3.7ghz neither of my 920's got close to hitting the same temps as my 830 or my overclocked 805@3.6ghz.

What heatsink that you're using? I'm using Big Typhoon. Argh! may be I over-tightened it. I could slide (if try) the heatsink while on 805; but on 945 I could not slide (if try to).
Back to the drawing board; it is a pain to remove everything out just to reseat the heatsink. What is your temp anyway?