x2 4200 or core 2 duo e6300?

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: Furen

Originally posted by: harpoon84

Originally posted by: Furen

Originally posted by: harpoon84

Originally posted by: PingSpike
I just can't wrap my head around not overclocking the 6300...its just begging for it.

Heh, yeah, but some people just won't touch overclocking with a 10ft pole. :/

It's hard for us to understand, considering if you overclock you can match or beat an X6800 for 1/5 the price, but what the heck, each to their own.

Personally, I overclock everything just for fun and ultimately end up going back to stock or very light clocks. Reliability is a great thing, especially if you're not the only person using the systems. When working on a project late at night the last thing I want is my overclock making the whole thing crap out.

That's why you stress test the overclock to make sure it's 100% stable.

I run all my processors heavily overclocked, but I make sure it's 100% stable before I run it for 24/7 usage. I like the fact that I can beat the best processors availabe at the time at a fraction of the price.

You cannot make sure your system is 100% stable. I've had systems that are "stress-test stable" with everything suddenly crash when I launch a certain obscure application. Going back to stock or scaling back on the overclock usually solves this so this can obviously be blamed on the overclock.

Unless what you are doing is mission critical, I'd say a 99.9% stable system for 24/7 use is a good tradeoff when you gain ~50% performance as opposed to a 100% stable stock system.

Risk vs reward, and the reward far outweighs the risk.

That's my thoughts anyway, as I'm an avid overclocker, so my opinion may be a little biased.

 

[arctic388]

thanks dexvx for that link to the 945 board. that changes things. i had no idea the 945 would work. is that a good board ?

 

[River Side]

i thought the OC rule was to find the 100% stress test stable config and then back down 5% from it..

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: River Side
i thought the OC rule was to find the 100% stress test stable config and then back down 5% from it..

Something like that, as that 5% allows for variables not present during stress testing such as temperature variations and dusty HSFs (tip: give em a clean once every few months! )

 

[aldamon]

Originally posted by: dexvx
E6300s are now readily available in the US for ~$200ish (check ZZF). AM2-4200's are around $180ish. Motherboard difference is nil. The cheapest Core2 board that isnt from VIA are the 945 ones that cost around $70.

I think the flexibility of the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA outweighs being stuck with a VIA chipset. No other board gives you the option of AGP/PCI-E and DDR/DDR2 with Conroe. The ConRoeXFire-eSATA2 has an i945 chipset, but it doesn't have anywhere near the flexibility. I think the 775Dual-VSTA is a no-brainer for a stock system and it also happens to be the cheapest option available.

 

[rudder]

Originally posted by: harpoon84

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Woah Woah Woah Woah Woah!!!!
All, and I mean ALL review site benches show the E6300 faster than an X2 4200 and more often then not approaches X2 4600, 4800, and even X2 5000 performance. Once in a while, the E6300 even ties AMD's flagship FX-62.

Prove me wrong boys. No left wing extremist sites either. Reputable, known and well referred to sites will do just fine.

The X2 4200+ is very close in performance to the E6300 in most benchmarks, and if the user isn't going to be overclock then it's not worth the $$$ to get an E6300.

I do not overclock, but I am now putting together a E6300 based system. Mostly due to the fact that encoding bechmarks with Intel have always beaten AMD. I like my AMD 3500+ cpu now, but rather that put in a X2 3800+ and overclock, I went with the E6300.

And OP, the Intel 965LT board also works great with core2duo. I am running on it now with kingston value ram.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: aldamon
I think the flexibility of the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA outweighs being stuck with a VIA chipset.

That is highly debatable.

Those of us who got screwed over by VIA back in the KTxxx days won't ever buy a VIA-based solution again, and for good reason.

If you have a low budget and no other choice, I guess it will suffice. But not for me

 

[aldamon]

Originally posted by: PabsterThose of us who got screwed over by VIA back in the KTxxx days won't ever buy a VIA-based solution again, and for good reason.

That's a long time to hold a grudge. AT seems to love the VIA board since they've written three or four articles about it.

The overall performance of the ASRock 775i65G board still surprised us, even though we already knew it was just as competitive with the other chipsets from our previous testing. It proved itself once again to be extremely stable with every benchmark or application we threw at it.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2814&p=4

 

[PingSpike]

If they would just put a full blown 16x pci-e slot on that asrock (and do away with the agp for all I care) I'd just on it in a second. Don't even need to buy new ram.