X2 or cheapest C2D? very mild OC if any

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: jjmIII
How can you pass up this killer deal???
Hurry, rebate expires after tomorrow!

damn I need 120 of them

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Future proofing meaning you are taking the cpu's of today and pushing those back as a purchase path when they get to be dirt cheap = 775 socket (is that right? 775?) I would of told you AMD 2-3 yrs ago

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

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

Hell, just pick up a good used 965 board here in FS/FT or even the IP35-E for ~$60 after rebate. OC that sucker and blow anything AMD has out of the water.
I kinda gave up on trying to go X2 and went for a used E4300 + Biostar 965PT instead. OCed to 3.2GHz, its something to be reckoned with.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Originally posted by: harpoon84
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.

QFT. Far better to get say an 8800GTS 320MB + E2xx0 vs. say an 8500GT + E8400

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Originally posted by: n7
You can go even cheaper & get the Celeron E1200 if so needed

That's too low. Performance starts dipping below Brisbane

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Hmm... I notice Drebo pointed out that the E2XXX series only has 1MB of cache and so recommends the low-end athlon x2s... Which also have 1mb of cache.

 

[v8envy]

Another bit to consider. The core2 chips share their cache -- so if you're playing an old title which is not multi-threaded you'll have the whole 1 meg of cache being used for the one loaded core. With the Brisbanes you're only got a celeron-like 512K.

Sure, an E4500 or E6XXX or E8400 is 20-30% better. It's also 300-500% more expensive! If you're trying to build a gaming rig under $400 (half of that going toward the video card) there just may not be room in the budget for an E8400.

As others pointed out, do not wait. Pick up the $49 AR OEM E2180 at tigerdirect and $67 AR P35-E at newegg *right now*. And 2 gigs of HPbate ram for $6 AR, and a n Antec EA380 for $10 AR. Throw in a $200-ish 8800GT on top and you've got about $80 left once rebates come in for a hard drive, case, optical drive and upgraded cooling. You're on your own for an OS license.

~$400 machine that'll play any game out right now with aplomb at LCD resolutions.

 

[lopri]

Should I test both E8400 and E2160 @3.6GHz

 

[taltamir]

upgrading from a x2 to an E8400 i saw a huge improvement in games, (load times and stuttering reduction)... its still not enough to be completely GPU dependant. With a 8800GTS 512 I would still like an even faster CPU for some games.

So don't let people sell you on buying a cpu that is too chip. I parroted the same slogan about only the GPU mattering... and then I got to play...

Sure your overall FPS is VERY similar... but what those reviews don't tell you is about the stuttering when saving, reaching save points, reaching points where new levels are loaded, reacting to intesive environmental destruction or many enemies all at once, etc.
Those things are gonna tank on an X2... or the cheapest allendales even... And while the FPS only goes down by one or two frames per second for the overall average of a 2 minute test, those few seconds here and there where your game tanks really make a difference.

HL2 though.. my FPS with an X2 3800+ windsor and both a 7900GS and a 8800GTS 512 was 20fps on 1280x1024 at max without AA... I could not raise the settings at ALL with the GTS...
With an E8400 it was able to crank it up to 1920x1200 with max everything and get almost 30fp with the 7900GS!... so in HL2 the CPU matters a lot more then the GPU... (I didn't actually test with the GTS... don't know why... will do so later today.)

 

[Tempered81]

an overclocked e8400 & 8800gts 512 will destroy HL2 at 1920x1200 with 16xQAA and 16xQAF with all max in-game settings.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: 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.

:thumbsup: Best answer yet!

Originally posted by: BlueAcolyte
Hmm... I notice Drebo pointed out that the E2XXX series only has 1MB of cache and so recommends the low-end athlon x2s... Which also have 1mb of cache.

The Intel chips are hurt worse by lower amount of cache than the AMD chips. One possible reason for that would be the IMC of the AMD chips.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: BlueAcolyte
Hmm... I notice Drebo pointed out that the E2XXX series only has 1MB of cache and so recommends the low-end athlon x2s... Which also have 1mb of cache.

The Intel chips are hurt worse by lower amount of cache than the AMD chips. One possible reason for that would be the IMC of the AMD chips.

That is true, but even the E21x0 chips are 10% faster per clock than AMD's X2.

It's only when you get down to 512KB L2 Celeron levels where the Core 2 architecture fails to exceed K8 in IPC.