Which CPU offers the most bang for the buck ?

[JPB]

So, I finally decided on the Intel E8400. After all the votes and talk about this CPU...how can you really go against intelligent advice

Anyway, I must admit I am a AMD fan. But just cannot go with them this time as I need more performance than they can offer. So here's looking at you Intel. :beer:

Now.....On to the motherboard.


Thanks for the move Marc

This is a thread ment for the CPU forum. Besides that, it also depends on what you are going to do with your new rig, and what your budget is for all the parts.


MarcVenice -- General Hardware Moderator

 

[harpoon84]

I assume the PC is for gaming?

In such a case, the E6750 gets my vote. The E8400 is faster, but its price is seriously inflated. Its meant to be the same price as the E6750 but costs some $50 more at most stores.

 

[JPB]

Yes the PC will be used primarily for gaming. So I am hoping the CPU will not be a bottleneck for up to two years for future games.

On the other hand, after looking around. It seems the E8400 may be a little hard to find.

 

[Winterpool]

I think it all comes down to Wolfdale availability. You'll find no shortage of threads on this or other geek forums bemoaning Wolfdale scarcity, whether related to production issues or Intel's market manoeuvres (ie sell Conroe stock first). Of course, it would be somewhat less painful if Intel were actually dropping Conroe prices to clear them out, but E6750s are typically going for $190, same as the E8400 when first introduced. Knowing that E8400 prices should sometime soon drop to nearly the same level, it's very difficult to justify buying the Conroe.

Given that you are trying to stretch out your purchases over two months, I'd say wait and try to make your cpu purchase one of your last. It's an easy decision when you know that current cpu prices are inflated, and the 45nm generation is slowly trickling in.

Of course I suffered difficulty waiting for affordable Wolfdales myself (have all other components now) and took a risk buying the Xeon E3110 for $205 (including postage) from a questionable retailer. Do let's hope the retailer proves worthy...

 

[Idontcare]

It would also be relevant if you stated whether overclocking was on the table and whether things like power consumption (electricity bill) mattered.

Buying a chip because it is $30 cheaper but uses $5/month more electricity isn't all that super of a deal after a year or two.

At the screen resolution you mentioned...are you really going to be CPU limited? Would think that spending more on GPU upgrades would deliver better bang for the buck than CPU...but I am not a heavy gamer so ignore me if you know this to be wrong.

 

[JPB]

*Originally* in my OP.....I had stated that I will not be overclocking. Where that went to is beyond me. And the electricity don't matter.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: JPB
*Originally* in my OP.....I had stated that I will not be overclocking. Where that went to is beyond me. And the electricity don't matter.

None of the Above.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ 2.8GHz Brisbane 65W for $85 with promo code EMCADCAAH

or

Intel Pentium E2200 Allendale 2.2GHz LGA 775 65W for $80 with promo code EMCADCAAD

codes are valid till 03/26/2008.

 

[v8envy]

Clubit has $67 retail E2160s (a hair better chance for a higher OC than a 2180 or 2200, 2160s seem to have lower VIDs on average), and a $89 DS3L. Or the usual IP35-E for $59 shipped from the egg combined with the above mentioned E2200.

You absolutely positively no buts about it can NOT beat the E2XXX series bang/buck if you're willing to overclock. $199-$210 Q6600s are also a great value if you need that many cores, with or without overclocking.

I like the one vote for the 9600 Agena. Considering the lowest cost one I've seen is now more expensive than a Q6600 from several vendors (by up to 10%) I'm wondering what criteria that voter is using for bang/buck.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: v8envy
Clubit has $67 retail E2160s (a hair better chance for a higher OC than a 2180 or 2200, 2160s seem to have lower VIDs on average), and a $89 DS3L. Or the usual IP35-E for $59 shipped from the egg combined with the above mentioned E2200.

You absolutely positively no buts about it can NOT beat the E2XXX series bang/buck if you're willing to overclock. $199-$210 Q6600s are also a great value if you need that many cores, with or without overclocking.

I like the one vote for the 9600 Agena. Considering the lowest cost one I've seen is now more expensive than a Q6600 from several vendors (by up to 10%) I'm wondering what criteria that voter is using for bang/buck.

11x multi on the e2200 :thumbsup: less fsb speed fer yer GHz (doesn't matter since OC is not part of the equation)


I think the point in all this - - - the $$ saved can go to a much, much nicer gpu that will have a greater impact ...

 

[tallman45]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
It would also be relevant if you stated whether overclocking was on the table and whether things like power consumption (electricity bill) mattered.

Buying a chip because it is $30 cheaper but uses $5/month more electricity isn't all that super of a deal after a year or two.

At the screen resolution you mentioned...are you really going to be CPU limited? Would think that spending more on GPU upgrades would deliver better bang for the buck than CPU...but I am not a heavy gamer so ignore me if you know this to be wrong.

What CPU uses $5 extra per month and costs $30 less to get to begin with ?

There are many other factors I am sure

 

[hnzw rui]

Fry's had the E8400+Gigabyte P35-DS3L combo for $310. That would have solved your cpu/mobo dilemma but the deal expired yesterday.

As mentioned by others, if you're willing to wait it out, I would suggest getting the E8400 last, or whenever you could get them for a reasonable price (~$220 for me).

If you're willing to OC (aftermarket cooler recommended), then any CPU from the E2000 series would be a great value.

 

[v8envy]

What CPU uses $5 extra per month and costs $30 less to get to begin with ?

AMD 6400x2 compared to the 6750 in the OP. 125 watt cpu vs a 65 watt CPU. $5/month extra is probably a stretch unless you live in the EU and are paying 40c/kwh, but the point still remains. For people who run their boxes at 100% day in and day out power usage should be part of the bang/buck equation.

Oh, and 11x multi on the 2200 -- the 10x on the 2180 is already too much. Running PC5300 budget ram (333 mhz) at 1:1 and a 10x multiplier is a 3.33 ghz overclock already -- not likely to happen. You'll be underclocking your ram something fierce or running your ram with a weird multiplier at a strange speed with an 11x multiplier and a 3 ghz OC, so most likely you'll use a 9x or 10x anyway.

9x 333 = sweet spot for the E2xxxx stock part overclocks. Of course since the OP is allergic to OCing it's not an issue. The stock 2.2 ghz from the E2200 is awesomesauce in that case.

 

[DSF]

How far apart are you spreading these purchases when you say you're buying piecemeal? I wouldn't buy a processor right now if you're expecting to build a couple months down the road. Buying a PSU or Case if you spot a hot deal would make a little bit more sense.

 

[JPB]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: JPB
*Originally* in my OP.....I had stated that I will not be overclocking. Where that went to is beyond me. And the electricity don't matter.

None of the Above.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ 2.8GHz Brisbane 65W for $85 with promo code EMCADCAAH

or

Intel Pentium E2200 Allendale 2.2GHz LGA 775 65W for $80 with promo code EMCADCAAD

codes are valid till 03/26/2008.

Nice idea. Didn't even remember the Brisbanes. I must mention, I will be running a 3870 as well, And may even go with two of them for Crossfire.
What out of these Intel CPU's talked about here wouldn't be a bottleneck for 3870 Crossfire ?

Originally posted bySF
How far apart are you spreading these purchases when you say you're buying piecemeal? I wouldn't buy a processor right now if you're expecting to build a couple months down the road. Buying a PSU or Case if you spot a hot deal would make a little bit more sense.

It will be about two months before I have all the pieces to assemble. So yea, two months to build this.

The case and PSU is already decided on. The PSU is the PC Power @ Cooling 750 and the Case is the Antec P182

And I suppose if I had to, overclocking would not be a big deal. I will be running 4-gig of DDR2800

 

[v8envy]

The Q6600 at 3ghz + or E8400 at 4+ ghz is your goal, then.

Forget about anything smaller if your target is stating you're not CPU limited for a multi-gpu solution in every game title.

Practically speaking, even a 6400x2 is still enough for most of today's games. That's fairly equivalent to an E2xxx at 2.6 ghz or E4XXX/E6XXX at 2.4 ghz. And I can tell you that a 2.66 ghz E21800 with a 10% OCd 8800GT 512 runs everything I want to run at 1600x1200 at frame rates I enjoy. Only Crysis at 30" monitor resolutions is out of reach -- but then, that'd still be out of reach with the fastest CPU on the planet and only two 3870s.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: tallman45

Originally posted by: Idontcare
It would also be relevant if you stated whether overclocking was on the table and whether things like power consumption (electricity bill) mattered.

Buying a chip because it is $30 cheaper but uses $5/month more electricity isn't all that super of a deal after a year or two.

At the screen resolution you mentioned...are you really going to be CPU limited? Would think that spending more on GPU upgrades would deliver better bang for the buck than CPU...but I am not a heavy gamer so ignore me if you know this to be wrong.

What CPU uses $5 extra per month and costs $30 less to get to begin with ?

There are many other factors I am sure

The quad comparison to my knowledge and experience. A Q6600 at stock versus a 9600. Save yourself $30 with the 9600 but pay $5 more per month in the power bill.

 

[TheJian]

Originally posted by: JPB
Yes the PC will be used primarily for gaming. So I am hoping the CPU will not be a bottleneck for up to two years for future games.

On the other hand, after looking around. It seems the E8400 may be a little hard to find.

www.excaliberpc.com
$229. It has more cache, wins all benches against e6750 and comes with SSE4.1. This will be pretty big later I think. They've shown benchmarks with sse4.1 getting huge gains. though software has to catch up of course for this to be realized. NO different than software finally making quads useful in the future. Hope they will in both cases, maybe not though.
$239 allstarshop.com.

E3110 is a E8400 just better binned. Worst chip you'll get on E3110 is 1.225v. Worst you could get on E8400 is 1.36v. Lower volts=lower heat. It appears the voters agree @ 80%

98 still in stock at excaliberpc. They shipped mine same day I bought.

Good luck.:beer:

 

[TheJian]

Originally posted by: Winterpool
I think it all comes down to Wolfdale availability. You'll find no shortage of threads on this or other geek forums bemoaning Wolfdale scarcity, whether related to production issues or Intel's market manoeuvres (ie sell Conroe stock first). Of course, it would be somewhat less painful if Intel were actually dropping Conroe prices to clear them out, but E6750s are typically going for $190, same as the E8400 when first introduced. Knowing that E8400 prices should sometime soon drop to nearly the same level, it's very difficult to justify buying the Conroe.

Given that you are trying to stretch out your purchases over two months, I'd say wait and try to make your cpu purchase one of your last. It's an easy decision when you know that current cpu prices are inflated, and the 45nm generation is slowly trickling in.

Of course I suffered difficulty waiting for affordable Wolfdales myself (have all other components now) and took a risk buying the Xeon E3110 for $205 (including postage) from a questionable retailer. Do let's hope the retailer proves worthy...

The use the same warehouses that excaliberpc.com does. Show the same in stock. You should be fine since its boxed. A 3yr warranty from a box is the same no matter who it comes from. I also go one from them (excaliber and ewiz...but they show out now).

 

[TheJian]

Originally posted by: JPB

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: JPB
*Originally* in my OP.....I had stated that I will not be overclocking. Where that went to is beyond me. And the electricity don't matter.

None of the Above.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ 2.8GHz Brisbane 65W for $85 with promo code EMCADCAAH

or

Intel Pentium E2200 Allendale 2.2GHz LGA 775 65W for $80 with promo code EMCADCAAD

codes are valid till 03/26/2008.

Nice idea. Didn't even remember the Brisbanes. I must mention, I will be running a 3870 as well, And may even go with two of them for Crossfire.
What out of these Intel CPU's talked about here wouldn't be a bottleneck for 3870 Crossfire ?

Originally posted bySF
How far apart are you spreading these purchases when you say you're buying piecemeal? I wouldn't buy a processor right now if you're expecting to build a couple months down the road. Buying a PSU or Case if you spot a hot deal would make a little bit more sense.

It will be about two months before I have all the pieces to assemble. So yea, two months to build this.

The case and PSU is already decided on. The PSU is the PC Power @ Cooling 750 and the Case is the Antec P182

And I suppose if I had to, overclocking would not be a big deal. I will be running 4-gig of DDR2800

Don't buy unless you have a way to test each part before 30days. IF you go past that and find you have a bad part you have to get a REFURB for a part that you haven't even used yet. THAT SUCKS!

 

[DSF]

What exactly is your reasoning in buying piecemeal like this, and especially why start with the CPU?

 

[hnzw rui]

I'm curious which benchmarks using SSE4 you're referring to. An article I read featured *huge* gains for DivX encoding, but subsequently learned that a very unoptimized/brute-force code was used just to put SSE4 in a very positive light. From x264 developers' comments, actual benefit of using SSE4 would seem to be very minimal.

 

[JPB]

Originally posted by: DSF
What exactly is your reasoning in buying piecemeal like this, and especially why start with the CPU?

Because I have a wife and kids. And of course bills. lol. I just don't prefer to use a large chunk of income all at once.

And I guess the main reason I am wanting to choose the CPU first is so I cannot change my mind later on before I get the other parts. As I am very accustomed to doing.

 

[hnzw rui]

Seriously, not a good idea to buy piecemeal unless you have a build you can chuck the parts in to test if they're working or not. Why not sock away the money a little at a time and buy all at the same time?

 

[v8envy]

If you're not upgrading then the better way to fly is to start a savings account, squirreling away the funds you would have spent until you can buy the whole thing at once. Otherwise you risk DOA parts which are outside the 30 day return window.

As far as your earlier question: which Intel CPUs will guarantee no CPU bottleneck in every situation? There are no such. Which Intel core2 CPUs will outperform the highest overclock you could realistically hope for on any x2? All of them, although the $50 Celerons might be a close race if you get a 3.5 ghz OC out of the x2.

 

[JPB]

Well you see, the thing is, I only need these parts....

CPU-------------E8400
Motherboard
Memory
Video Card-----3870 X 2
Power Supply--PC Power @ Cooling 750 Silencer

So instead of like two months like I said....since ill be buying a part each week, more along the lines of 5 weeks. But in any case....I do have access to test the parts in if need be.

I need the case as well, but don't need it to test the other things as I could use mine now for that. The case will be last actually.

If I knew my current power supply would be enough, I wouldn't need a new one. It's a OCZ Modstream 450

I am still on a single core Athlon 64 3500+ :Q