e5200 compared to e8400/phenom720

[tokie]

ok, so I am looking at buying a new system based on the Phenom II 720.

however, what is really tempting is the e5200 being $90 cheaper (Canadian). from benchmarks, it seems the X3 720 is around the e8400 in gaming (which is what I would be doing.. Source games, ut3, etc).

how high would the e5200 need to be oc'ed to match the 720/e8400? 3.3ghz? i only say this because if i got the e5200 i could buy an aftermarket hsf, whereas with the 720 i would be stuck with stock. also, can any cheapo g31 motherboard overclock to 266fsb fine with the e5200? or is it worth it to spend the ~$30 extra for a p43?

 

[Denithor]

Source games, UT3, etc...e5200 is ideal for those games. Throw in 4GB DDR2 (as cheap as you can find) with a G31 board and maybe a 4830 if you can find one cheap and you'll have no problems with those games.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: tokie
how high would the e5200 need to be oc'ed to match the 720/e8400? 3.3ghz? i only say this because if i got the e5200 i could buy an aftermarket hsf, whereas with the 720 i would be stuck with stock. also, can any cheapo g31 motherboard overclock to 266fsb fine with the e5200? or is it worth it to spend the ~$30 extra for a p43?

The Gigabyte G31 chipset boards seem to be the best for overclocking and are cheap. It should be able to overclock an E5200 enough to surpass a stock E8400 in performance. Not all G31 chipset boards are so amenable. Check my mini reviews of three different G31 boards in the Motherboard category.

 

[yh125d]

To make an e5200 perform approximately on par with a e8400 in games, I'd suspect it'd need to be running at 3.5 or so to the stock 3.0gHz of the e8400. It needs a good speed advantage to make up for its lacking cache. I think I remember seeing an e7200 review where it running at 3.4gHz with 50% more cache than e5200 was approximately equal to an e8400