Question about all those Intel Core 2 Duo CPU's... - 2007/01/05 15:08Hey, I have a little question. I want to sell now my complete system with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 at 3GHz and want to buy me an Intel system. The reason is, I don't want to buy me now an AM2 system with an FX-62 and in some months AMD brings out a new sockel and the AM2 didn't get more CPU's or something other. So, I have not much money at the moment for this, and €1000 extra and the money I gain for my current system...
Current System Specifications... - MSI K8N Diamond Plus SE Mainboard - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Processor - Mushkin 2048MB DDR500 XP4000 Memory - XFX GeForce 7900 GX2 1GB Cards - OCZ GameXStream 700W Power Supply - Plextor PX-755SA DVD Burner - Golden Rock ATX Big Tower
I sell this system without my HDD (a Western Digital 500GB SATAII) and with an air cooler from Zalman (CNPS9700-Cu). Now my question is, what for Core 2 Duo CPU is the best? But please not those Quad-Core as I haven't got enough money for this one. Question is, is an E6600 stock better than an E6300 overclocked to the same speed as the E6600?
Or is it better to buy an E6600 or E6700? Cause the E6700 cost €200 more as the E6600, so my question is, is the performance so better with an E6700 that the €200 more are a good investment? Or is it better to buy an E6600 and put the €200 in a bigger radiator for the H2O cooling? What's the best mainboard at the moment for overclocking, stability and performance for a Core 2 Duo?
What's the best ram? Its good enough to buy DDR2-800 or its better to buy DDR2-1000? Or above, like the DDR2-1150 from OCZ. Or is it better to buy an DDR2-800 with better timings as an DDR2-1150? So, enough questions at the moment...
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Mavke
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Re:Question about all those Intel Core 2 Duo CPU's... - 2007/01/05 16:33Well I think I might be in the correct spot to answer some of your questions. Currently I own a Core 2 Duo E6300 which can be clocked upto 2.8GHz, so meaning is it then better then a E6700 in clock speed wise. Meaning it is quite cheap and can do great things. But then again the E6700 can be clocked higher like 3.5GHz or more. If I have to pick one up now I would go for the E6600, as it is a 4MB cache processor and can do just the same overclock as the E6700.
Also currently I have a Core 2 Extreme QX6700 as review sample from Intel, just for some weeks and well it has awesome performance, but E6300 clocked at the same speed is also not that far behind. But with quad-core you see a lot of gain for encoding things. So I would personally go for an E6600 and a good nForce 680i mainboard... But those might be a bit too expensive. I ran all my stuff of an Intel 975X chipset... But that means no SLI (or only with very old drivers).
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DirtyDev
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Re:Question about all those Intel Core 2 Duo CPU's... - 2007/01/05 18:53Okay, so I think I will take the E6600 and not the E6700 and buy for the €200 I saved a good radiator and a good nForce 680i mainboard, right? What's the best nForce 680i board at the moment? I looked for prices, found ASUS Striker Extreme, EVGA nForce 680i SLI and the ASUS P5N32-E SLI... The Striker is the most expensive board and the P5N32-E SLI the cheapest. But the Striker is still in the range I can buy I think.
I don't know what I get for my old system (without the hard disk) but I still have a rebuild ZX-10r motorcycle engine at the garage so I think I have a bit reserve with money. So now we have chosen the CPU, what's with the mainboard, the ram and the power supply? As graphics card I ordered the GeForce 8800 GTX XXX edition today. For a PSU I think the best solution is the Tagan Turbojet 1100W now.
So when I see all those things, I must get a very good price for my old system so that I can buy me this new one. The graphics card and the rams are the most expensive things in that system, or? Do you have a good choice for the DDR2 modules? Higher clock or better timings at lower clocks, what do you think is the best?
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Mavke
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Re:Question about all those Intel Core 2 Duo CPU's... - 2007/01/05 19:34Well I can suggest either OCZ or Crucial memory... The OCZ is good and I would then take the PC2-6400 or a bit higher. For Crucial I would go for the PC2-8000. I have used for my Core 2 Extreme QX6700 testing the Crucial PC2-8000, but only set at 800MHz. But if you care about overclocking you might like to be able to go to higher speeds. But either way works, the OCZ is great and works also at +900MHz... So I would go for PC2-6400 or PC2-7200. As power supply I used a 600W, with a GeForce 8800 GTS on it and a QX6700. So as for 600-800W should be fine, but rather 800W if you also thinking about an SLI upgrade later on.
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DirtyDev
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Re:Question about all those Intel Core 2 Duo CPU's... - 2007/01/05 19:52Now I have the 700W PSU, would get the Tagan cause I read a lot reviews and tests about those power supplies, looks great and have enough power for future systems. So I would take this one, its expensive yes but I didn't find at the moment those 1kW PSU from OCZ. What you think about OCZ SLI Ready Edition PC2-7200? Both, like the SLI Ready Edition or the Platinum XTC Edition have same timings, didn't see a difference. Okay, the heatspreader but nothing else, the Platinum XTC is cheaper as the normal.
Or I take the OCZ Enhanced Latency PC2-8000 modules with CL5-5-5-15, the Titanium modules with a CL4-4-4-15 are too expensive. Yeah, would do some overclocking, not much but so that the CPU runs stable and runs not so hot, but I will look for overclocking later, not yet but its good when I order the things so that I can overclock the CPU a bit.
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Raptor
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Re:Question about all those Intel Core 2 Duo CPU's... - 2007/01/05 21:31My thoughts, if it was me and you want all out speed the E6400 falls in that catagory so far my little CPU (and I have seen others) does 3.6GHz easily some even as high as 4.0GHz on a decent setup the E6600 will clock well but as you can see its +€100 more for it. Cache size there's not much difference between the two (ie. 2MB vs 4MB cache). Now the main thing you need to look at is memory and mainboards as these are limiting factors of the Core 2 Duo CPU.
So far only 3 boards take the crown all of these fall in the same price range. The EVGA nForce 680i if you are going SLI, the MSI 975X Platinum PowerUp Edition (or v2.1) for CrossFire setups, but this board is tempramental with memory and the DFI Infinity 975X again its a heck of a clocker and is a little tempramental on memory. ASUS doesn't fall in the category because to get the one board that clocks costs a ton of money.
The above boards listed will smoke an ASUS dollar for dollar. Now MSI is goin to release a nForce 680i board that they claim will do 500MHz FSB on its head...
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DirtyDev
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Re:Question about all those Intel Core 2 Duo CPU's... - 2007/01/05 22:45Okay, speaking I just take the middle of the price range, speaking of the EVGA board? Do you have a review of the board? Or from the ASUS that I can look into? The Striker Extreme costs €280, the EVGA only €205 so its a thing cheaper and you mean better? Hmm okay, will look if I find reviews or what do you say? Should I wait till MSI will bring out that nForce 680i board?
And yeah, I want to do SLI, not when I buy this system but I think a month or two later. So its better to buy an board for SLI... And yes, the E6600 is €70 more expensive as the E6400 but at first I look what I gain for my complete system and then I think about in getting an E6400 or E6600. I think €70 are not so much so I think I can get the E6600. Well I hope so, by the way I hope I can gain a bit of money for my old system...
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Boiler
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Re:Question about all those Intel Core 2 Duo CPU's... - 2007/01/05 23:02Well I guess I have to insert 2 cents here also as I too have both an ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe system with an Intel Pentium D 840 EE and an EVGA nForce 680i with an Intel Core 2 Extrem X6800 based system and once again I am on Raptor's side. If you are concerned about stability avoid ASUS boards at any price, I have never seen such headache with getting a product to perform ever. Yes the E6600 perform near as well as the E6700 for a couple hundred bucks less.
My Core 2 Extreme X6800 is still same price as the quad-core, just under $1300 canadian, still very pricy. And you see no real benifit to these expensive CPU' untill you run an application that will utilize all that CPU power and 3.5GHz overclocking is just a mouse click away. Other than the board, it will be hard to go wrong with the components you have choosen.
One place I would not try to save too much cash is the memory. Find yourself some good performing modules in an +800MHz flavor either Crucial or OCZ or even my preference some rocking Corsair. I look forward to your end result. That a nice system you are selling by the way...
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jp7189
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Re:Question about all those Intel Core 2 Duo CPU's... - 2007/01/05 23:10Personally, I feel the E6400 is the biggest bang for buck by a wide margin. The E6400 is the fastest 2MB chip...meaning that no matter how fast the chip can go it will be placed in the E6400 bin over at Intel. Because of that, I feel the E6400 and the X6800 have the highest clocking potential.
My E6400 runs at 3.53GHz with stock voltage in a nForce 680i motherboard. But past that it's unstable no matter the voltage. Which leads me to believe the chip is capable of more, but the motherboard is holding it back.
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jp7189
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Re:Question about all those Intel Core 2 Duo CPU's... - 2007/01/05 23:14DirtyDevil wrote: And yes, the E6600 is €70 more expensive as the E6400 but at first I look what I gain for my complete system and then I think about in getting an E6400 or E6600. I think €70 are not so much so I think I can get the E6600. The E6600 is the slowest of the 4MB chips, and it's likely CPU's end up in that bin because they really are poor performers, comparatively. Forgetting price, I think the E6400 has much more potenial than the E6600.
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ASUS 8800GT PCIe 512MB - Rev 04
