rfrasier

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Thiniing about putting a Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz into the unit I built. Currently I am runninga P4 3.4 with 2 GHz of DDR2 667, GeForce 8800GTX, on an ASUS P5B-E. Also using Vista Home Premium.
My question, would I see much of a performance increase?
 

Bobsama

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Yes you will see a large preformance-increase. I assume you mean 2GB of DDR2 667...

What version of Vista Home Prem do you got? OEM? Retail? Upgrade? If you got OEM or Upgrade-it might break the OS cause you changed such a vital component.
 

pmr

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Just for gaming? Performance will be higher but you won´t note a thing.
If you are into encoding and/or editing, E6600 ftw, otherwise, if you really want to upgrade cpu and later OC E6300/E4300 or E6400
 

1Tanker

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Just for gaming? Performance will be higher but you won´t note a thing.
If you are into encoding and/or editing, E6600 ftw, otherwise, if you really want to upgrade cpu and later OC E6300/E4300 or E6400
I have to disagree with this. The 8800GTX's are so powerful, that they are now throwing the onus back to the CPU(eg. CPU can bottleneck it). A P4 3.4 will likely bottleneck it a lot more than an E6600...in CPU intensive games.
 

pmr

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Ok, tell me what difference you'll note running a game @ 1280 or @ 1024 at 100fps and 150fps. Will you note the difference?

The main differences are at 1024 and who has a 8800gtx doesn't game at that res. And at 1600x1200 with AA and AF the difference may be 5fps and the large performance-increase disappears. That was what I meant
 

ajfink

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Ok, tell me what difference you'll note running a game @ 1280 or @ 1024 at 100fps and 150fps. Will you note the difference?

The main differences are at 1024 and who has a 8800gtx doesn't game at that res. And at 1600x1200 with AA and AF the difference may be 5fps and the large performance-increase disappears. That was what I meant

It depends what games he is playing. A lot of games are very CPU dependent. Flight simulators, for example, would get a significant boost in performance.

Hell, I don't think there is a single thing outside of web browsing that he wouldn't notice a difference.
 

owebro

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i've just ordered some parts for a new build and was wondering about this, too.

i went with the cheaper (half-price vs. E6300) P4 630 3.0Ghz for the time being, with:

biostar tforce965pt
2GB kingston DDR2 667
XFX 7900GS

i figure i'd get a board that supports c2d and drop one of those in later this year when their prices approach (drop below?!) $100. that's my plan.

soooo, will there be any bottlenecking issues with my build, ya think?
 

ajfink

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i've just ordered some parts for a new build and was wondering about this, too.

i went with the cheaper (half-price vs. E6300) P4 630 3.0Ghz for the time being, with:

biostar tforce965pt
2GB kingston DDR2 667
XFX 7900GS

i figure i'd get a board that supports c2d and drop one of those in later this year when their prices approach (drop below?!) $100. that's my plan.

soooo, will there be any bottlenecking issues with my build, ya think?

I never really like it when people go for 667Mhz RAM rather than 800, but in a lot of benchmarks and uses it doesn't matter much or even at all. Biostar has had a questionable past in terms of quality, but often times such reputations are unearned and it might work out great. Dunno why you went with a 7900GS over an X1950~ variant. You'll definitely want to replace that P4 later, though.
 

pmr

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I know there are huge differences in all the apps. I just said that because he was only referring to games and I don't know if he is saving to buy an E6600. But now that I see, he has an 8800gtx, I assume money is not a problem... :oops:
 

darkstar782

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I never really like it when people go for 667Mhz RAM rather than 800,

Why?

I have an e6700, and my RAM is Crucial DDR2-667 @ 3-3-3-12. It runs fine at both DDR2-800 4-4-4-15 and DDR2-1000 5-5-5-18 speeds.

Latency is just as important as speed, and DDR2-667 in dual channel is enough to saturate the FSB on a C2D running up to 333MHz FSB, a reasonable figure for e6600 and above.

I really hate it when people buy DDR2-800 5-5-5-18 and expect it to outperform decent DDR2-667 modules.
 

owebro

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yeah, i was considering ddr2 800 but i figured meh. i just needed to replace my both-feet-in-the-grave 1GB of pc2100. o_O plus i got 2GB for $135, which i figured was a pretty damn good deal.

don't know much about biostar, really, to be honest. i was kinda goin by that roundup of 965 boards they did over at anand's. seemed good enough for me. all i've had are abit boards, and i kinda wanted a change (not sure why, though...abit did me well).

and the 7900GS.....i was gonna get a radeon x1900gt but they kept going in and out of stock here and there, plus they've stopped production (for the 1950's, yeah?). and when it came time to buy i saw that xfx on newegg for $150 a/r, so i went for that.

i think it'll be decent enough for what i'm doing. probably won't be able to handle everything and anything at max framerates, but that's all right. i figure it's pretty upgrade-ready, eh?
 

rfrasier

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Thanks everyone for the responses. It's not that I have tons of money to blow...it's just that every few years I try to max out my computer so it will be good for another few years. Yes, the machine is for gaming (not soley, but alot). I asked around and was told that DDR2 800 would not be that big of an increase in performance over DDR2 667.
I'm not big on OCing (not too technically savvy there), so I want something good "as is".
Another thing, the RAM I have is PNY Optima Memory. Is this good or would someone recommend a better RAM (not too expensive though). :D
 

ajfink

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I never really like it when people go for 667Mhz RAM rather than 800,

Why?

I have an e6700, and my RAM is Crucial DDR2-667 @ 3-3-3-12. It runs fine at both DDR2-800 4-4-4-15 and DDR2-1000 5-5-5-18 speeds.

Latency is just as important as speed, and DDR2-667 in dual channel is enough to saturate the FSB on a C2D running up to 333MHz FSB, a reasonable figure for e6600 and above.

I really hate it when people buy DDR2-800 5-5-5-18 and expect it to outperform decent DDR2-667 modules.

Latency is just as important, I know. 667 can do some good things, overclock decently, but in most gaming rigs or those used for media work the higher bandwidth helps (overclocking also tends to go smoother with 800). Not a big deal though, not like AM2 systems.
 

rfrasier

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Can any of you recommend a good quality heat sink/fan for a Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz?
Also, would there be a big difference between the Pentium 4 3.4 and a Core 2 Duo 2.13? Or is the Core 2 Duo 2.4 more superior to the Core 2 Duo 2.13? Sorry to keep asking so many questions, but I want to be sure I make a good purchase. There's about a $100 difference between the 2.13 and the 2.4. Plus, if I won't see a big improvement over my existing P4 3.4 then I can't justify spending the money.
Thanks again all.
 

rfrasier

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So, do you think going with the 2.13 would be advisable considering it's $100 less than the 2.4 and I will still see a marked improvement over the existing 3.4 P4?
 

Bobsama

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The 1.86ghz e6300 would be a huge boost--as would the 1.8ghz e4300. Anything out of netburst would be a major improvement... if you overclock you can easily top 3.4ghz.
 

quantumsheep

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There will be considerable (and noticeable) performance difference between a 3.4GHz P4 and any Core 2 Duo.

Agreed there.

I went from a 4.2ghz D930 to a C2D E6300 that i overclocked to 3.0ghz and the difference in performance was MASSIVE even at stock.
 

rfrasier

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How hard is it to OC a C2D? How exactly is it done?
If you were to OC a C2D to 3.0GHz is that like havinga 6GHz processor? If I sound dumb please don't laugh.... :oops:
 

quantumsheep

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How hard is it to OC a C2D? How exactly is it done?
If you were to OC a C2D to 3.0GHz is that like havinga 6GHz processor? If I sound dumb please don't laugh.... :oops:

Firstly it's not very hard to overclock a C2D at all. They're possibly the easiest chips ever to overclock. Firstly go into your BIOS and set your RAM:FSB divider to 1:1 (if you're usign 667 modules). Then go into the CPU part of your BIOS and set the FSB to 333. There you go, a stupidly fast CPU. There's even a nice guide in the forumz by Wusy:

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Core2Duo-Overclocking-Guide-v1-ftopict197995.html

It's a very good guide and should get you started introduced into the beautiful world of overclocking!

Secondly, no it isn't like having a 6.00ghz CPU because it's dual core. They're 2 seperate cores that don't work together but rather work seperatly. Just think of it as having 2 x 3.00ghz. (Actually, it would be like owning a 6.0ghz P4, as a rule of thumb C2D is 2x faster clock for clock than netburst).
 

rfrasier

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quantumsheep - Thank you for the info. I think I may go with the 2.13 chip ($100 less is $100 less). I'll probably couple that with 2GB of Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800.
What I also need is a good recommendation on a heatsink/fan unit.
Thanks for your help
 

quantumsheep

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quantumsheep - Thank you for the info. I think I may go with the 2.13 chip ($100 less is $100 less). I'll probably couple that with 2GB of Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800.
What I also need is a good recommendation on a heatsink/fan unit.
Thanks for your help

I wouldn't go with the DDR2 800, no real point unless you're think of extreme overclocking. DDR2 667 is more than enough, and you'll probably get tighter timings too (lower latency, better performance especially in games).

For coolers...i'm not too good on the coolers scene at the moment, i've just got my Zalman CNPS9700 which does it's job perfectly well.