X2 or cheapest C2D? very mild OC if any

[Fardor]

Would you recommend building a budget gaming system with an X2 right now?

I know they probably aren't even considered "fast" at this time, but they should be sufficient for games and stuff, no?
What I'm wondering is how long until they seriously become outdated?

Also, which Mobo to get for best value (with future-proofness in mind but not a necessity).

THANKS

was thinking of 5000+ for $100.

 

[Mondoman]

The graphics card is really the key component for gaming. As for the MB, those based on the P35 chipset and officially supporting the 1333MHz FSB are probably the most future-proof budget boards out there now, as you'll be able to plug in the upcoming 45nm quad-core CPUs or fast 45nm dual-core CPUs. There are many good P35 choices in the $100-150 price range.
You can certainly get an AM2 board, but there doesn't seem to be anything more promising than the Intel CPUs coming down the pike in the next year or so.

 

[Killrose]

At this point I would go with something Intel based. Get a good used E4300 and OC it or something along those lines. If you can get into a cheap overclockable chip and maybe get a better MB that will support 45nm processors down the road.

 

[imported_wired247]

I honestly feel that, from about January 2008 onward, Intel will be the performance brand and AMD will be the value brand. Intel has literally blown AMD out of the water with the latest 45nm process technology, which is NOT AT ALL a trivial improvement over the 65nm process.

Intel is the way to go right now... if you are thinking about high performance at all, hands down

But if you're not really interested in the 45nm technology, I don't see a huge difference if you prefer AMD over Intel for the 65nm-90nm processors

 

[Tempered81]

for 59 you can get an e2140, do a simple overclock, and be faster than anything amd makes.

 

[bryanW1995]

yeah, get a p35 ds3L for around $100 and the e2140 for $59, then oc that mother to 3.0 or so with stock cooling. go to computer lab on campus and talk shit. later on you can sell aforementioned e2140 and dump in a quad as an inexpensive upgrade.

 

[drebo]

I think it's funny how none of these people who advocate buying the Pentium Dual Core E2000 series processors actually have one. Yes, it's a cheap processor. Yes, it can overclock to (relatively) high clock speeds.

However, there's one huge, glaring flaw in that reasoning. It's cache size is absolutely crippled. By far the most important performance enhancement of the Core architecture is its intelligent prefetcher. Gimping the cache size severely gimps the prefetcher.

Why do you think a stock clocked E8400 out performs an E6750 overclocked to 3ghz? The architecture is identical. The die shrink accomplishes one thing and one thing only: lower power requirements. The only other difference between the two is cache size. That's it.

The Core architecture's performance is directly proportional to the size of its cache. An overclocked E2140 is not going to perform like an E8400, or even a stock clocked E6550. They're cheap for a reason.

You can't create something from nothing. If you want a fast computer, you need to start with fast components. Now, if you're only doing word processing, then an E2140's probably fine. Anything else, though, and it doesn't matter how fast you clock it...cache misses are far, far more costly on an Intel architecture, and the difference in performance IS noticable.

 

[PliotronX]

Drebo, the E2 series offers roughly the same IPC as the X2 (more than the Brisbane possibly). The hype around them is that at above 3GHz, they will perform between the E6750 and E6850 which are ~$190 and ~$275 respectively and they will hit those speeds even with the crappy little aluminum stock cooler. At those speeds they are perfectly adequate for any gaming situation.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: drebo


Why do you think a stock clocked E8400 out performs an E6750 overclocked to 3ghz? The architecture is identical. The die shrink accomplishes one thing and one thing only: lower power requirements. The only other difference between the two is cache size. That's it.

wouldn't they have the same amount of transistors on die, if this were the case?

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: jaredpace

Originally posted by: drebo


Why do you think a stock clocked E8400 out performs an E6750 overclocked to 3ghz? The architecture is identical. The die shrink accomplishes one thing and one thing only: lower power requirements. The only other difference between the two is cache size. That's it.

wouldn't they have the same amount of transistors on die, if this were the case?

The largest number of transistors belong to the cache...

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: drebo
I think it's funny how none of these people who advocate buying the Pentium Dual Core E2000 series processors actually have one. Yes, it's a cheap processor. Yes, it can overclock to (relatively) high clock speeds.

However, there's one huge, glaring flaw in that reasoning. It's cache size is absolutely crippled. By far the most important performance enhancement of the Core architecture is its intelligent prefetcher. Gimping the cache size severely gimps the prefetcher.

Why do you think a stock clocked E8400 out performs an E6750 overclocked to 3ghz? The architecture is identical. The die shrink accomplishes one thing and one thing only: lower power requirements. The only other difference between the two is cache size. That's it.

The Core architecture's performance is directly proportional to the size of its cache. An overclocked E2140 is not going to perform like an E8400, or even a stock clocked E6550. They're cheap for a reason.

You can't create something from nothing. If you want a fast computer, you need to start with fast components. Now, if you're only doing word processing, then an E2140's probably fine. Anything else, though, and it doesn't matter how fast you clock it...cache misses are far, far more costly on an Intel architecture, and the difference in performance IS noticable.

Cache is important for certain applications, but it's not a deal breaker. The biggest performance hits generally occur in gaming, but gaming is more GPU limited anyway (with certain exceptions). An E2140 @ 3GHz should be more then capable of powering a reasonably fast GPU like a HD3870 or 8800GT without bottlenecking, which is what matters.

For the price, the E21x0 series is a good choice for overclockers. Sure, you won't quite get the performance of higher end C2Ds, but you can still get quite close, at a fraction of the cost.

Before laying waste on the E21x0 series, it might be worth checking out how it actually performs overclocked, it's not nearly as bad as you would suggest.

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/c...um-e2160_14.html#sect0

An 2160 @ 3.4GHz beats a stock X6800 @ 2.93GHz in the vast majority of benchmarks.

 

[toadeater]

Originally posted by: drebo
Why do you think a stock clocked E8400 out performs an E6750 overclocked to 3ghz? The architecture is identical. The die shrink accomplishes one thing and one thing only: lower power requirements. The only other difference between the two is cache size. That's it.

The architecture isn't identical.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...el/showdoc.aspx?i=3069

You are also wrong that the E2 overclocked to 3GHz can't beat a 2.33GHz e6550. At 3.4GHz it comes close to a 2.93GHz x6800. So let's say it takes about an extra 400MHz for an E2 to match an E6. Similarly, it takes about 200MHz for an E4 to match an E6.

This isn't linear, except at over 3GHz. Cache plays a more important role at lower speeds, so the E2 needs to be at least at 3GHz to minimize the cache deficiency. That's not really a problem since most of them will OC at least that fast.

http://xtreview.com/review204.htm
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl.../pentium-e2160_14.html

 

[Zap]

Back to what the OP asked... "very mild OC if any." For $100 or less with little to no OC, the AMD chips are still competitive. Once you hit the price of the E4x00 series, then it's all over.

Fardor, you have a Fry's Electronics near you? They've been having deals such as an E4500 with motherboard for $120, or an x2 5200+ with motherboard for around $110. Unoverclocked they're around the same performance (5000+ is 400MHz more than E4500 and has the max cache of any x2). While the E4500 may be better once overclocked, the included motherboard of the x2 is IMO better. Thus, if you're wanting really cheap then that's the way to go.

 

[Borealis7]

my answer would be this:

depends on when you are going to do your next upgrade. for start i would say that NOTHING today is future proof. Nehalem (late 2008-early 2009) is gonig to require a different socket so a P35 mobo is good for 1.5-2 years in terms of staying updated with CPUs.

ONLY buy AMD if youre going to stick with AMD CPUs otherwise, buy a P35 now and a cheapo E2XX0 and later upgrade to an E8XXX or Q9XXX when they become cheaper.

in any case, invest in a good vid card rather than buying an expensive CPU.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
for 59 you can get an e2140, do a simple overclock, and be faster than anything amd makes.

FTW.

You can go even cheaper & get the Celeron E1200 if so needed

 

[sutahz]

To not overclock a E2xxx is a sin. Right now I'm running my 2160 with a 41% overclock. I don't want to spend a day or 2 just overclocking so I bump the FSB up 10MHz each day and as long as I dont get any Reboots/crashes/freezes then it's good enough for me. Quite a few people have said they use the small OEM HSF to OC with and still get a 100% overclock, so you dont necessarily even need to buy an aftermarket HSF.
I 'built' 2 computers in newegg's basket, as budget as I could go for dual core. Intel still had the lower price. Without government or private help (or leeching all the money from the ATi side) AMD is dead, and there is no upgrade path for a dead company.

 

[Uhtrinity]

Originally posted by: drebo
I think it's funny how none of these people who advocate buying the Pentium Dual Core E2000 series processors actually have one. Yes, it's a cheap processor. Yes, it can overclock to (relatively) high clock speeds.

However, there's one huge, glaring flaw in that reasoning. It's cache size is absolutely crippled. By far the most important performance enhancement of the Core architecture is its intelligent prefetcher. Gimping the cache size severely gimps the prefetcher.

Why do you think a stock clocked E8400 out performs an E6750 overclocked to 3ghz? The architecture is identical. The die shrink accomplishes one thing and one thing only: lower power requirements. The only other difference between the two is cache size. That's it.

The Core architecture's performance is directly proportional to the size of its cache. An overclocked E2140 is not going to perform like an E8400, or even a stock clocked E6550. They're cheap for a reason.

You can't create something from nothing. If you want a fast computer, you need to start with fast components. Now, if you're only doing word processing, then an E2140's probably fine. Anything else, though, and it doesn't matter how fast you clock it...cache misses are far, far more costly on an Intel architecture, and the difference in performance IS noticable.

On that note get a E2000 series, they are dirt cheap and overclock like crazy. See sig

 

[v8envy]

1. I own a 2180 + DS3L, and at 3ghz I use it in preference to an X3210 @ 2.8ghz. I advocate getting an E2XXX series CPU for anyone on a budget.

2. A 3 ghz E2XXX series overclock * IS * a mild overclock! They are marketing downclocked from the factory. There is absolutely no reason not to boot it up at 266 mhz FSB out of the box, and see where it goes from there. At 1.2 vcore in bios mine is rock stable at 3 ghz. It was stable at 3.33ghz at stock volts. I consider any overclock that's stock voltage + stock cooler and 3 cookie cutter BIOS entry changes (lock PCIe bus at 100mhz, mem multiplier to 2.0, fsb frequency to 333) to be a mild overclock.

3. Lack of cache looks bad on paper, but try using one of these bad boys once cranked up. Outside of a synthetic benchmark you can't tell this is a $60 CPU. And even ON a synthetic benchmark it's 50% faster than the fastest AMD CPUs. Which, btw, have the exact same lack of cache for the 65nm Brisbanes, And even the 125 watt Windsors don't come close.

Just because some CPUs have a hard time getting a 200 mhz overclock with aftermarket cooling and a voltage bump doesn't mean a 1 ghz overclock with a stock cooler and voltage on a different CPU is somehow more extreme.

In conclusion, an under $100 non-overclocked platform budget (mboard, cpu, memory) AMD is competitive with the cheapest possible Intel build. If your machine budget is closer to $200 for cpu/mboard/memory and you don't mind pressing the 'del' key on bootup, Intel wins the bang for the buck hands down.

 

[hennethannun]

As has been said above, AMD is currently only competitive if the following conditions are met:
1) Your budget for a processor is about $100 or less (maybe as high as $125)
2) You do not intend to overclock
OR
3) You already have an AM2 motherboard that you like and don't want to replace

If that describes your current situation, then consider both AMD and Intel and go with whichever system gives you a better mix of cost and features. If you only care about gaming then most $100 processors will be sufficient as long as you have a decent GPU and don't want to game on a 24 inch monitor at 1920*1200.

If you want to overclock at all then you should probably go with Intel. their processors have way more overclocking headroom and generally produce less head and use less power.

As for the E21x0 C2Ds, sure the 1MB cache cripples them, but it's not like they perform like crap at 3.0+ ghz. They obviously don't compete with the top of the line C2Ds BUT THEY AREN'T MEANT TO! they are budget chips and the fact that you can OC a budget chip close to 100% with stock cooling and come close to the performance of $1000 processors is pretty impressive. they certainly aren't for everyone, and if you don't want to overclock then AMD is probably a better option, but they are definitely not BAD products given their current pricing and competition.

 

[alkemyst]

If you are going to buy a motherboard also, go C2D.

I went with a Opteron 165 from my San Diego 4000+ as it was just a chip change.

 

[lopri]

nevermind

 

[jjmIII]

How can you pass up this killer deal???
Hurry, rebate expires after tomorrow!

Get a cheap OEM CPU and use an aftermarket cooler. Set the bus to 300 (x10) and you'll have an easy 3Ghz setup.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Fardor
Would you recommend building a budget gaming system with an X2 right now?

I know they probably aren't even considered "fast" at this time, but they should be sufficient for games and stuff, no?
What I'm wondering is how long until they seriously become outdated?

Also, which Mobo to get for best value (with future-proofness in mind but not a necessity).

THANKS

was thinking of 5000+ for $100.

MSI K9A2 CF-F AM2+ 790X $100

X2 5400+ 2.8GHz 65W $100

Pretty snappy

Looks like you missed out on the 2900pro's ...

 

[Build it Myself]

I can't totally agree with you because regardless of my cache, my 2180 is playing everything out on the market right now without a flaw...cache is important but for what he's planning on doing with it (budget rig) I can't see how he'd come up short getting 3ghz out of a chip that cost under $70...

I know what you're saying but to say that a 2140 is good for word processing? LOL give an overclock some credit.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Zap
Back to what the OP asked... "very mild OC if any." For $100 or less with little to no OC, the AMD chips are still competitive. Once you hit the price of the E4x00 series, then it's all over.

Fardor, you have a Fry's Electronics near you? They've been having deals such as an E4500 with motherboard for $120, or an x2 5200+ with motherboard for around $110. Unoverclocked they're around the same performance (5000+ is 400MHz more than E4500 and has the max cache of any x2). While the E4500 may be better once overclocked, the included motherboard of the x2 is IMO better. Thus, if you're wanting really cheap then that's the way to go.

Ah... A real sanity check !!! In his price range this looks very promising.