Curious about an Intel Conroe CPU

[Kesshi]

I am buying a new box in the next few weeks/months, and in my research I've found that the Intel Conroe line seems to be a nice line of CPUs.

They're basically all the same thing with different speeds:

64 bit Support: Yes
FSB: 1066MHz
Hyper-Threading Support: No
L1 Cache: 32KB+32KB
L2 Cache: 4M shared
Manufacturing Tech: 65 nm
Multi-Core: Dual-Core

2.93GHZ
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115001

2.66GHZ
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115002

2.4GHZ
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115003

No Hyperthreading, and a shared L2 Cache. When will I really need Hyperthreading as a gamer? And would it matter if the L2 Cache is shared? The first question is mostly rhetorical, whlie the second question is genuine.

If someone has another suggestion for a gaming processor, I am very open to suggestions, and I am not opposed to AMD.

I am not interested in overclocking.

Any thoughts or comments?

 

[hennessy1]

get the x6800 then if you do not want to overclock that would be the best one to get if you have the money

HT is basically allowing you to have double the number of cores virtually.

Shared L2 Cache doesnt matter

 

[lyssword]

I dunno, if it were me I'd buy e6700. I dunno, maybe because I'm not a millionaire and rather use extra $600 to buy a nice monitor/s. But it's just a suggestion.

 

[MarcVenice]

x6800 if he doesnt want to overclock ? What a load of rubbish. Thats a good way to throw away a lot of money. For a gaming rig, an e6600, running at 2.4ghz will do just fine and will give the most bang for your buck out of those 3 stated cpu's. What a gamer really needs is a good videocard, like a 8800gts or gtx, with, depending what res your gonna play, 320 or 640mb ram. Depending on your budget it would be VERY wise to 'safe' a LOT of money and buy an e6600 versus an x6800, and spend the extra cash on a better videocard.

Hell, the e6700 costs 1/3rd of the x6800, trust me, the 266mgh gain you get for 3 times the money is NOT worth it. Besides, the multiplier on the x6800 is unlocked as well, which is probably why it costs so much more as well. I'd still go for the e6600 though, and I'm pretty sure more people will agree with me.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
x6800 if he doesnt want to overclock ? What a load of rubbish. Thats a good way to throw away a lot of money. For a gaming rig, an e6600, running at 2.4ghz will do just fine and will give the most bang for your buck out of those 3 stated cpu's. What a gamer really needs is a good videocard, like a 8800gts or gtx, with, depending what res your gonna play, 320 or 640mb ram. Depending on your budget it would be VERY wise to 'safe' a LOT of money and buy an e6600 versus an x6800, and spend the extra cash on a better videocard.

Hell, the e6700 costs 1/3rd of the x6800, trust me, the 266mgh gain you get for 3 times the money is NOT worth it. Besides, the multiplier on the x6800 is unlocked as well, which is probably why it costs so much more as well. I'd still go for the e6600 though, and I'm pretty sure more people will agree with me.

Yes, hell, for that matter, I'd go for a 6420

 

[f4phantom2500]

shared l2 cache doesn't really matter, but it is actually more efficient since in single threaded apps the busy core can use more cache than the idle core (when 4mb is shared between 2 cores, core 1, the busy core, can use 3mb while core 2, the idle core, uses 1. when its 2x2mb, core 1 can only use 2mb no matter how busy it is and core 2 gets 2mb no matter how idle it is. hyperthreading is pretty much irrelevant, especially since these are dual cores to begin with. I read an article lately at THG that basically concluded that any modern dual core chip won't really be a bottleneck for gaming if you turn the resolution and other settings up...just to let you know, that hasn't changed lol. So really as long as you get an adequate processor (any C2D or really pretty much any A64 X2), you'll be fine; save the money on the processor and get a better video card and more RAM. Also, since you don't want to overclock you'd be better suited for an AMD chip since for the price they perform very comparably to Intel's C2D chips and the motherboards are cheaper.

Oh also the Allendale chips are basically the same as Conroe, only less cache and 800mhz FSB. The FSB and cache difference don't really affect performance too much, they're still good chips.

So:

Since you won't OC, either AMD or Intel would be a good choice as their priceerformance ratios are very comparable for a given price (at stock speeds)

Since you'll be gaming, you should do what you can to get an 8800GTS (or GTX if you want), then focus on the processor; turn up the details and resolution (tax the video card) and it'll run as fast as a processor that cost 3x as much (even without overclocking).

Shared L2 cache d

 

[MarcVenice]

Yeah, AMD is a good way to go as well. Especially if you buy a somewhat decent am2 mobo, because they WILL support the new AMD cpu's that should be coming out end of this year. With the current mobo's for c2d's it's unsure wether they will support new cpu's that come out from intel.

 

[Kesshi]

Thanks for the replies guys. I appreciate it. Especally the information on the shared L2 Cache, good stuff to know.

I'm at work, so I can't do a whole lot of research, but it looks like my CPU and Mobo won't be as big of concern as I first thought.

So you're aware of my budget, my target is $2500, not exceeding $3000 for my new machine. This WILL include a new monitor (I haven't bought a new one in ~7 years.) But I will be getting things like Hardware Raid and entierly too much RAM.

My current box is 5 years old, and the only part I've upgraded was the video card to play top of the line 2007 games decently. My goal is to do the same thing with he new box; minimal upgrades (or at least economial and efficient upgrades) for maximum longetivity.

I have no problem spending $800 on a CPU I'll never touch for 4-5 years, or spending $200 on a CPU I'll have to replace 3 times in 5 years to "keep up."

 

[lyssword]

Originally posted by: Kesshi
Thanks for the replies guys. I appreciate it. Especally the information on the shared L2 Cache, good stuff to know.

I'm at work, so I can't do a whole lot of research, but it looks like my CPU and Mobo won't be as big of concern as I first thought.

So you're aware of my budget, my target is $2500, not exceeding $3000 for my new machine. This WILL include a new monitor (I haven't bought a new one in ~7 years.) But I will be getting things like Hardware Raid and entierly too much RAM.

My current box is 5 years old, and the only part I've upgraded was the video card to play top of the line 2007 games decently. My goal is to do the same thing with he new box; minimal upgrades (or at least economial and efficient upgrades) for maximum longetivity.

I have no problem spending $800 on a CPU I'll never touch for 4-5 years, or spending $200 on a CPU I'll have to replace 3 times in 5 years to "keep up."

No matter how you slice it, 200-300 cpu is a better bang for buck. x6800 compared to 6700 is only 5-15% faster. In other words, you would have to spend as you say, replace cpu 3 times, but at a cost of 3x more. http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=2963&p=8 look at x6800 performance vs 6700 only 5% difference.