Core2Duo 4500 vs E2180

[murphy55d]

Is it worth the $50 to get the C2D 4500 over the E2180? Planned to use an IP35-E, 8800GS and 2GB of Corsair XMS.

Whats the real world difference? Going from an Athlon XP 2800 barton and a 1600XT.

 

[big4x4]

Save the 50 bucks and get the e2180. Average overclocks are about 3.1 ghz which is a little more than I have seen most e4500's go. Although some games do run better with more cache, I would stick with the e2180, overclock it and be happy you saved $50

 

[Mondoman]

Save even more and get the e2160. 1333MHz FSB will have that running at 3GHz.

 

[DSF]

I have an E4500 and I'm perfectly happy. If I had it all to do over again, I might've gone with a 2-series. No complaints though.

 

[murphy55d]

$8 price difference between 2160 and 2180... still go with the 2160? is stock cooling enough to boost that up? what hsf do you recommend? i dont wanna spend too much more on this build.

 

[big4x4]

Arctic Freezer 7 and an e2180 can be had for like $70. Tiger direct has (had?) the e2180 for 49 AR and you can pick up the AC Freezer 7 for around 20 about anywhere. If you can't find the e2180 at TD, then just get the e2160 since they will overclock roughly the same

 

[imported_Scoop]

I'm happy with my E4500 @ 3.3Ghz if it matters.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: big4x4
Save the 50 bucks and get the e2180. Average overclocks are about 3.1 ghz which is a little more than I have seen most e4500's go. Although some games do run better with more cache, I would stick with the e2180, overclock it and be happy you saved $50

Most E4500s can go a lot higher than 3.1GHz, heck my E4400 on the older L2 stepping easily does 3.33GHz on the stock HSF... 3.4GHz is benchable but gets too hot.

I'm sure with a good HSF many E4500s can run at 3.4 - 3.5GHz. It's about 10% faster in games due to the bigger cache, and about 5 - 10% faster in cache dependant applications. That, plus a slightly higher overclock ceiling, could put it easily 20%+ faster than an overclocked E2180. Is that worth $50?

 

[chinaman1472]

It really, really depends on what you're doing and if you're gaming, what resolutions you play at.

For me, my TV/monitor only goes up to 1360x768. I ended up buying an E2160 for $59.99 rather than the E4500 for $99.99 (both were at Microcenter B&M). Crysis auto-detects everything to High Settings with no AA and I can get 35-45 fps most of the time, dropping down to 20-25 when the action sky rockets. So for me, the extra $40 for the E4500 probably wouldn't have been much of an improvement, considering I'd pay an extra 66%, only to squeeze out maybe another 5 fps on a really good occasion.

 

[murphy55d]

E2180 at TD is 49 after rebate plus 8 bucks to ship...arctic freezer 7 is 27 bucks at the egg. am i going to see a decent OC with a stock intel fan? id rather just get the retail e2180/4500 with a fan and not mess with oem tiger direct and their stupid rebates at all. ive heard bad things about them.

 

[murphy55d]

right now i mostly play NWN2, civ 4. NWN2 runs pretty sluggish right now at decent quality settings. i have a widescreen dell 21", which does 1680x1050 and i'd LIKE to hit that resolution in games. but right now i play mostly everything at 1024 with good settings.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: chinaman1472
It really, really depends on what you're doing and if you're gaming, what resolutions you play at.

For me, my TV/monitor only goes up to 1360x768. I ended up buying an E2160 for $59.99 rather than the E4500 for $99.99 (both were at Microcenter B&M). Crysis auto-detects everything to High Settings with no AA and I can get 35-45 fps most of the time, dropping down to 20-25 when the action sky rockets. So for me, the extra $40 for the E4500 probably wouldn't have been much of an improvement, considering I'd pay an extra 66%, only to squeeze out maybe another 5 fps on a really good occasion.

Actually, at such a low res CPU speed comes into play a lot more than at higher resolutions, where you tend to be more GPU bound.

Games especially tend to run a lot better on chips with more cache. Again, whether the performance improvement is worth the additional cost is debatable. If we are talking overall system cost, let's say $1000 for arguments sake, then a $50 difference in CPU price would only amount to a 5% difference in overall system cost. For a 5% difference, you get around 20% better performance - I'd say that's damn well worth it.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: murphy55d
right now i mostly play NWN2, civ 4. NWN2 runs pretty sluggish right now at decent quality settings. i have a widescreen dell 21", which does 1680x1050 and i'd LIKE to hit that resolution in games. but right now i play mostly everything at 1024 with good settings.

NWN2 is very CPU bound. An overclocked E4500 would definitely perform better than an overclocked E2180. Again, whether the perfomance increase justifies the higher cost is open for debate...

 

[murphy55d]

my upgrade cost before rebates is like 430, and i think theres 80 bucks coming off that after rebates.

this is what i had picked out:

e2180
abit ip35-e
2gb corsair xms2 ddr2800
xfx 8800gs 384mb
new sata dvd & dvd-rw drives

total before rebates, 430 bucks. $85 worth of rebates on the video card, mb, and ram, bringing me down to 345 + shipping, after rebates.

 

[big4x4]

Originally posted by: harpoon84

Originally posted by: big4x4
Save the 50 bucks and get the e2180. Average overclocks are about 3.1 ghz which is a little more than I have seen most e4500's go. Although some games do run better with more cache, I would stick with the e2180, overclock it and be happy you saved $50

Most E4500s can go a lot higher than 3.1GHz, heck my E4400 on the older L2 stepping easily does 3.33GHz on the stock HSF... 3.4GHz is benchable but gets too hot.

I'm sure with a good HSF many E4500s can run at 3.4 - 3.5GHz. It's about 10% faster in games due to the bigger cache, and about 5 - 10% faster in cache dependant applications. That, plus a slightly higher overclock ceiling, could put it easily 20%+ faster than an overclocked E2180. Is that worth $50?

Notice how I said AVERAGE and not whatever yours can do. I have never seen one that could do 3.4 on less than 1.4 volts.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: big4x4
Notice how I said AVERAGE and not whatever yours can do. I have never seen one that could do 3.4 on less than 1.4 volts.

You claimed

Average overclocks are about 3.1 ghz which is a little more than I have seen most e4500's go.

You are basically claiming the average overclock of the E4500 is BELOW 3.1GHz. I am disputing that claim, from what I've seen, E4500s have a higher overclock ceiling than E2180s.

Please reference this thread where many people have submitted their E21x0 and E4x00 overclocking results. On average, the E4x00 chips overclock slightly higher than the E21x0 chips.

 

[big4x4]

True, they do have a higher OC ceiling but from my experience, the e2XX0 OC a little higher than the e4X00. I own both so why would I be prejudice ! Between the two you will not notice any difference unless you do benchmarks. If $50 is worth the 5% performance you MAY get and will probably never even notice, than by all means get the more expensive one.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: big4x4
True, they do have a higher OC ceiling but from my experience, the e2XX0 OC a little higher than the e4X00. I own both so why would I be prejudice ! Between the two you will not notice any difference unless you do benchmarks. If $50 is worth the 5% performance you MAY get and will probably never even notice, than by all means get the more expensive one.

Then your experience differs from the 'norm', where E4x00 chips will generally overclock some 200MHz higher than E21x0 chips on average. On top of this, there is a general 5 - 10% performance advantage per clock.

Again, I'll be referencing to the E2x10/E4x00 overclocking thread

The average E21x0 overclock amongst 39 samples is 3.05GHz.
The average E4x00 overclock amongst 29 samples is 3.24GHz.

A ~200MHz higher overclock, along with a 5 - 10% IPC advantage, puts the average overclocked E4x00 chip about 10 - 15% faster overall compared to the average E21x0 chip.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: big4x4
True, they do have a higher OC ceiling but from my experience, the e2XX0 OC a little higher than the e4X00. I own both so why would I be prejudice ! Between the two you will not notice any difference unless you do benchmarks. If $50 is worth the 5% performance you MAY get and will probably never even notice, than by all means get the more expensive one.

Is it just me, or does your first sentence contradict itself?

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: DSF

Originally posted by: big4x4
True, they do have a higher OC ceiling but from my experience, the e2XX0 OC a little higher than the e4X00. I own both so why would I be prejudice ! Between the two you will not notice any difference unless you do benchmarks. If $50 is worth the 5% performance you MAY get and will probably never even notice, than by all means get the more expensive one.

Is it just me, or does your first sentence contradict itself?

Heh, I thought that too, but he did say 'from his experience', its possible he got a bunch of dud E4x00 chips that barely scrape to 3GHz.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: murphy55d
Is it worth the $50 to get the C2D 4500 over the E2180?

That's up to you. Fortunately for you, someone has already answered that question: gaming benchmarks.

 

[big4x4]

Originally posted by: harpoon84

Originally posted by: DSF

Originally posted by: big4x4
True, they do have a higher OC ceiling but from my experience, the e2XX0 OC a little higher than the e4X00. I own both so why would I be prejudice ! Between the two you will not notice any difference unless you do benchmarks. If $50 is worth the 5% performance you MAY get and will probably never even notice, than by all means get the more expensive one.

Is it just me, or does your first sentence contradict itself?

Heh, I thought that too, but he did say 'from his experience', its possible he got a bunch of dud E4x00 chips that barely scrape to 3GHz.

I have probably had about five of each for different computers I have built and always used the abit ip35-e. Setting vcore in bios at 1.365 the e4x00's got to about 3.0 ghz and the e2XX0's got to about 3.1. The e2xx0's run cooler and with the money he saves he can put it toward a better video card which will be a much bigger benefit wouldn't you agree?

On a side note, my personal e2200 only got to 3.0 @ 1.4 volts

 

[Capt Caveman]

I'm happy with my 2180. It's at 3.2ghz at 1.385v using the stock cooler.