My "Instead of an iMac" Rig -- First Time Builder Needs Buying Advice

[livingfortoday]

I suppose we should ask if he's willing to OC his CPU, then. If he is, isn't it still more likely that an OC'd 6320 would beat the 4300? And isn't the mobo for the 6320 more expandable in the future, due to the faster FSB?

 

[weldon]

I suppose we should ask if he's willing to OC his CPU, then. If he is, isn't it still more likely that an OC'd 6320 would beat the 4300? And isn't the mobo for the 6320 more expandable in the future, due to the faster FSB?

The 6320 won't necessarily give better results with OC'ing because of the 7:1 multiplier. You have to push the bus on the MB higher than you do with the E4300 because that part has a 9:1 multiplier. You may have to spend about $150+ for a MB that can push bus speeds to 500Mhz or higher to overclock the E6320.

With stock configs, the 6300 is about 2-5% faster than the 4300. The 6320 might be a point or two faster than that, but only in encoding or other tasks where the cache will actually be used.

The tradeoff I made was to spend less on the CPU and more on the MB and RAM. For video encoding and 3D rendering, the E4300 and the E6300 are within 2-3% of each other, yet the 6300 costs 50% more. With the 9x clock multiplier on the 4300 it overclocks very well on less expensive motherboards.

Not sure what you meant about the E6320 MOBO, since both motherboards will support that chip at 1066/800. The Asus will be better at pushing the bus speeds though if you want to overclock either CPU.

As an aside, the new E4400 slightly outperforms the E6320 on most tests, the notable exception being 3D gaming and encoding where the small advantage is reversed. In certain encoding tests (like MPEG-4 encoding) the E4400 still outperforms the E6320. It is $25 more than the E4300 though and would push the $500 budget again.

 

[bobber205]

You guys are awesome!

I am new to this hardware stuff and you guys have made it relatively easy.

I assume with the lastest "config", the one from weldon, would be easy to overlock my C2D?

And is overclocking the cpu from 1.8 to 3.3 dangerous? What exactly does it mean?

 

[Fearless Leader]

You guys are awesome!

I am new to this hardware stuff and you guys have made it relatively easy.

I assume with the lastest "config", the one from weldon, would be easy to overlock my C2D?

And is overclocking the cpu from 1.8 to 3.3 dangerous? What exactly does it mean?

yes dangerous if done improperly. read this. all of it. http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1804&page=1 I read over it and it explains over clocking well. if you have any questions about it just ask.

 

[bobber205]

Good news. I have more money to put in another component.

I got a pretty decent case @ a local store (was new in box) for 20 bucks. So that's at least 10 dollars I can use to get the 2.0 C2D. I think. 😉

I need to check the prices again.

 

[localoid]

I suppose we should ask if he's willing to OC his CPU, then. If he is, isn't it still more likely that an OC'd 6320 would beat the 4300? And isn't the mobo for the 6320 more expandable in the future, due to the faster FSB?

The E6300 or E6320 on a good P965 board will overclock just like a E4300. At the same clock speed, the E6320 will kick the crap out of the E4300.

If you start with a el crappo motherboard, that cannot reach a very high front bus overclock, you probably can overclock the E4300 higher simply because of its higher ratio (9).

 

[localoid]

As an aside, the new E4400 slightly outperforms the E6320 on most tests, the notable exception being 3D gaming and encoding where the small advantage is reversed. In certain encoding tests (like MPEG-4 encoding) the E4400 still outperforms the E6320. It is $25 more than the E4300 though and would push the $500 budget again.

Where did you supposedly read this? The E6320 is just released. Please provide a link to the benchmarks you're quoting from...

The E6320 will kick the crap out of E4300/E4400 because of the larger cache at the same clockrate. Unless you're stuck with a cheap motherboard than can't support high bus speeds without crapping out, it's a no brainer to go with the E63xx.

 

[localoid]

The 6320 won't necessarily give better results with OC'ing because of the 7:1 multiplier. You have to push the bus on the MB higher than you do with the E4300 because that part has a 9:1 multiplier. You may have to spend about $150+ for a MB that can push bus speeds to 500Mhz or higher to overclock the E6320.

Think again. The ~$100 Gigabyte S3 and the Asus P965 motherboards will take either CPU to the point where you'll be spending teh really big bucks on extreme cooling solutions if you wish to attempt to see how far you can overclock. The limiting factor (in the real world) isn't the multiplier, it's cooling.

You'll taking theory re: the multiplier, but in the real world you're not going to reach anywhere near 4.5Ghz (9x500) on a E4300 using stock cooling or using any affordable cooling solution. 🙄

Once you reach ~2.5GHz on either chip you damn well better known how to use Arctic Silver correctly and start thinking about moving beyond stock cooling if you want to go higher and maintain the overclock for any length of time. It's not just a matter of adding a $30 3rd party cpu cooler -- you'll need a good-sized, heavier cpu cooler w/large fan designed to fit correctly on your particular motherboard (and fit within the case.) Once you install this super-cooler, you'll also need a determine if you can actually move the system without cracking the motherboard (from the extra weight added by the cooler). You'll also need to start thinking about increasing the airflow in/out of the case, and thinking of how that air is being routed through the case. You'll also need to thinking about adding fans to the motherboard's chipset(s), and start checking the temps on the video card and hard drives in the case, because you're slowly turning the case into an oven. Yeah, you can go with more exotic cooling methods, but then you need to have a good concept of what you're doing/trying to do even more than with conventional (air) cooling.

Cheap cases have bad designs for airflow. Cheap power supplies have poor airflow. Passive cooled video cards are great, but they will get hot as hell in a system that's overclocked when the case temps rise from an overclocked cpu, etc. In short, you will reach a point where it really starts becoming costly to achieve higher overclocks (from a low-end CPU), and at that point it makes more sense to consider paying for a better CPU, i.e., a cpu that achieves higher clock rates, or a quad, etc. You can't get "something for nothing" in the real world.

 

[weldon]

The E6300 or E6320 on a good P965 board will overclock just like a E4300. At the same clock speed, the E6320 will kick the crap out of the E4300.

If you start with a el crappo motherboard, that cannot reach a very high front bus overclock, you probably can overclock the E4300 higher simply because of its higher ratio (9).

Right, that's why I'm recommending the E4300 for this budget system. If I was going to push the E6320, I'd look at a P5B-Deluxe or better.

Where did you supposedly read this? The E6320 is just released. Please provide a link to the benchmarks you're quoting from...

The E6320 will kick the crap out of E4300/E4400 because of the larger cache at the same clockrate. Unless you're stuck with a cheap motherboard than can't support high bus speeds without crapping out, it's a no brainer to go with the E63xx.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2duo-e6420_5.html

Check the results for yourself, but it seems pretty clear that at best the 4MB cache makes a small difference on a few benchmarks. Otherwise the 2.0GHz clock on the E4400 wins the day.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2duo-e6420_5.html

Think again. The ~$100 Gigabyte S3 and the Asus P965 motherboards will take either CPU to the point where you'll be spending teh really big bucks on extreme cooling solutions if you wish to attempt to see how far you can overclock. The limiting factor (in the real world) isn't the multiplier, it's cooling.

Not with the E4300. You can run it at 3.4GHZ (375MHz bus) with the stock cooling. Check this Anandtech report...

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2903&p=2

To get the E6320 to the same MHz, you have to push the bus more which may require a better motherboard and more cooling for the system.

People I know that are pushing the E6320, 6400, etc. are using high-end boards like the Commando. They might be using those boards because they can. I'm not sure that you need to spend that much, but I certainly wouldn't use a $50 Foxconn board for that either.

You'll taking theory re: the multiplier, but in the real world you're not going to reach anywhere near 4.5Ghz (9x500) on a E4300 using stock cooling or using any affordable cooling solution. 🙄

But that's my point, you can reach 3.4GHz or so much easier on the E4300 with stock cooling because you don't have to push the bus to 500MHz. 375MHz seems to be very stable.

Once you reach ~2.5GHz on either chip you damn well better known how to use Arctic Silver correctly and start thinking about moving beyond stock cooling if you want to go higher and maintain the overclock for any length of time.

While knowing how to apply Arctic Silver is always helpful and good advice, I trust the Anandtech report which says they ran the E4300 at 3.4GHz quite well with the stock cooler.

 

[iBookG4user]

You might want to consider using this ATI Radeon X1950GT, as if the 8500 is only as fast as the 7600 then the X1950 will be a better buy.

 

[bobber205]

Newegg has quite a good deal on ram today:

Should I order?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211066