I bought an e4300 last year as my base 775 platform cpu.

[Serradifalco]

I had big plans of upgrading to the next biggest and best Intel offering... and then upgrading again when the 45 nm cpus came out... and so on.

Well now back to reality. I am so pleased with the performance of my e4300 oc'd to 3ghz that something revolutionary would have to hit the shelves to motivate me to upgrade.

In fact, the only upgrade I have made is from a 6600gt to a 7600gt gpu. I plan on jumping up to an 8800gt as my next upgrade shortly.

My machine multitasks beautifully. I can run a virus scan, an ad scan, listen to music, and surf the net without missing a beat! From now on, when I upgrade my cpu, it will definitely be an oc'd base offering from Intel. The bang for buck is unreal!

Does anyone else find themselves in the same situation?

 

[nerp]

To an extent, yes. I had a hard time justfiying the phase out of my Opteron 180 to this new intel build since the Opty was still a great machine. I'm glad I did, though, since the E2180 runs so well at 3.2ghz. And because things are so solid, I'm beginning to wonder if throwing in an 8400 or a new .45 nm quad would be worth it. Instead, I should probably upgrade my video card and buy more hard drives for the WHS box, y'know?

I think people like you and I prove that there's a point of diminishing returns for processors in terms of basic needs. I don't need much more than I already have. Sure, a few extra FPS in my encodes would be swell, but I can minimize autoGK and do other things without issue. Will it really make my life better if I can encode an xvid in 15 minutes intead of 20? Is it worth $300 to do so? I'm starting to think no, not really. I'd rather take the woman out to two really nice $150 dinners instead.

The only thing that will force this chip out of my board is a desire to use it in a new low power build of some type. I may want to build the woman a new machine to replace her aging barton 3000+ and the E2180 would be a good choice for a quiet, small, low power machine. Then I'd throw in a newer faster chip.

 

[bigpow]

Serradifalco, how would u know that if you've never had 45nm at 4GHz?

True, if you think your machine is capable to do its job, then you shouldn't waste any time/money upgrading it.

My problem is different. I still have another s939 system (used to have two s939, replaced one with c2d e8400). It's an X2 3800+.
At 2.5G, I think the only significant upgrade would be another E8400 (not E4500 or E2200). But I just don't feel like having twin systems

 

[MarcVenice]

My x2 3800+ @ 2.6ghz still feels as snappy as any other computer I've been on. Probably also OS and ram related though. A e2180 or e4300 @ 3.0ghz is so fast, it will tackle pretty much any game out there, in fact, at 1680*1050 I'm gpu bottlenecked before I get cpu bottlenecked in most games. So yeah, there's really no need for a new cpu if you have a c2d at 3.0ghz or higher. Unless time is money, when video-editing or whatever, then a nice quadcore could come in handy.

 

[imported_Scoop]

The next upgrade I'm doing is Nehalem. Until then, dualcore will do.

 

[Miklebud]

Ditto!

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Serradifalco
I am so pleased with the performance of my e4300 oc'd to 3ghz that something revolutionary would have to hit the shelves to motivate me to upgrade.

My machine multitasks beautifully. I can run a virus scan, an ad scan, listen to music, and surf the net without missing a beat! From now on, when I upgrade my cpu, it will definitely be an oc'd base offering from Intel. The bang for buck is unreal!

Does anyone else find themselves in the same situation?

I'm in the exact same boat. An E4300 @ 3GHz with 2GB DDR2. About the only thing that taxes my E4300 is heavy video encoding. Even then I just can't bring myself to shell out $210-$240 for a quad core upgrade.
I'd run the quad core at 3GHz also. But I can't justify spending the $$$ when my cheapie E4300 is chugging along so well.

 

[Serradifalco]

Originally posted by: bigpow
Serradifalco, how would u know that if you've never had 45nm at 4GHz?

True, if you think your machine is capable to do its job, then you shouldn't waste any time/money upgrading it.

My problem is different. I still have another s939 system (used to have two s939, replaced one with c2d e8400). It's an X2 3800+.
At 2.5G, I think the only significant upgrade would be another E8400 (not E4500 or E2200). But I just don't feel like having twin systems

I'm sure I would love a 45nm @ 4ghz! When I purchased my e4300 I had low expectations about the performance. It was just a temporary cpu for my transition from AMD to Intel. Well, after oc'ing it to 3ghz I was literally blown away! This is the most pleased I have been about any computer build in years.
I don't currently need any more speed. I think currently any c2d @ 3ghz can handle just about anything you throw at it.

 

[imported_wired247]

not wanting to upgrade is a blessing... it means you did your research before buying

 

[IL2SturmovikPilot]

Heh,my E4500 2.2GHz plows through all the games i play,if anything,they could use more GPU power (RTW with thousands of troops and of course Crysis) but i don't need every game maxed out,so my el crapo HD 2600XT is still doing its job well

 

[Ika]

Two of my friends got their E8400s to 4.0ghz, and they keep bragging about it. To be honest, the improvement I would get from an 8400 isn't really enough to justify the extra money. My E6420 chugs along quite happily at 3.2ghz.

 

[j0j081]

yeah when I bought my e6750 a few months ago I felt dumb considering I knew the e8400 was just around the corner but now I could care less. This cpu is too fast for most of my needs and I haven't even really ocd it much yet.

 

[Fardor]

So if I get an E4500 @ 2.2GHz it'll pretty much not hiccup at all for basic multitasking, and won't be a bottleneck if I get a 9600GT, huh?

 

[Jiggz]

Originally posted by: Serradifalco

Originally posted by: bigpow
Serradifalco, how would u know that if you've never had 45nm at 4GHz?

True, if you think your machine is capable to do its job, then you shouldn't waste any time/money upgrading it.

My problem is different. I still have another s939 system (used to have two s939, replaced one with c2d e8400). It's an X2 3800+.
At 2.5G, I think the only significant upgrade would be another E8400 (not E4500 or E2200). But I just don't feel like having twin systems

I'm sure I would love a 45nm @ 4ghz! When I purchased my e4300 I had low expectations about the performance. It was just a temporary cpu for my transition from AMD to Intel. Well, after oc'ing it to 3ghz I was literally blown away! This is the most pleased I have been about any computer build in years.
I don't currently need any more speed. I think currently any c2d @ 3ghz can handle just about anything you throw at it.

I got the same setup with my E4300 @3.2 Ghz with 4GB of ram. After almost a year, I am still satisfied with its performance. My next upgrade would be when the quad core prices started winding down between $100 ~ $150 range.

 

[mr moab]

Similar setup here as well. 4300 OC to 3.0 and a 7600 GPU. After 14 months, I am still satisfied with this rig. I too was looking at possible upgrades this past month (8800, 9600, new CPU etc..) and came to the conclusion this meets my needs. I did upgrade to 4gb RAM and am now running Vista 64. The 4300 has really exceeded my expectations.