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best budget processor

V

vsboxerboy

2[H]4U
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Oct 17, 2005
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So, I'm really confused here. Helping my friend build his first computer so he is upgrading from a ~1.2ghz ibook and we're budgeting ~600 for the whole thing and am looking to spend around 150 for the processor. Now what the heck is the difference between the e4 and e6 series and basically getting down to it is what's the best value. Plan on slapping an AC7 Pro or equivalent on top of it and OCing it some day so.........yeah. whats the deal?
 
Iv got a E2140, cost all of £35 and is currently sat at 2.8ghz (had it up to 3.3ghz with faster ram) bargin chip for the price, but would only buy it if your other option is a celeron and you are planning to overclock the spuds off it.
 
The E2XXX models has a 1MB L2 Cache, the E4XXX models has a 2MB L2 Cache, and the E6XXX models has a 4MB L2 Cache. The E2XXX and E4XXX also don't have support for Virtualization Technology. Thats pretty much the main difference between the three CPU lines.

Here are a few links detailing the performance increase from a larger L2 cache:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/pentium-e2160_4.html#sect0
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=2795&p=4
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3127&p=2

Also, word of advice: Don't cheap out on the PSU. That is the one of the most important part of a PC. So, go for a good quality one. Hit up the PSU forum for PSU recommendations. Just an FYI since your friend is on budget.
 
Danny Bui said:
The E2XXX models has a 1MB L2 Cache, the E4XXX models has a 2MB L2 Cache, and the E6XXX models has a 4MB L2 Cache. The E2XXX and E4XXX also don't have support for Virtualization Technology. Thats pretty much the main difference between the three CPU lines.

Here are a few links detailing the performance increase from a larger L2 cache:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/pentium-e2160_4.html#sect0
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=2795&p=4
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3127&p=2

Also, word of advice: Don't cheap out on the PSU. That is the one of the most important part of a PC. So, go for a good quality one. Hit up the PSU forum for PSU recommendations. Just an FYI since your friend is on budget.
Click to expand...

one addition, x4xxx and x2xxx's have a 800mhz FSB versus 1066 for e6x00s or 1333 for e6x50s. the lower FSB means a higher multiplier in general, which means a e4300 will overclock easier then a e6300, simply because you dont need to ramp the FSB as high

also, the old 6300/6400 also had 2 mb l2 cache instead of 4mb

i bought a e4300 early in the year, and its a great cpu, i simply set the FSB to 1066, and i had almost the equivalent of a e6600 for less then half then price. then only downside was that my mobo became a tad flaky (last MSI mobo ill ever buy, sick of them) and needed more Vchip, even though 1066 is officially supported, but thats either MSI's or Nvidias fault, not intels
 
As mentioed above they are all basiclly the same chip with different amounts of cache and some speed binning. My personal favoite for bang vs buck is the E4500. Just built son a budget gamer box and got an E4500 to 3.2GHz without breaking a sweat. If this is a gaming machine concentrate more on the video card and then spend what is left on the C2D and get the cheapest PC6400 (800MHz) memory you can find. Only thing you need to watch out for is to make sure the cpu will do a mulitplier of 8 or higher, avoid the cpus with a max cpu mulitplier of 7. there are only a couple. They require very high FSB to overclock and that requires a top notch board.
 
DrFreeze said:
also, the old 6300/6400 also had 2 mb l2 cache instead of 4mb
Click to expand...

That really confused me cause I have an 'old' e6300 and it only has 2mb cache.



For the power supply, we got an Antec Sonata III which comes with the earthwatts 500 which I hear is pretty decent. Gonna get a good mobo that is a stong OCer but not too expensive and can support quads and this way even if he doesn't get expensive stuff now, he has a great upgrade path and can just pop in a 45nm qx when they get under $200 and not 1600mhz fsb perhaps.

I also figured that the money saved on a CPU here could be better spent on a gfx card as well. Rough guideline is

~$30 - AC7 Pro
~$50 - Mouse, Keyboard, etc.
~$80 - Antec Sonata III case + earthwatts 500 psu
~$80 - e2140
~$80 - IP35e
~$90 - 500GB HDD
~$90 - 2x2GB DDR2800 RAM
~$100 - gfx card (dunno which yet, prices change so much)
~$200 - monitor

Comes out to $800 although I'm hoping that we can snake a cheap monitor from compusa sometime in mid to late january and cut that down to 700 with a 20"+ monitor.
 
E4400 and E4500 are great chips and ive taken both to 3.2ghz on stock voltage. I took the E4400 to 3.4ghz @ 1.375V.
 
I just picked up an E4500 to hold me over until nehalem. It's a great cpu. Runs circles around my old P4 2.8b even at stock. The only gripe I have is with the mobo I chose. ASROCK 4CoreDual-Sata 2, only because I had an x1950pro AGP card I still wanted to use. This mobo sucks with overclocking. I cant get past 230 fsb or about 2.53ghz. Apparently theres some kind of BSEL mod that sets the default strap to 266fsb but I'm not too thrilled about doing it.
 
Danny Bui said:
The E2XXX models has a 1MB L2 Cache, the E4XXX models has a 2MB L2 Cache, and the E6XXX models has a 4MB L2 Cache.
Click to expand...

Not all E6xxx series have 4MB of L2: I'm buying a used E6300 tomorrow for $80 and it's got 2MB total, not 4.

Just wanted to throw that out there... ;) I now see that DrFreeze mentioned it also, oh well... :D
 
I like the idea of the E2180...10x multiplier for $90.00 delivered from the 'egg. I like it so much I'm building a spare parts box with one of these for the gf...hoping to make the ~3.2 Ghz (or hopefully more) this series is sort of known for.
 
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