Is Intel e4300 at $105 US a good deal compared to other options ?

[brjoon1021]

Hello,

I am just trying to get a good deal on a CPU for light use, probably no gaming at all. I will be running Win XP and probably Vista, eventually. My application use is Office stuff, surfing, video editing and picture editing (Adobe). I recall reading that this CPU is an awesome overclocker and can run around 2.5GHz or so with ease. That would seem to make it a pretty good deal.

Any thoughts on better buys for not too much more money ? I am not familiar with the different Intel cores and what has REALLY been inproved as far as performance is concerned. I want to buy a processor in the next day as my old system died.

I posted before asking about the best bang for the buck Intel CPU for $200 or less US. I got a fair amount of responses but not what I was asking for, so here it is again.

Thanks,

B

 

[10acjed]

2.5 is a bit of an understatement. I have ran my E4300 at 3240MHz (3.24GHz) for over a year. thats with good cooling, voltage increase etc....
you can probly be at 3.0 (334x9) easy on stock volts and cooling on the right motherboard, the GA-P965 S3 or DS3 are great boards for this.

Otherwise I have seen good posts about the E2xxx series being somewhat great OCers, you may wana do a google with diff cpu's + overclocking ie: "E4300 Overclocking" you will get good results, and get a base of what mobo gets the best results from each cpu, as that is important.
My 965P-NEO-F is a poor overclocker on the 800FSB chips, but is good with 1066FSB chips so be sure you investigate your choices.

Personally when building new pc's I allways will leve room for upgrade, I bought a Q6600 last night and just slapped it into the system I had, so my next upgrade (after 22" monitor) will be to a 1066/1333 FSB motherboard.

**ps found this too**
anandtch forums

 

[Denithor]

A couple of questions here. What system do you have now, are you planning to just drop in a new processor or do you also have to replace the motherboard/ram/etc?

If you have a late-model Pentium-D system that supports C2D and a working hsf you could just get the OEM e2160 from tigerdirect for $50 after MIR, drop it in, reuse your hsf and away you go.

If you need more of an update, I would suggest the abit IP35-E (around $65 after MIR at newegg) along with either an e2160 or e2180 (retail for hsf) for $65-75 and 2GB Corsair DDR2-800 ($28 after MIR at newegg). This setup should easily hit 3GHz for a cost of <$175 after MIR and will offer the best "bang for the buck" you can build right now.

If you do A LOT of video and/or photo editing you might be better served with 4GB ram and possibly consider going to the e6750 ($190-ish). Should OC to >3GHz easily and the extra cache will help for cpu-intensive applications.

EDIT: A note on motherboards, if you have to replace yours I would not recommend the P965 chipset boards, they simply don't overclock on the same level as the P35 boards. Personal experience. My e6400 ran 2.66GHz on a Gigabyte P965-DS3 with a slight voltage bump. The same chip runs 3GHz on my IP35-E with stock voltage. End of conversation.

 

[10acjed]

Originally posted by: Denithor


EDIT: A note on motherboards, if you have to replace yours I would not recommend the P965 chipset boards, they simply don't overclock on the same level as the P35 boards. Personal experience. My e6400 ran 2.66GHz on a Gigabyte P965-DS3 with a slight voltage bump. The same chip runs 3GHz on my IP35-E with stock voltage. End of conversation.

I wouldnt discount the entire series of P965 boards on that.

Many of us have had great results.

I do agree that the P35 is a better more up to date board.

I would still look to see what results with cpu/motherboard combos look most rewarding.

check this 1GHz or more Club at OC.net
5 of the best OC's listed with the P965, 2 reported with the E6300 @ 3.7

 

[brjoon1021]

I am going to buy (just bought) one of the Asrock boards that allows for upgrading because it has AGP, PCI-e, DDR, DDR2. My RAM is DDR400, so I can only have a FSB of 800, right ? I have never had an Intel rig since the Pentium Pro days, sorry for the dumb FSB question, but I have to ask...

B

 

[bfdd]

In my opinion you're better off with a 21x0 series they're cheaper and have as much or move over clocking head room. My E2140 runs stock volts at 333x8 and barely noticed a heat increase with the stock cooler.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Denithor
A couple of questions here. What system do you have now, are you planning to just drop in a new processor or do you also have to replace the motherboard/ram/etc?

If you have a late-model Pentium-D system that supports C2D and a working hsf you could just get the OEM e2160 from tigerdirect for $50 after MIR, drop it in, reuse your hsf and away you go.

If you need more of an update, I would suggest the abit IP35-E (around $65 after MIR at newegg) along with either an e2160 or e2180 (retail for hsf) for $65-75 and 2GB Corsair DDR2-800 ($28 after MIR at newegg). This setup should easily hit 3GHz for a cost of <$175 after MIR and will offer the best "bang for the buck" you can build right now.

If you do A LOT of video and/or photo editing you might be better served with 4GB ram and possibly consider going to the e6750 ($190-ish). Should OC to >3GHz easily and the extra cache will help for cpu-intensive applications.

EDIT: A note on motherboards, if you have to replace yours I would not recommend the P965 chipset boards, they simply don't overclock on the same level as the P35 boards. Personal experience. My e6400 ran 2.66GHz on a Gigabyte P965-DS3 with a slight voltage bump. The same chip runs 3GHz on my IP35-E with stock voltage. End of conversation.

I wouldn't blame the board for that. I have had a E6300@3.5, and a Q6600 @ 3.2 on my DS3.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: brjoon1021
I am going to buy (just bought) one of the Asrock boards that allows for upgrading because it has AGP, PCI-e, DDR, DDR2. My RAM is DDR400, so I can only have a FSB of 800, right ? I have never had an Intel rig since the Pentium Pro days, sorry for the dumb FSB question, but I have to ask...

B

That board will NOT OC very good at all, just so you know.....Your FSB may not even be 800, it may be as low as 266, and dividers to the rest. I will let someone who has that board chime in...

 

[BlueAcolyte]

800FSB means that the CPU is running at 200MHz then multiplied. So I think you could run up to 400FSB (1600) if the board could actually handle it.

 

[fritzfield]

Originally posted by: Markfw900

Originally posted by: brjoon1021
I am going to buy (just bought) one of the Asrock boards that allows for upgrading because it has AGP, PCI-e, DDR, DDR2. My RAM is DDR400, so I can only have a FSB of 800, right ? I have never had an Intel rig since the Pentium Pro days, sorry for the dumb FSB question, but I have to ask...

B

That board will NOT OC very good at all, just so you know.....Your FSB may not even be 800, it may be as low as 266, and dividers to the rest. I will let someone who has that board chime in...

I have (had, as I'm moving on to a P35 set-up) the afore-mentioned Asrock board. It is a good interim upgrade if you want to go to an older generation C2D chip and 64bit OS. It allows you to keep your DDR RAM and AGP card, as well as functionality of legacy parallel port printers and PS/2 input devices. It also has 2 IDE channels as well as SATAII.

However, you can't get more than 3GB memory recognized by the latest BIOS and you can't really OC very well any of the C2D chips, although the BSEL mod seems to help some e2xxx and e4xxx chips. Unfortunately, the Quad Core chips can't even run at stock FSB, and 1333 isn't supported, so the newer chips seem to be a no-go. There are very limited, rudimentary, voltage settings.

But for US$60, it's a nice "interim" upgrade. It allowed me to move on to DDR2 when prices dropped and to upgrade to PCIe when the new ATI cards came out. So over time you can transition to P35, X38, X48 when ready or when you have $.

 

[brjoon1021]

I just bought an Intel e2160 and the Asrock board. I have two pairs of DDR RAM. One is a very pedestrian set of 2x1GB Centron and the other pair is 2x512MB of OCZ platinum EL-DDR433.

Which RAM would you use and what FSB and multiplier settings would I be likely to get without modding anything ? I wish I could do that BSEL mod to the CPU but that would require DDR that is higher than mine, right ? That would require something like an FSB of 512 Mhz or so, which would be in the DDR2 realm, I think. My OCZ will run at 433, but I have not tried to get it much faster.

Anyway, how would you set up this rig ? If it works out well enough, I might buy the very same setup again. I have lots of RAM, 6 decent sized ATA133 drives, an ATI all in wonder 9700 pro and an ATI 9800 Pro. - I don't really game at all on the PC, I have a Playstation 3- so my needs aren't as intense as some of yours are. One box will be Linux and the other will have XP, perhaps Vista.

 

[fritzfield]

You can only use 2 sticks of either DDR or DDRII, you can't use 3 or 4 slots, only 2. So you are limited to 1GB total RAM. The 2 x 512MB will allow you to run Dual Channel.

I don't OC, so I don't even attempt to try BSEL, but there is a thread in the motherboard forum on the Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 that has 1153 posts. Try that out as a lot of info is there on trying to OC this board. However, you will see that as Shakespeare wrote "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear".

 

[hooflung]

I have a Gigabyte P965 DS 3 and an e4300. Ran it for months at 2.7ghz on stock volts w. 4g DDR2. I now run it at 2.97ghz ( 333fsb ) at 1.45v no problem. All on stock HS/Fan.

 

[Roy2001]

Since you won't play games, a E2xx0 would be suffice for you. I would not recommend a 965p MB too as P35 MB price is so low. Get a Abit IP35-E for $66.

 

[blanketyblank]

I'd probably go with an e2160-e2200 if you can pick one up for less. I found an e2180 for $57 after rebate and shipping, and can be overclocked quite well. Extra cache helps, but probably not that much.
Otherwise if you want to go faster you are probably better off waiting a little bit and picking up an e8200 for about 150 assuming there is supply.