Please help me choose a dual core CPU based on the equipment i've bought so far/am going to buy

[Phokus]

I was set on buying an E4300 and O/Cing it, but i want to make sure i'm making a good decision.


Here are the assumptions:

1) This is going to be for gaming. I don't want to buy the best of everything, but i do want good performance and good price/performance ratio
2) I'm willing to pay money for more expensive stuff, but only if i get a significant performance improvement, otherwise, i'll stick with the less expensive stuff.
3) I have a 20.1 inch nonwidescreen LCD (Dell 2001FP i think). I am going to probably upgrade to one of those enormous westinghouse 37 or 47 inch LCD's so i'll be going high resolution for gaming.

Here is what i have/what i'm planning to buy:

Memory: OCZ 2GB DDR2 PC2-6400 DUAL CHANNEL KIT

* 800MHz DDR2
* CL 5-5-5-15
* 2GB (2x1024) dual channel optimized kit
* Copper Mirrored XTC Heatspreader*
* 2.1Volts
* 240 Pin DIMM

video card: EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SUPERCLOCKED HDCP Video Card ... haven't bought this yet, but i'm going to unless someone convinces me otherwise

CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Fan For Intel CPU

Power Supply: Ultra X-Finity FF 600W

Motherboard:

Haven't decided yet, but jpeyton suggested these two mobo's (thanks jpeyton!)

EVGA 122-CK-NF66-T1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188017

GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 (rev. 1.3) LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128042




Now, i guess probably the biggest factors are the memory and video card and the fact that i'm going to overclock. I was going to buy the E4300, but i noticed the 6XXX series dual core chips as well. Is there any appreciable difference if i go the 6xxx way? I noticed that some have higher L2 cache... is that important?


Thanks guys for your help, i'm going to complete my system very soon thanks to you all

edit: All in all, my system is going to cost me roughly $632 - $650 (assuming E4300) after rebates i think... i got in on some very hot deals

 

[secretanchitman]

have you gotten the memory yet? if not, i would suggest going with this kit - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231114

psu - honestly, i would get a different brand, because ultra sucks in my opinion (their ram sticks have died on me and my current ultra xconnect 500W is dying too). its average/decent for a psu though so i wouldnt worry too much about it.

cpu cooler is fine.

why not get the regular 8800GTS 640MB? the only difference between the regular and superclocked versions is that one is overclocked and the other isnt. evga honors their lifetime warranty for overclocking and putting on 3rd party heatsinks...so stick with the regular 8800GTS 640MB and save some money.

i think you should get the gigabyte mobo instead of the evga. btw, do you need sli? thats one reason for going with the evga mobo.

cpu wise...E4xxx series are just low clocked/low fsb core 2 duos, and you can easily overclock them to E6xxx levels/speeds. personally, i would get an E6320/E6420 and overclock from there unless you want to save money.

2MB vs 4MB hardly makes a difference...anand did a review last year comparing the E6300/E6400 to the E6600/E6700 cache sizes...didnt make much difference (a couple % higher thats all).

hope that helped!

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
have you gotten the memory yet? if not, i would suggest going with this kit - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231114

psu - honestly, i would get a different brand, because ultra sucks in my opinion (their ram sticks have died on me and my current ultra xconnect 500W is dying too). its average/decent for a psu though so i wouldnt worry too much about it.

cpu cooler is fine.

why not get the regular 8800GTS 640MB? the only difference between the regular and superclocked versions is that one is overclocked and the other isnt. evga honors their lifetime warranty for overclocking and putting on 3rd party heatsinks...so stick with the regular 8800GTS 640MB and save some money.

i think you should get the gigabyte mobo instead of the evga. btw, do you need sli? thats one reason for going with the evga mobo.

cpu wise...E4xxx series are just low clocked/low fsb core 2 duos, and you can easily overclock them to E6xxx levels/speeds. personally, i would get an E6320/E6420 and overclock from there unless you want to save money.

2MB vs 4MB hardly makes a difference...anand did a review last year comparing the E6300/E6400 to the E6600/E6700 cache sizes...didnt make much difference (a couple % higher thats all).

hope that helped!

Thanks for the review... actually i bought the memory already and i'm happy with my decision because after rebates, it's only going to cost me $60

I didn't know about evga honoring the warranty on overclocked cards, i'll have to check that out!

edit: I probably won't go SLI (although i might want to have that option in the future if they get the bugs out)

More opinions are appreciated!

 

[Phokus]

bump!