E2200 or E4600?

[JEFF68005]

Okay.... I desire to upgrade Mom's Compaq. Modest budget. I do not understand the basic difference between the Intel E4x00 and the E2000 series of CPUs. It came with a 1.8 Dual Core CPU according to the BIOS. Bios has been updated.

Link to Motherboard information

For purposes of my question, assume OC is not going to happen. For a stock PC, which CPU would you upgrade your Mom to? Why?

E2200 or E4600? or something else?

Goal take this 1.8 Gig CPU up to a decent speed for this board.

I'm not sure if it is a fair comparison, but my outdated P4s are 2.4 or better. Next week, I'm upgrading my outdated P4s to 3.06. So, I'm looking at 1.8 and saying is she getting the best she can from her computer?

 

[Hacp]

Keep it as 1.8 dual core.

 

[fffblackmage]

E4x00 have 2MB L2 cache and the E2x00 have 1MB L2 cache. That's probably the only difference.

Assuming you mom doesn't game, and just uses the computer for web surfing and all the other basic stuff, the 1.8GHz Dual Core is all she needs. Heck, the 1.8GHz E2160 is faster than most higher clocked Pentium 4s and Pentium Ds.

 

[betasub]

:thumbsup: Yes, don't get all wrapped up in GHz. Just because these budget Core2Duos aren't 3GHZ stock.

For most purposes, the upgrades listed are too small to be noticeable - what is the purpose / driving force for this upgrade anyway? Surely not just more GHz?

 

[JEFF68005]

Thanks guys for the speedy response.

No... She is not a gamer. Just plan jane internet with the occassional video on some website or Yahoo news section. Otherwise ... MS Office Word and Excel, etc.

As of this month, all other family members are hands off that computer. I've rebuilt some older ones for their use.

The driving force is probably my ignorace of the difference in the listed CPUs. Her PC was working just fine until I put on McAfee from Qwest DSL at her request. We were operating without antivirus software. Of course, we were very careful to only go to trusted websites.
McAfee seems to be one resource hungry beast causing more use of virtual memory and therefore slower webpage loading. That seems odd considering the 2 gig of stock 5300 memory.

I am evaluating possible performance improvements. Based in the first responders, the best CPU upgrade for the buck is no upgrade.

 

[Denithor]

Ditch McAfee and get the free version of AVG at free.grisoft.com. Much lighter and won't bog down your system.

 

[JEFF68005]

I did that for a different unit. The free version ended costing me $14.95 for the license.
Guess I'd better quit using Download.com. They pitched me over to Trialpay. :frown:

 

[Denithor]

I've been using the freebie for years with no fees.

Just download it directly.

 

[o1die]

Microcenter has the e4600 for $59, and you can order it online. I use the e4500 in my compaq pc and it works great for basic computer stuff.