[Junkman]

My last post here a week ago convinced me to go for Core2Duo, and I was thinking E6600 since I can probably afford it and it's the one most people are raving about, and it looks very good in performance reviews. But on the other hand the E6400 is quite a bit cheaper, and not so much slower. But I'm finding it much harder to find useful information on it. Useful, that is, to someone like me what don't tawk fancy computer-jive.
I'm looking to build a medium-high end gaming machine, but I accept that I'm not gonna get the best graphics on the latest games, and luckily I'm not really into FPSs. So with that in mind, how do the two compare?
I'm also conscious of future upgrades, thinking if I save money now I can upgrade better and sooner, so I would also like to hear people's opinions on how long it will take for these CPUs (and the necessarily associated Mobo) to date. In 18 months to 2 years will either the CPU or mobo be salvagable, or will I be looking at pretty much a new build? And will getting the 6600 rather than 6400 make a significant difference to this question?
Thanks alot

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OK, heres the scoop.

1. The E6600 has double the cache of the E6400, this will make a big difference when playing some games. Just to get the equal to the E6600 you will have to overclock the 2.13 to about 2.9 speed to equal the 2.4 with double the cache.

2. The E6600 may be able to overclock even more than the E6400

Now there is a caveat here. The porcessors are all built on a single assembly line for all the speeds from 1.86 to 2.93. The cpu speed is determined at the factory by running the cpu and seeing how fast it runs at the normal bus speed. The processors are rated by the speed they attain. It is obvious that Intel thinks it must add more cache to the upper speed cpu's for some reason. So you could get a E6600 that really runs at 2.53 but it will still be called a E6600 instead of a E6700. Same thing goes between a 2.13 and a 2.4 ( other than the cache size). The faster running cpus will overclock much easier than ones that run at the lower spec's. Some of my gamer friends try to get the stores to let them run the processors so they can get the true speed of the cpu before buying.

My opinion is to buy what you can afford and thats the bottom line. Two years from now the Core2 Duo's will be old hat and the QUAD core's will be the norm.

SRX660

Edited by SRX660, 27 January 2007 - 08:45 PM.

[SRX660]

OK, heres the scoop.

1. The E6600 has double the cache of the E6400, this will make a big difference when playing some games. Just to get the equal to the E6600 you will have to overclock the 2.13 to about 2.9 speed to equal the 2.4 with double the cache.

2. The E6600 may be able to overclock even more than the E6400

Now there is a caveat here. The porcessors are all built on a single assembly line for all the speeds from 1.86 to 2.93. The cpu speed is determined at the factory by running the cpu and seeing how fast it runs at the normal bus speed. The processors are rated by the speed they attain. It is obvious that Intel thinks it must add more cache to the upper speed cpu's for some reason. So you could get a E6600 that really runs at 2.53 but it will still be called a E6600 instead of a E6700. Same thing goes between a 2.13 and a 2.4 ( other than the cache size). The faster running cpus will overclock much easier than ones that run at the lower spec's. Some of my gamer friends try to get the stores to let them run the processors so they can get the true speed of the cpu before buying.

My opinion is to buy what you can afford and thats the bottom line. Two years from now the Core2 Duo's will be old hat and the QUAD core's will be the norm.

SRX660

Edited by SRX660, 27 January 2007 - 08:45 PM.