E4300 vs E6320 vs E6550

[sprtfan]

I was looking at getting a new proc. I was looking at the E4300 and noticed for a $40 more I could get the E6320 and get a larger cache. Then I noticed for $15 more I could get the E6550 that has a faster fsb.
My question is, are the small jumps in price worth it? I do not game much but work with encoding video files a lot. I was told at one point in time that the larger cache is helpful when doing this type of work.
Also, I would like to do some overclocking and was not sure which chip would lend itself to overclocking more than the others. I'm open to other procs as well if there is a better option out there in this price range. Thanks

 

[chevmaro]

Im in the same boat. I cant decide on a cpu. As you mentioned they are small jumps in price. And for $20 more then the 6550 you can get a 6750. Its killing me I dont know what I want.

 

[sgrinavi]

FWIW I always buy the processor that is one step below a BIG jump in price:

The e6750 at 205 is $115 less than a e6850 at 320..

that's .33 ghz... around 10% more performance for 50% more in price. Not worth it..

The 6750 is about 10% more $$ for a 10% increase...

$$ per GhZ will scale until you hit the bleeding edge

 

[Ika]

Don't forget used E6600s and new+used E6420s.

If you do plan to OC to da maxxx, I would personally get the cheapest CPU that has the best specs I want (i.e. cache, multiplier, or TDP), then overclock the bejeebus out of it.

I picked my E6420 because it was a nice compromise between price, cache (4mb), and multiplier (8x). I've got it up to 3.2ghz right now and I'm very happy (though I can't go more than 3.5 ).

 

[chevmaro]

6420 or 6320 is tempting too. But what is the performance difference from those bus speeds and the 6550? Will it be noticable or in any way a better OC from one or the other? Im thinking about buying a nice board, some nice ram and a cheapo E4300 and OC the crap out of it until Penryn comes out next year. A gigabyte DQ6 will work with Penryn right?

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: sprtfan
I was looking at getting a new proc. I was looking at the E4300 and noticed for a $40 more I could get the E6320 and get a larger cache. Then I noticed for $15 more I could get the E6550 that has a faster fsb.
My question is, are the small jumps in price worth it? I do not game much but work with encoding video files a lot. I was told at one point in time that the larger cache is helpful when doing this type of work.
Also, I would like to do some overclocking and was not sure which chip would lend itself to overclocking more than the others. I'm open to other procs as well if there is a better option out there in this price range. Thanks

Large cache ~150MHz bump in core speed. Any performance boost will be difficult to quantify under normal use. Faster FSB is all about marketing.

A 7x or 8x multi chip will place significant stress on your RAM and MB if you want to overclock the CPU. E4300 comes with 9x multi and should be able to hit 3.0GHz with the stock CPU cooler. CPU core speed is KING, and the E4300 has the best chance of hitting 3.0GHz with the average MB and RAM.

 

[sprtfan]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
[
Large cache ~150MHz bump in core speed. Any performance boost will be difficult to quantify under normal use. Faster FSB is all about marketing.

A 7x or 8x multi chip will place significant stress on your RAM and MB if you want to overclock the CPU. E4300 comes with 9x multi and should be able to hit 3.0GHz with the stock CPU cooler. CPU core speed is KING, and the E4300 has the best chance of hitting 3.0GHz with the average MB and RAM.

Thanks, this was the kind of info I was looking for. I will prob get the Abit IP35 which should be a good board but was not wanting to spend a lot on ram. I have some Kingston Value ram that I have and would like to use. This being the case, the E4300 maybe the best choice. I was also looking at the E4400 which is about the same price, but I have read that it has not been as good an overclocker as the E4300 has been. I guess I should do a little research on stepping to see if the current E4300 are still as good as the earlier ones.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

$70 IP35-E is identical to IP35 minus heat pipe, RAID, and 1394. Those $20 HP/Crucial DDR2 667 1GB modules (hot deals forum) will work well on this board. Easy 400MHz @ 2.0Vdimm and 5-5-5-15-2T timing. E4400 is also okay (10x multi). Any C2D CPU will be lightning fast @ 3.0GHz.

I personally will not touch OCZ stuffs. IP35-E has no problem running four sticks of HP DDR2 667 at 384MHz FSB (3.46GHz core speed using E4300).

I've never come across an E4300 that cannot break 3.2GHz. You'll only hear stories about people with DUD chips. Even the el cheapo E2160 is capable of 3.2GHz core speed. All of these chips are based on the same core technology. Sure, you may get a bad chip that can't crack 2.8GHz, but that's only about 5% of the population.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: sprtfan

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
[
Large cache ~150MHz bump in core speed. Any performance boost will be difficult to quantify under normal use. Faster FSB is all about marketing.

A 7x or 8x multi chip will place significant stress on your RAM and MB if you want to overclock the CPU. E4300 comes with 9x multi and should be able to hit 3.0GHz with the stock CPU cooler. CPU core speed is KING, and the E4300 has the best chance of hitting 3.0GHz with the average MB and RAM.

Thanks, this was the kind of info I was looking for. I will prob get the Abit IP35 which should be a good board but was not wanting to spend a lot on ram. I have some Kingston Value ram that I have and would like to use. This being the case, the E4300 maybe the best choice. I was also looking at the E4400 which is about the same price, but I have read that it has not been as good an overclocker as the E4300 has been. I guess I should do a little research on stepping to see if the current E4300 are still as good as the earlier ones.

ValueRAM with "N5" in the part number is good stuff. My slowest DDR2 800 stick is stable at 580MHz with 2.1V and 5-5-5-18-2T.

 

[Markfw]

That may be, but my 6300's do 3.3-3.4, and the best I can get my 4300 up to was 2915. The chip is crap IMO. (compared to the 6300 and 6400's...2915 is still good from 1.8)

 

[sprtfan]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal

ValueRAM with "N5" in the part number is good stuff. My slowest DDR2 800 stick is stable at 580MHz with 2.1V and 5-5-5-18-2T.

I'm afraid the ValueRam I have is Pc5300 667mhz stuff I got several months ago for a different build and didn't use. I will probably use it in a different system and was planing on getting something better. I just don't want to have to spend $200 on a kit.
I saw the Abit IP35E was pretty cheap. Mwave has the IP35 for around $110 AR also and might get it because I wouldn't mind haveing Raid.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

"N5 OEM" DDR2 667 ValueRAM should also hit 400MHz with 2.1Vdimm.

 

[chevmaro]

Where are you guys finding this $20 value Ram. Can you link it?

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: sprtfan
I was looking at getting a new proc. I was looking at the E4300 and noticed for a $40 more I could get the E6320 and get a larger cache. Then I noticed for $15 more I could get the E6550 that has a faster fsb.
My question is, are the small jumps in price worth it?

If you want absolute best bang for the buck and are overclocking, go for the cheapest one. Otherwise I would go for the E6550 or E6750. Now, the E6x50 series chips are supposed to be the same price as the E6x20 and E6x00 series which have the same multiplier, but right now they still carry a premium.

Originally posted by: Markfw900
That may be, but my 6300's do 3.3-3.4, and the best I can get my 4300 up to was 2915. The chip is crap IMO. (compared to the 6300 and 6400's...2915 is still good from 1.8)

Some problems may be the FSB "strap," FSB "holes" and memory multipliers. To give you an example, I have an E4300 which was barely POSTing around 2.8-3GHz on two different boards (Gigabyte DS3, Biostar Tforce965). The same CPU on an MSI 650i SLI board will POST at 3.5GHz+ with the memory locked on asyncronous.

Besides memory, the Intel chipset boards definately have an internal "strap" which sets board timings ever so slightly, but which can affect overclock. see here

Also, in some cases the PCI-E frequency can magically affect overclock. see here

Note that my two P965 chipset boards were on BIOSes which did not give 1:1 memory ratio for 800MHz FSB CPUs.

 

[Markfw]

Zap, the exact same notherboard that my 4300 was on, now hosts a Q6600@3.2. The chip is crap, and there are many others that have posted similar results. The E4300 is NOT what it was supposed to be, the greatest overclocker.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal

Originally posted by: sprtfan
I was looking at getting a new proc. I was looking at the E4300 and noticed for a $40 more I could get the E6320 and get a larger cache. Then I noticed for $15 more I could get the E6550 that has a faster fsb.
My question is, are the small jumps in price worth it? I do not game much but work with encoding video files a lot. I was told at one point in time that the larger cache is helpful when doing this type of work.
Also, I would like to do some overclocking and was not sure which chip would lend itself to overclocking more than the others. I'm open to other procs as well if there is a better option out there in this price range. Thanks

Large cache ~150MHz bump in core speed. Any performance boost will be difficult to quantify under normal use. Faster FSB is all about marketing.

A 7x or 8x multi chip will place significant stress on your RAM and MB if you want to overclock the CPU. E4300 comes with 9x multi and should be able to hit 3.0GHz with the stock CPU cooler. CPU core speed is KING, and the E4300 has the best chance of hitting 3.0GHz with the average MB and RAM.

while that statement is factually correct, it does not take into account that sprtfan is planning to use fast ram and a modern mobo. A 7x multi chip is just asking for oc problems, but a dq6 with ddr2 1066 or even ddr2 800 at 4-4-4-12 should do great with and 8x chip like e6420 or e6750.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: sprtfan
I was looking at getting a new proc. I was looking at the E4300 and noticed for a $40 more I could get the E6320 and get a larger cache. Then I noticed for $15 more I could get the E6550 that has a faster fsb.
My question is, are the small jumps in price worth it?

If you want absolute best bang for the buck and are overclocking, go for the cheapest one. Otherwise I would go for the E6550 or E6750. Now, the E6x50 series chips are supposed to be the same price as the E6x20 and E6x00 series which have the same multiplier, but right now they still carry a premium.

Originally posted by: Markfw900
That may be, but my 6300's do 3.3-3.4, and the best I can get my 4300 up to was 2915. The chip is crap IMO. (compared to the 6300 and 6400's...2915 is still good from 1.8)

Some problems may be the FSB "strap," FSB "holes" and memory multipliers. To give you an example, I have an E4300 which was barely POSTing around 2.8-3GHz on two different boards (Gigabyte DS3, Biostar Tforce965). The same CPU on an MSI 650i SLI board will POST at 3.5GHz+ with the memory locked on asyncronous.

Besides memory, the Intel chipset boards definately have an internal "strap" which sets board timings ever so slightly, but which can affect overclock. see here

Also, in some cases the PCI-E frequency can magically affect overclock. see here

Note that my two P965 chipset boards were on BIOSes which did not give 1:1 memory ratio for 800MHz FSB CPUs.

Supposedly the X38 boards will address many of these issues. I was planning to wait for a new mobo until nehalem, but x38 looks awfully tempting...

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Zap, the exact same notherboard that my 4300 was on, now hosts a Q6600@3.2.

Right. I totally believe you, however I'm just describing what I experienced with my chips/boards.

The Biostar board I tried could take an E6300 to around 3.2GHz. The Gigabyte board could take an E6420 to around the same, maybe a bit more. Both couldn't POST the E4300 at 3GHz. However, the same E4300 CPU will POST at 3.5GHz on an MSI 650i SLI board.

What board did you have?

 

[Markfw]

Gigabyte 965-DS3. And it is doing better than my new P5K on the Q6600. (i have 2 Q6600's, and a X3210 coming)

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: chevmaro
Where are you guys finding this $20 value Ram. Can you link it?

http://forums.anandtech.com/me..._key=y&keyword1=hp+ram

 

[AllWhacked]

Right now Microcenter has an online sale for the e6600 and e6700

e6600 @ $130

e6700 @ $190

Someone reported on SD that if you select 1 day shipping, it will show up as free. Others (especially those in California) have reported that it doesn't work. To test it out, select 1 day shipping and the screen before you submit your order, where you can still edit your shipping/billing address it will tally up the total and shop up shipping as either $0.00 or the correct price depending on area.

At $130, getting the e6600 is your best choice. It has the same multiplier as the e4300, same 4MB cache as the e6320 and the price of an e4400. Also for those who are wondering if this is legit or not, Microcenter has done sales before where they sold off OEM chips for $100 less than their competitors. Also, I got this as an advert in my email that promptly advertises it at this price.

 

[sprtfan]

Originally posted by: AllWhacked
Right now Microcenter has an online sale for the e6600 and e6700

e6600 @ $130

e6700 @ $190

Someone reported on SD that if you select 1 day shipping, it will show up as free. Others (especially those in California) have reported that it doesn't work. To test it out, select 1 day shipping and the screen before you submit your order, where you can still edit your shipping/billing address it will tally up the total and shop up shipping as either $0.00 or the correct price depending on area.

At $130, getting the e6600 is your best choice. It has the same multiplier as the e4300, same 4MB cache as the e6320 and the price of an e4400. Also for those who are wondering if this is legit or not, Microcenter has done sales before where they sold off OEM chips for $100 less than their competitors. Also, I got this as an advert in my email that promptly advertises it at this price.

I jumped in on the deal pretty early last night and got a cancelation email this morning. They must not have had very many in stock.

 

[cify1964]

I have found that comparing my e6400 (2meg cache, 3dmark05=19560) running at @3.7 to my e6850 (4meg cache,3dmark=20300) running @3.7 there is only a difference in my 3dmark05 score of 740 points using the same setup as in my sig. below.

I work in the IT field so I get access to these chips for free. However, I would have a hardtime paying almost $200.00 more for only 700 points difference. I would definitely consider the cheapest chip that had both the highest multiplexer and cache which in my opinion would be an used e6600 or e6420 especially if I was going to be using value ram. I don't feel like fsb make that much differenct except in games, but even that is a problem because I can oc higher using a 800 fsb vs a 1067. Just my two cents Good luck with your build.

 

[sprtfan]

Originally posted by: cify1964
I have found that comparing my e6400 (2meg cache, 3dmark05=19560) running at @3.7 to my e6850 (4meg cache,3dmark=20300) running @3.7 there is only a difference in my 3dmark05 score of 740 points using the same setup as in my sig. below.

I work in the IT field so I get access to these chips for free. However, I would have a hardtime paying almost $200.00 more for only 700 points difference. I would definitely consider the cheapest chip that had both the highest multiplexer and cache which in my opinion would be an used e6600 or e6420 especially if I was going to be using value ram. I don't feel like fsb make that much differenct except in games, but even that is a problem because I can oc higher using a 800 fsb vs a 1067. Just my two cents Good luck with your build.

Thanks for the info. After missing out on the Microcenter deal for a E6600 I have been looking for a used one. I'm not having much luck finding one on the For Sale/Trade page but hopefully one will come up soon. If not, I might look at the E4300.

 

[cify1964]

Originally posted by: sprtfan

Originally posted by: cify1964
I have found that comparing my e6400 (2meg cache, 3dmark05=19560) running at @3.7 to my e6850 (4meg cache,3dmark=20300) running @3.7 there is only a difference in my 3dmark05 score of 740 points using the same setup as in my sig. below.

I work in the IT field so I get access to these chips for free. However, I would have a hardtime paying almost $200.00 more for only 700 points difference. I would definitely consider the cheapest chip that had both the highest multiplexer and cache which in my opinion would be an used e6600 or e6420 especially if I was going to be using value ram. I don't feel like fsb make that much differenct except in games, but even that is a problem because I can oc higher using a 800 fsb vs a 1067. Just my two cents Good luck with your build.

Thanks for the info. After missing out on the Microcenter deal for a E6600 I have been looking for a used one. I'm not having much luck finding one on the For Sale/Trade page but hopefully one will come up soon. If not, I might look at the E4300.

I would go for a used e6400 because of the 1066 fsb and 8 multi. You can usually pick one up for about 120 - 150 used. E6400 beats the E4300 series in all the reviews at everything including ocing, plus you virtualization which is starting to get hot.