E6300 vs. E8200

[WLlama]

Hey all,
I'm looking to upgrade my P4 540 (3.2 GHz/800 FSB/1M L2) to either a Pentium Dual Core E6300 or a Core 2 Duo E8200. Since the E8200 has been around for a while, I can get a used E8200 for the same price I would expect to pay for a new E6300 (~$80 after tax and shipping). I'm only running a 945G chipset motherboard but have confirmed it can run up to 1333 MHz bus.

Current System Specs:
Gigabyte 945G Chipset Motherboard (800/1066/1333 FSB)
768 MB PNY 9600GSO
2 GB DDR2-1066 RAM
Linux/Win 7 dual boot with VM access to Win 7 partition in Linux
Max. Screen Resolution: 1680x1050

While most of my computer work is raw processing, I do tend to game relatively often. Most of the games are previous generation (e.g. World in Conflict, Bioshock, Guild Wars, TF2, Supreme Commander). I'll likely wait on current/next generation games until I switch to i7 mid-late next year with the possible exception of a few MMO betas.

Which of the processor choices would you go for? I figure either way will be a huge jump from the P4 but I'm not sure which is the best option given the aging platform hardware. As mentioned earlier, this is pretty much just to tide me over for the next 12 months.

Thanks.

 

[GhislainG]

I'd go for the E8200. No matter which one you decide to buy, make sure that your motherboard officially supports the CPU.

 

[blackpanther26]

I agree Intel has played some nasty games in the past. Make sure it works.

 

[WLlama]

Thanks for the warning. I just doublechecked the specs again and the motherboard can support all single and dual cores in the LGA775 socket. No quad cores but I wouldn't want to spend the premium for a year's use anyway. Hopefully when I switch to i7 more software will be taking advantage of the cores available.