Which Conroe?

[Ballard]

So having not upgraded for some time (9800pro and 3000xp atm), I am eyeing up the new conroe when it hits NZ shores. Atm prices look a bit cheaper here than in the UK (compared to overclockers.co.uk anyway), but still quite expensive.

http://www.playtech.co.nz/category.php?action=show&id=454

Can probably afford the mid range conroe but quite a bit of money will already be going on the graphics card and mobo aswell. Will the cheap conroe offer good bang for buck?

So which conroe are you going for?

 

[confused]

As far as people can tell from the non retail chips and reviews of them, the lowest end chip has been able to beat the fx62, and the top but one has done a sub 10s 1m Super pi when clocked. Thing is that no retail versions are out for a week or two and so the preview ones might be very different from them. However they do seem to give intel a chance of getting back into the gaming market which amd have dominated since the a64's.
Best place for info is threads on Ocuk forums, many people asking about them.
From the specs that are being recommended to people i've not seen a non conroe spec there for about a month now, if that doesn't tell you anything I don't know what would.


Not read it yet but quick google found http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4843&page=1
and http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=5692
And in comparison with the old Intels amd kicked the shite out of them.
http://www.behardware.com/art/imprimer/597/

Bang for buck... well before conroe's release date people were saying that the amd 3800 2x at £210 was good bang for buck, and any of the conroes beat it

 

[Twist]

Usually (this applies to all CPU's, not just Conroe) you'll find prices rise steadily and then there's a sudden jump e.g:

E6300= £152.69
E6400= £182.07
E6600= £252.57
----------------
E6700= £411.19
X6800= £775.44

(these are the current Conroe prices from OcUK)

So for me the E6600 looks like the sweet spot

 

[Pirkel]

Usually (this applies to all CPU's, not just Conroe) you'll find prices rise steadily and then there's a sudden jump e.g:

E6300= £152.69
E6400= £182.07
E6600= £252.57
----------------
E6700= £411.19
X6800= £775.44

(these are the current Conroe prices from OcUK)

So for me the E6600 looks like the sweet spot

Words of wisdom that's exactly how I always buy my CPU's

 

[confused]

Yes i've been praising the conroe chips a hell of a lot recently, but there is often a large diffence between the preview chips and the retail ones, think I might wait a week or two for benchmarks etc to come before I buy.

 

[Konah]

E6300= £152.69
E6400= £182.07
E6600= £252.57
----------------
E6700= £411.19
X6800= £775.44

buy the E6300 for £152, oc it to the max (prolly ~E6600-E6700 speeds) then in 6-12months buy the X6800 for the current £100 price difference between an E6300 & E6660. thats how i buy my cpu's

CPU is least important part of a gaming rig anyways, as long as its fast enough - its fast enough.

 

[Ovron]

CPU is least important part of a gaming rig anyways, as long as its fast enough - its fast enough.

Yeah... it only does the computing - who cares about that anyway... right, I mean... right?

 

[confused]

It may be the least important part, but if its bottlenecking the gfx then you'll have serious problems, and as PhysX cards are not being used by every game yet, it is infact the processor that does all the physics atm

 

[Tualatin]

6600 best value for money. It's faster then the lower models, due to having more cache memory orsmt. And not being significanly more expensive then the higher rated models.

 

[Dakkath]

Have to agree...

Been following this one for a while as I want to upgrade myself...

The E6600 is supposed to be a nice little overclocker without any special cooling other than a slightly meatier cooler) and is significantly cheaper than teh model above it.

I'd go E660

 

[Konah]

Yeah... it only does the computing - who cares about that anyway... right, I mean... right?

most gamers only care about fps, any modern cpu has enough horsepower for the other demands made on it. cpu only affects fps when u run a cpu-limited resolution (like 1024 or less) most gamers run far higher rez these days. u look at any 1280 or 1600+ benchmarks and youll see cpu makes hardly any difference to fps scores. gfx gfx gfx, save some $ on cpu and put it where its needed.

 

[Konah]

it is infact the processor that does all the physics atm

yep and both nvidia and ati working on drivers to offload it to the gpu, physics cards wont fly. also, developers write physics for yesterdays cpu's not tomorrows

i'm running an xp1800/9800pro and ive played every game i've installed just fine (even oblivion). sure fps isnt always great, but playable and i've never had problems with physics

 

[Ballard]

most gamers only care about fps, any modern cpu has enough horsepower for the other demands made on it. cpu only affects fps when u run a cpu-limited resolution (like 1024 or less) most gamers run far higher rez these days. u look at any 1280 or 1600+ benchmarks and youll see cpu makes hardly any difference to fps scores. gfx gfx gfx, save some $ on cpu and put it where its needed.

what are you talking about? every single thing the GPU does is actually passed thru the CPU first. Increasing the CPU and bus speed increases how fast the GPU gets the info it needs to render.

Sure GPU is vital but you cannot undervalue the CPU at all. You will get terrible framerates with a slow CPU.

bearing in mind all these test systems have the same graphics cards/ram where possible.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_2005/page29.html

 

[ceixava]

most gamers only care about fps, any modern cpu has enough horsepower for the other demands made on it. cpu only affects fps when u run a cpu-limited resolution (like 1024 or less) most gamers run far higher rez these days. u look at any 1280 or 1600+ benchmarks and youll see cpu makes hardly any difference to fps scores. gfx gfx gfx, save some $ on cpu and put it where its needed.

true and not true, more and more cpu power is needed

games like oblivion with lots of AI stuff going on all the time you need lots of computing power

and if you dont play games that make us of it, its good to have that cpu power so your computer doesnt choke if you need to do couple things at a time, pack a video, rip a dvd, and play a games at the same time

for me it will be the e6600 when shuttle has a barebone with 975x, 965p or nf4 intel chipset

 

[Shike]

I'd aim at the cheapest one with 4MB cache, the 6600.

 

[confused]

BTW quick note; Don't go for the Asus Mobo, needs a bios update for it to work (thus needing a 775 to get it) , and aparently has locked multi's so isn't the one for clocking. Infact seems that the Intel mobo is the best of the bunch.

 

[Joor]

Intel Core 2 Duo Model E6600 (2.400GHz).
**Those 10-16% in games are worth it imo.**

ASUS P5W DH Deluxe : here is a good guide to make it rdy http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=106563&highlight=ASUS+P5W
Or Gigabyte GA-P965-DS3 .
G.SKILL F2-6400PHU2((Micron D9GMH)) as RAM . These chips OC like :eek2: Timings at high speed doesnt matter much.

 

[cHodAX]

6600 is defo the sweet spot. I am so torn at the moment between an X2 3800+ upgrade and a new 6600 conroe system.