Is the E4500 still one of the best deals?

[Breegle]

Hey guys,

I'm under the impression that the E4500 is one of the best deals available for CPUs but my information is old. Is this still one of the best deals as a processor that costs not a lot and can overclock to quite a lot, or are there better contenders now?

Cheers,
Breegle

 

[Jax Omen]

Pretty sure now everyone gets either an E2xxx CPU to aggressively overclock or an E8400, with no middle ground, as best value/dollar.

Or they go quad.

 

[v8envy]

Yup, that sums it up. Scrape the bottom of the barrel with an E2xxx and wait for the new budget 45nm chips, or go for utter performance. E4xxx is better than an E2xxx, but not twice the price better.

 

[imported_Scoop]

If I'd be buying now, I'd go (wait) for the E7200. You can get it for 119?, when the E4500 is 95? and the E8400 165? where I live. Well I just bought the E4500 a couple months ago so I'm not buying anything

 

[Fardor]

I got the E4500 because there was a Vista combo -$20

 

[myocardia]

That's a question only you can answer. This page compares a stock and an overclocked E2160 to a stock E6750 & E6850, while gaming.

 

[phexac]

Yeah I think it's either and E21XX or and E8400. The chips in between really do not offer enough performance advantage over the E21XX to warrant the extra cost.

 

[Breegle]

I see, well I can get an E2160 really cheap, like £35, so I think I'll do that. A couple of questions though:

1) Does the lower L2 cache effect performance significantly?
2) How far can I safely overclock with the stock cooler? If I want to overclock higher, what's the cheapest, easy-to-install fan I can use?

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Breegle
I see, well I can get an E2160 really cheap, like £35, so I think I'll do that. A couple of questions though:

1) Does the lower L2 cache effect performance significantly?
2) How far can I safely overclock with the stock cooler? If I want to overclock higher, what's the cheapest, easy-to-install fan I can use?

Stock cooler is going to limit you quite a bit.

 

[ShockwaveVT]

Originally posted by: Breegle
I see, well I can get an E2160 really cheap, like £35, so I think I'll do that. A couple of questions though:

1) Does the lower L2 cache effect performance significantly?

check the link posted above. I'll even re-link it for you.
http://www.tomshardware.com/re...-dual-core,1683-8.html

 

[ShockwaveVT]

Originally posted by: Breegle
I see, well I can get an E2160 really cheap, like £35, so I think I'll do that. A couple of questions though:

2) How far can I safely overclock with the stock cooler? If I want to overclock higher, what's the cheapest, easy-to-install fan I can use?

The stock cooler will be a limiting factor if you try to push for 3.0 GHz.

The Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 is a quiet, easy to install 92mm HSF that works well. It usually sells for less than $30 USD. Other high performing, inexpensive options include the 92mm and 120mm "HDT" designs from Xigmatek (like the 1283) and OCZ (Vendetta). These are usually $40 USD or less.

 

[o1die]

Especially at Fry's. $99.95 for a retail boxed 4500 and ecs board. I've only seen it once in austin tx. Maybe at other fry's too.

 

[vj9usa]

The stock cooler's fine unless you want to push it really hard. I'm running an E2160 M0 @3GHz (IP35-E, 2GB PC26400) on the stock cooler with a single 120mm case fan (Tricool at medium RPM) and haven't gone past 65C under orthos load. Under gaming load, it's usually in the mid-high 50s.

You could get a nice cooler and probably reach/surpass a 100% OC (3.6GHz), but I personally didn't find it logical to spend extra for a cooler when the CPU itself was so cheap (even a $20-30 cooler means you're spending about 40% more, and you won't get 40% more performance).

 

[nOOky]

I agree with the above. Per my signature, I'm running an E2160 @ 3.2 at a fsb of 356 on an Abit IP35-E with an Arctic Cooling Freezer cpu cooler. The total cost was $195 when I purchased the components. It is about 25% faster than my AMD 6400X2 which cost about $100 more for the components I used.
Thinking of going to an 8400 and replacing the AMD also.