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[Hazaro]

Hmm, I can go there no problem but I wanted to build a really cheap PC and put the rest into something else I want. So, if I get the 8400 what exactly would I get an advantage in? FPS, loading? I only want to game on this PC so don't mind all the other stuff outside gaming. Won't be playing on Vista so I'm not sure if I should get the 8400. Talk me into it!

Nothing. I've compared the chips at the same speed, cache difference does crap nothing for fps.

Get a E5200 if you are going budget.

 

[Valpurgis]

Sorta been out of the PC thing for a while now, mainly looking to play Orange Box, Crysis, Witcher and Fallout 3 when it comes out. How does this setup look like?

ASUS Extreme N9800GTX+/HTDP ( GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB 2xDVI HDTV HDCP )
INTEL Core 2 Duo 3.16GHz E8500 [ LGA775 - 6MB - 45nm - 1333MHz]
ASUS P5QC ( Intel P45/ICH10R - Socket 775 - FSB 1600 )
DDR2 2GB [1GBx2] DDR1066 (PC2-8500) - KINGSTON HyperX KHX8500D2K2/2G x 2
SATA300 500GB - 7200 SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.11 NCQ (32MB) [ST3500320AS]

 

[Nemo]

Nothing. I've compared the chips at the same speed, cache difference does crap nothing for fps.

Get a E5200 if you are going budget.

Thanks! Was looking for something like this. Will look into it.

 

[Kabouter]

Sorta been out of the PC thing for a while now, mainly looking to play Orange Box, Crysis, Witcher and Fallout 3 when it comes out. How does this setup look like?

ASUS Extreme N9800GTX+/HTDP ( GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB 2xDVI HDTV HDCP )
INTEL Core 2 Duo 3.16GHz E8500 [ LGA775 - 6MB - 45nm - 1333MHz]
ASUS P5QC ( Intel P45/ICH10R - Socket 775 - FSB 1600 )
DDR2 2GB [1GBx2] DDR1066 (PC2-8500) - KINGSTON HyperX KHX8500D2K2/2G x 2
SATA300 500GB - 7200 SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.11 NCQ (32MB) [ST3500320AS]

With RAM prices the way they are, 4GB RAM is really the way to go.
I'd also consider a Radeon 4800-series instead of the 9800GTX+.

 

[ColdDeckEd]

I haven't had any problems with my own 4850 and the 8.8s at all (card is OCd out of box to 675/1100). At work, I know one of the rigs with the 4870 spat out the .dll installer error, but otherwise our other problems were more specific to the 4870X2.

That said, the fixes in 8.8 were pretty negligible anyway so there's really no rush to grab them unless you're currently having issues with the 8.7s or earlier. Performance, at least for me, has been nearly identical on them - I think I picked up a whopping 12 points in Vantage (P) on the GPU score.

What card do you have? Do u run dual screens? I've got an Asus one, with their Smartdoc application running my fan. Like I said, with 8.7 I was running 700/1100 no problems. With 8.8, I tried a 640/1025 overclock, and as soon as I set it my screen flashed, went blank, and eventually rebooted. At the default speeds, there's no problems. Same symptoms under XP and Vista (32 and 64 respectively).

I almost punched a hole through my wall when my system kept rebooting after installing 8.8 because I really had no need for them, I just wanted to try them out.

 

[Wallach]

What card do you have? Do u run dual screens? I've got an Asus one, with their Smartdoc application running my fan. Like I said, with 8.7 I was running 700/1100 no problems. With 8.8, I tried a 640/1025 overclock, and as soon as I set it my screen flashed, went blank, and eventually rebooted. At the default speeds, there's no problems. Same symptoms under XP and Vista (32 and 64 respectively).

I almost punched a hole through my wall when my system kept rebooting after installing 8.8 because I really had no need for them, I just wanted to try them out.

That particular rig is using a Sapphire 4850 Toxic on a single monitor, Vista 64-bit. I believe the 4870 that disliked the 8.8s was a VisionTek.

 

[DarthWoo]

My PC seems to be finally good and dead. I'm the one who keep posting help topics here, and somehow gets the thing back into relatively working order, but this time I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong with it, despite having gone through trying to diagnose it extensively today. (Not that it'll help matters, but I found it unable to get past POST this morning with no beep codes, then after I tried disconnecting certain devices, it gave me long beeps that didn't end.)

Can anyone recommend some reasonably inexpensive motherboard and CPU combinations? I don't need anything that'll run Crysis, just things like Battlefield 2, UT2004, slightly older flight sims (IL2), Sims 2, Sim City 4, etc. I'd also like something that's reputed to be more reliable than anything else if possible, or at least not known to be DOA much. Also, having never actually built a system from the case up (although I have taken apart my entire system and reassembled it successfully) I wonder if there are any that are easier to assemble than others.

For reference, I hope to be reusing my ATX case with 450watt PSU. I'll probably need a new hard drive since I wish to salvage what's on the hard drives now. For cost savings, I'd prefer to also salvage my old Radeon 9800 and 2x512MB of DDR RAM, since I believe it was really the processor (1.6GHz XP2000) that was the bottleneck in my system.

Edit: Although I know this is probably not possible, are there any faster CPUs that run cooler and more efficiently, or is that pretty much a paradox? One major problem I've always had with my PC was that it was nearly a portable space heater at times.

Is this any good?
AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 Brisbane 2.3GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 Dual-Core Processor - OEM

The reviews seem to indicate it runs cool and it sounds faster than what I have.

 

[zoku88]

With RAM prices the way they are, 4GB RAM is really the way to go.
I'd also consider a Radeon 4800-series instead of the 9800GTX+.

Not only that, but 2GB is just too little a lot of the times :-/

 

[Valpurgis]

With RAM prices the way they are, 4GB RAM is really the way to go.
I'd also consider a Radeon 4800-series instead of the 9800GTX+.

Thanks for the advice. I actually had 4 gb in the setup, 2x 2gb. About the graphics card, I have horrible memories of my last ATI, but it was a long time ago (x800GT days..), seems the radeons are the best bet at this price point now.

Just one more question, been on OSX since just before vista so I'm a bit out of the loop, what's the consensus on vista 64 bit, yay or nay for gaming?

 

[DarthWoo]

I've just realized something: if I'm getting a newer motherboard, is it pretty much impossible to salvage my AGP video card now? Everything I'm seeing only has PCI-E.

 

[botkiller]

Not only that, but 2GB is just too little a lot of the times :-/

Here's a somewhat related question: Is it better to run 2GB DDR2 800 or 3GB where 2GB is DDR2 800 and 1GB is DDR2 667? I've heard conflicting ideas, so I'm still not sure whether I should throw my slower stick in. Basically, does a boost in total memory outweigh the slower speed?

 

[zoku88]

Here's a somewhat related question: Is it better to run 2GB DDR2 800 or 3GB where 2GB is DDR2 800 and 1GB is DDR2 667? I've heard conflicting ideas, so I'm still not sure whether I should throw my slower stick in. Basically, does a boost in total memory outweigh the slower speed?

Well, usually more RAM is better than faster RAM, except in extreme cases, I guess.

 

[DarthWoo]

After some blind searching, I'm liking what I'm reading about the Athlon 64 XP2 as a budget processor, and it seems that ASUS is the most reliable motherboard manufacturer.

Some more questions though.
-Is the DDR2 standard on the newer mobos not backward compatible with DDR?
-Is there no way to install my older hard drives on them, as they only seem to have SATA plugs? (I need some cheap way to get transfer the data off my old hard drives, and the only thing I can think of is either an USB external HDD enclosure, or to stick them in one of my backup PCs and transfer data over the network.)
-If I'm not OCing at all, will the stock heatsink and fan in a retail package usually be good enough? (I'm looking at THIS now, as buying that other slower one OEM and a heatsink/fan may end up costing more anyway.)
-What sorts of things actually use PCI-E now? I have an old Creative SoundBlaster and ethernet card that I want to reuse, so those should be fine as long as the board has regular PCI slots.

Thanks for any advice. I'm still trying to pick a good inexpensive motherboard to go with the mentioned chip if I can find one. I'm also not sure of all the accessories I'd need to buy with them, and I'd rather keep the total purchase under $300, although I'm going to need new hard drives with this now that I think about it.

 

[Kadey]

Once again, i'm going to have to agree with everyone suggesting to stay away from 8.8.

On my 4850 with 8.7 I was able to overclock to 700/1100 perfectly stable. Anything above the defaults with 8.8 causes driver failure and reboots.

They better hurry up and get a fix out. It doesn't help that many people are still not too kind about their driver support.

 

[Labombadog]

Thanks for the advice. I actually had 4 gb in the setup, 2x 2gb. About the graphics card, I have horrible memories of my last ATI, but it was a long time ago (x800GT days..), seems the radeons are the best bet at this price point now.

Just one more question, been on OSX since just before vista so I'm a bit out of the loop, what's the consensus on vista 64 bit, yay or nay for gaming?

Before was Nay, but now with all the updates its a Yay. Good luck on your build man!

 

[JoeMartin]

Ugh, wallet put the build on hold for a few days. All my parts will be in on Tuesday with luck. I'll post pictures of the rig then.

 

[DarthWoo]

I'm slowly gathering a list of things I want/need, but I'm still not clear on which parts I'm going to have to abandon and which I can reuse.

New:
CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail ($66.00)
MoBo - ASUS M3A78 Pro AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail ($94.99)
HDD - Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3250310NS 250GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM ($79.99)
OR
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM ($64.99)
RAM - Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory - Retail ($79.99)
Video - ??? (~$80-90)

Old:
DVD burner
DVD-ROM
Creative SoundBlaster Live Platinum
Ethernet card
Antec 430W PSU (hoping this isn't what's wrong with my current system, but if the PSU was broken, wouldn't the thing just not power on at all?)
Antec SX1030 case

Issues:
I'm not sure I've left anything out between the old and new, and I hope I haven't.
-I know there are issues with non-64-bit OSes recognizing higher amounts of RAM. If I'm just going to be using WinXP, should I just opt for 2GB of RAM instead?
-Regarding my old hard drive issue, is it an option to get a PATA controller PCI card and just have the two old hard drives also installed on the system? Or would that probably drive the system's power requirements above 430W?
-How is Seagate for reliability these days? I've trusted them in the past, but I always read the lowest reviews first, and a few people complain about DOAs and short-lived drives. That's just common to any HDD manufacturer, is it not?
-Might the onboard video card be sufficient to run the types of games I mentioned earlier? Or at least better than the Radeon 9800SE I used to have?

Edit: The more I look at this list, the more it appears that this is going way above what a budget gaming rig should be, so if anyone could please recommend some cheaper but still adequate components, I'd be happy to hear them.

 

[Spy]

I'm still waiting for the 1GB ATI Radeon HD 4870 to come out.

CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX 620W ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 80 PLUS Certified Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139002

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

ASUS Maximus II Formula Intel P45 Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131319

CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145197

Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Wolfdale 3.33GHz 6MB L2 Cache Dual-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115054

 

[mambadragon]

I'm still waiting for the 1GB ATI Radeon HD 4870 to come out.

Didn't ATI say these would be low in supply when they're released? I want one too but I'm betting high prices.

 

[otake]

I've just realized something: if I'm getting a newer motherboard, is it pretty much impossible to salvage my AGP video card now? Everything I'm seeing only has PCI-E.

indeed. for solid, relatively cheap motherboards go with intel.

 

[DarthWoo]

indeed. for solid, relatively cheap motherboards go with intel.

Are they generally cheaper and also more energy efficient than an equivalently performing AMD?

 

[Wallach]

Are they generally cheaper and also more energy efficient than an equivalently performing AMD?

The processors themselves are not cheaper (pretty much across the board), but are generally more power efficient.

 

[otake]

question for the hardcore; will I gain much by running either a 4870x2 or 2 4870's crosfired at 1680 x 1050. will I just be able to crank up the AA on most games or is all that extra power a waste?

 

[zoku88]

question for the hardcore; will I gain much by running either a 4870x2 or 2 4870's crosfired at 1680 x 1050. will I just be able to crank up the AA on most games or is all that extra power a waste?

Kinda depends on what games you play, yes?

I mean, if the games you play aren't very gfx intensive...

 

[otake]

Kinda depends on what games you play, yes?

I mean, if the games you play aren't very gfx intensive...

lets talk with demanding games like stalker, crysis, farcry2 and dawn of war II.

 

[Chiggs]

lets talk with demanding games like stalker, crysis, farcry2 and dawn of war II.

I think it's something of a waste, really. The 4870X2 really shines at 1920X1080 and above. I also don't believe Far Cry 2 and Stalker: Clear Sky will be as demanding as you think.

Still, it's hard to go wrong with a 4870X2 if you've got the money.

 

[MeshuggahMan]

Weellll looks like my PC died on me. Really not sure what happened but I think some sort of power outage is to blame. Turning on the PC leads to absolutely no boot at all. When the eject button is pressed on the dvd drive nothing happens which scares me that my hard drives might have died as well. I'm going to start off with getting a new Mobo, CPU and RAM. Hopefully everything else I have works still.

Regardless! I haven't kept up with everything since this build from roughly 3 years ago. Quick questions to get caught up (sorry if they're asked a lot):
1. Is it even worth going Quad core? Seems like nothing supports it right now.
2. Last I heard, the majority claimed Intel to be better than AMD. Is that still the case?

 

[Hazaro]

Weellll looks like my PC died on me. Really not sure what happened but I think some sort of power outage is to blame. Turning on the PC leads to absolutely no boot at all. When the eject button is pressed on the dvd drive nothing happens which scares me that my hard drives might have died as well. I'm going to start off with getting a new Mobo, CPU and RAM. Hopefully everything else I have works still.

Regardless! I haven't kept up with everything since this build from roughly 3 years ago. Quick questions to get caught up (sorry if they're asked a lot):
1. Is it even worth going Quad core? Seems like nothing supports it right now.
2. Last I heard, the majority claimed Intel to be better than AMD. Is that still the case?

Have you tried another power supply?

 

[rod]

Kinda depends on what games you play, yes?

I mean, if the games you play aren't very gfx intensive...

ive found that adding 16xAA to games has had little to no negative performance. apart fr crysis. if you start going above 8AA, you really start to notice.

 

[Tathanen]

Hey guys, I'm a complete fucking chump when it comes to building a box from scratch, so bear with me here. This is what I'm looking at so far:

Power Supply: Rosewill RP550V2-D-SL 550W
Motherboard: Asus P5Q Pro LGA 775 P45
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8600
RAM: 4GB G.Skill DDR2 1066
Video Card: VisionTek Radeon 4870

I've got a few questions you all can hopefully help me out with.

1. This motherboard. Stupid question, but the E8600 will work with it, yeah? I really don't know what to look for in a motherboard, but this one has a combo deal with a hard drive I wanted, so it sounds Good Enough to me.

2. Is this an okay power supply brand? And you think 550W is plenty of juice for this rig?

3. I plan on overclocking the processor to 4ghz, as The Internets claim I can do so without any increase in voltage or heat. Can anyone verify these claims? I really have no interest whatsoever in an overclocking that requires any changes of any sort to my system, but if I can really jump up to 4ghz for FREE, it seems stupid not to.

4. The 4870. Now if I'm honest with myself, the only game I really see myself buying in the near future is Spore, and as far as I know that can run on pretty ancient hardware. I plan on getting a monitor with a pretty high resolution, though, which is why I want to make sure I get something fairly strong here. Really the only reason I'd choose the 4870 over the 4850, or vise versa, is if one of them draws less power, produces less heat, and is less noisy. I hear tales of some fan hack needing to be done to keep the 4870 cool, which I'm not too thrilled about... is that necessary for the 4850? The 50 seems like it'd be plenty of power for me, and at this point I just want the card among the two that will be less demanding on my system in terms of noise/heat. Recommendations?

5. What are some things I'm gonna need to buy that I'm not thinking about? I still have on my list of things to get, a case, hard drive, sound card, dvd, wireless card, usb card. Do I need to buy anything like a heat sync for the processor, or will that be in the box? Extra fans? Anything? ;_;

6. Any other advice regarding this particular config in general?

 

[zoku88]

Regardless! I haven't kept up with everything since this build from roughly 3 years ago. Quick questions to get caught up (sorry if they're asked a lot):
1. Is it even worth going Quad core? Seems like nothing supports it right now.
2. Last I heard, the majority claimed Intel to be better than AMD. Is that still the case?

1) Kinda depends on what you want to do with your computer. If your comp is just a gaming machine, then it's mostly worthless. Besides strategy games (and a few non strategy games,) not many games are really multi-threaded.

If you do stuff like encoding videos, then those stuff benefit from quad cores. Also, if you're a very very heavy multitasker (capable of saturating a dual-core processor) then you might benefit.

Otherwise, go with a dual-core proc.

2.) Go with Intel when your budget for a proc is like $100+. Anything below (which isn't that much) is still AMD territory.

 

[MeshuggahMan]

Have you tried another power supply?

Yea that was the first conclusion I came to. The fans and lights still turned on, but nothing happened so I figured the power supply just went bad. Got a new one from newegg and still had the same problems unfortunately.

 

[MeshuggahMan]

1) Kinda depends on what you want to do with your computer. If your comp is just a gaming machine, then it's mostly worthless. Besides strategy games (and a few non strategy games,) not many games are really multi-threaded.

If you do stuff like encoding videos, then those stuff benefit from quad cores. Also, if you're a very very heavy multitasker (capable of saturating a dual-core processor) then you might benefit.

Otherwise, go with a dual-core proc.

2.) Go with Intel when your budget for a proc is like $100+. Anything below (which isn't that much) is still AMD territory.

I do everything with my computers mostly but no encoding videos. Probably not that big of a multitasker so that's fine. Gaming has died down a bit recently, but I always have loved it. Even though quad isn't really supported by games right now, what's the estimated time we'd be seeing the quad supported games? If it's way down the line, I'll just stick to dual then.

 

[zoku88]

I do everything with my computers mostly but no encoding videos. Probably not that big of a multitasker so that's fine. Gaming has died down a bit recently, but I always have loved it. Even though quad isn't really supported by games right now, what's the estimated time we'd be seeing the quad supported games? If it's way down the line, I'll just stick to dual then.

It depends on the type of games.

Multi-threading really lends itself to AI procedures, but a lot of games simply don't use AI that's really that complex.

For games like FPSs, I wouldn't really know since I don't play them.

For strategy games, some of them already take advantage of four cores (like Supreme Commander,) mainly because the sheer number of units you can have (not only does it need AI stuff, but it needs to calculate trajectories of projectiles fired, which can be a lot.)

EDIT: A dual core proc would prolly be fine for you...

 

[JoeMartin]

2. Is this an okay power supply brand? And you think 550W is plenty of juice for this rig?

No, it's actually a horribly generic PSU company. The most commonly overlooked and by far one of the most important parts of any serious gaming rig (especially if you plan on doing overclocking of any kind) is the PSU.

Unstable voltages from a shitty PSU with a weak 12v rail will only lead to disaster for your computer, especially if you start taxing the individual components with overclocking.

These generic PSU companies also tend to have horrible, horrible efficiency, which can lead to far less performance than their rated power when the machine starts to heat up from load.

PC Power and Cooling makes the best PSU's you can get on the market today, and the 610w Silencer is going for a pretty good deal at Newegg if you get it soon.

4. The 4870. Now if I'm honest with myself, the only game I really see myself buying in the near future is Spore, and as far as I know that can run on pretty ancient hardware. I plan on getting a monitor with a pretty high resolution, though, which is why I want to make sure I get something fairly strong here. Really the only reason I'd choose the 4870 over the 4850, or vise versa, is if one of them draws less power, produces less heat, and is less noisy. I hear tales of some fan hack needing to be done to keep the 4870 cool, which I'm not too thrilled about... is that necessary for the 4850? The 50 seems like it'd be plenty of power for me, and at this point I just want the card among the two that will be less demanding on my system in terms of noise/heat. Recommendations?

The 4870 isn't exactly what you'd call "cool," and fixing that with the stock cooler takes the "quiet" out of the equation. This can be remedied with aftermarket cooling, but that's more money you have to spend.

If you only plan on casual PC gaming a 4850 should fit the bill and more, and the two best options for that are either the MSI 4850 or the Sapphire 4850's that ship with after market cooling. Both run drastically cooler and quieter than their stock components, have lots of overclocking headroom, and are hardly more expensive, if at all.

 

[DarthWoo]

I'm thinking I may just get a new power source since it's possible that my old one could be the main fault with my PC's problems, and either way I may need a higher capacity one with the newer components I plan on getting. At least this way if I get the PSU first, I can test and see if replacing the old one fixes things.

That said, what's a safe wattage for the type of rig I listed above? (AMD 64 XP2 2.6GHz, low to mid-range video card, two optical drives, potentially 3-4 hard drives.) The current one is 430W, I was hoping no more than 500-550W.

Edit: And I plan on absolutely no overclocking.

 

[Sutanreyu]

I'm still waiting for the 1GB ATI Radeon HD 4870 to come out.

CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX 620W ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 80 PLUS Certified Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139002

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

ASUS Maximus II Formula Intel P45 Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131319

CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145197

Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Wolfdale 3.33GHz 6MB L2 Cache Dual-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115054

Save yourself $100 and get the E8400... Then overclock it to 3.6GHz.

 

[Open Source]

Save yourself $100 and get the E8400... Then overclock it to 3.6GHz.

The E8600 is guaranteed to have E0 stepping and can overclock well over 4GHz.

 

[Hazaro]

No, it's actually a horribly generic PSU company. The most commonly overlooked and by far one of the most important parts of any serious gaming rig (especially if you plan on doing overclocking of any kind) is the PSU.

Unstable voltages from a shitty PSU with a weak 12v rail will only lead to disaster for your computer, especially if you start taxing the individual components with overclocking.

These generic PSU companies also tend to have horrible, horrible efficiency, which can lead to far less performance than their rated power when the machine starts to heat up from load.

Some of the Rosewill's are actually good, but most aren't.

That said, don't skimp on the PSU

The E8600 is guaranteed to have E0 stepping and can overclock well over 4GHz.

Just get the E8400, the little speed boost you get from E0 or stock is not worth it unless you are going for this:

p.s. Duck did break 7s with his Commando, this is higher clock speed though.

 

[bee]

the e8400+4850 thread strikes again! no matter what your budget $300 or $3000 that's all that ever gets recommended. just out of interest, why is it that people buy the e8400 over the $50 less e7200? considering that 3.5ghz is all your ever gonna need for gaming and both clock there with ease

 

[Hazaro]

the e8400+4850 thread strikes again! no matter what your budget $300 or $3000 that's all that ever gets recommended. just out of interest, why is it that people buy the e8400 over the $50 less e7200? considering that 3.5ghz is all your ever gonna need for gaming and both clock there with ease

Dunno.

Maybe they think the cache is good for gaming, or future proof or something :lol

Makes no difference in 4 games I tested including Crysis. E8400 clock about the same, but the new E0 should clock a bit better if you are looking for excuses.

My E7200 does 3.8 so I have nothing to complain about.

E5200 is also an option now, but lack of SSE4 (or what?) might be a concern for some people

 

[Tathanen]

If you only plan on casual PC gaming a 4850 should fit the bill and more, and the two best options for that are either the MSI 4850 or the Sapphire 4850's that ship with after market cooling. Both run drastically cooler and quieter than their stock components, have lots of overclocking headroom, and are hardly more expensive, if at all.

Thanks a ton for your advice, I think I'll end up getting that power supply you suggested, that's a crazy deal on newegg right now.

Is this the Sapphire 4850 you mentioned?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102770

They seem to be out of stock on the MSI.

 

[Hazaro]

Thanks a ton for your advice, I think I'll end up getting that power supply you suggested, that's a crazy deal on newegg right now.

Is this the Sapphire 4850 you mentioned?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102770

They seem to be out of stock on the MSI.

Sapphire has almost non-exsistant customer support, buy another brand.

Check Chiefvalue.com as well to see if they are in-stock, it's the same company as newegg. Even has newegg.com on the order slips :lol

 

[Wallach]

Dunno.

Maybe they think the cache is good for gaming, or future proof or something :lol

Makes no difference in 4 games I tested including Crysis. E8400 clock about the same, but the new E0 should clock a bit better if you are looking for excuses.

My E7200 does 3.8 so I have nothing to complain about.

E5200 is also an option now, but lack of SSE4 (or what?) might be a concern for some people

The cache is useful for gaming, provided the game is CPU-bound and not GPU-bound. It's one of the main advantages that puts the C2D line ahead of the X2 and Phenoms (besides plain old superior architecture). Data sitting in the L2 is accessed much faster by the processor, even with the current speeds of DRAM.

 

[Tathanen]

Sapphire has almost non-exsistant customer support, buy another brand.

Check Chiefvalue.com as well to see if they are in-stock, it's the same company as newegg. Even has newegg.com on the order slips :lol

Man, it seems to be out of stock across the whole damn internet! Blueballed! D:

 

[bee]

The cache is useful for gaming, provided the game is CPU-bound and not GPU-bound. It's one of the main advantages that puts the C2D line ahead of the X2 and Phenoms (besides plain old superior architecture). Data sitting in the L2 is accessed much faster by the processor, even with the current speeds of DRAM.

can you find me some benchmarks of a similarly clocked e7200 and e8400 that shows the e8400 has a clear advantage?

 

[Wallach]

can you find me some benchmarks of a similarly clocked e7200 and e8400 that shows the e8400 has a clear advantage?

These tests were performed earlier than the E7200 and E8400, though they are still C2D line processors. In these benchmarks, all processors were set to the same frequency (2.4Ghz):

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cache-size-matter,1709-5.html

 

[Hazaro]

can you find me some benchmarks of a similarly clocked e7200 and e8400 that shows the e8400 has a clear advantage?

I can show you some that don't

 

[bee]

These tests were performed earlier than the E7200 and E8400, though they are still C2D line processors. In these benchmarks, all processors were set to the same frequency (2.4Ghz):

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cache-size-matter,1709-5.html

that just shows that when frame rates actually become meaningful (i.e cod2) then theres very little difference, who cares if you get 150 or 170fps. also those aren't true modern gaming resolutions, lower the resolution the more cpu bound you become

 

[Hazaro]

New page

The cache is useful for gaming, provided the game is CPU-bound and not GPU-bound. It's one of the main advantages that puts the C2D line ahead of the X2 and Phenoms (besides plain old superior architecture). Data sitting in the L2 is accessed much faster by the processor, even with the current speeds of DRAM.

All I can think of is WoW and Supreme Commander.

So...

can you find me some benchmarks of a similarly clocked e7200 and e8400 that shows the e8400 has a clear advantage?

I can show you some that don't

Tested on my computer, every component was the same except for my CPU's which I upgraded.

Specs: Asus P5B Vanilla, 2GB G.Skill, 8800GT [713/1728/945]

E6600 / E7200 / E8400 (3.60Ghz)

1GB Winrar Extraction: 48s / 48s / 48s
Winrar Compression (350MB): 2:43 / 2:37 / 2:20
Super Pi 1M: 14.656 / 14.578 / 13.067s (Cache dominates SPi)
Super Pi 4M: 1m 23.851 / 1m 22.406 / 1m 14.375 (Cache dominates SPi)
FLV -> AVI 150MB Conversion: 3:22 / 3:18 / 3:05

(Run at 1600x1200 at highest settings) [Crysis was custom vHigh]

TM Nations Forever: 63 / 65 / 64 fps (Margin of error imo)
Crysis: 31 / 31 / 32 fps
R6V2: 84 / 84 / N/A fps (Un-installed and cannot find)
I also did Mass Effect, but I don't have the numbers. By memory I think E8400 had 1 more fps.

These tests were performed earlier than the E7200 and E8400, though they are still C2D line processors. In these benchmarks, all processors were set to the same frequency (2.4Ghz):

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cache-size-matter,1709-5.html

Those are run at 1280x1024 where more of a load is placed on the CPU and less on GPU. It's there to demonstrate the difference in power. 1600x1200 is another story.