Im looking at building a PC in the coming months and am currently looking through potential processors. I want the CPU to be a fairly quick dual core unit that could reasonably run an 8800 GTS graphics card which I may eventually use in the system.

The current offerings from the main companies seems to be the Core 2 Duo from Intel and X2 from AMD and I am looking around the E6400/E6600 price range. Having read around it seems that the C2D offerings are more widely documented and I hear more praise about their range. I would like to know which would be considered better - the E6400 or an equivalent AMD processor?

Also in reading I've come across the following:

Core 2 Duo E6600 (Conroe, 2400/266, I975X, DDR-800)

I just wanted to know what all the specifications in the brackets meant.

Many thanks.

Right now, In may 2007, as much as it kills me to say it, Intel are winning the war.

I think the 6400 would suit you best. I'm not sure what the brackets mean, though.

-Dan

I know what the brackets mean (although I know nothing of the current processor market)

Conroe: Code name for the processor model
2400: CPU Frequency
266: Front Side Bus Frequency
I975X: Supports "Splitting" the PCIe x16 BUS into 2 PCIe x8 BUS's for the new nVidea SLI Video Cards (I think Im right some one correct me if im not)
DDR-800: Supports DDR memory @ 800 MHz Frequency

amd has lowered their price so much they actually are the price performance leader on entry and mid level dual core cpu's

for example
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115004

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819103759

amd doesn't need a larger L2 due to it's faster onboard memory controller

if you are running stock(not oc'ing) you do need to spend a little more money for better memory for the amd, the intel's don't need it

Why do you need to get 'better memory' for the AMD CPUs as opposed to the Intel ones? In what way do they need to be 'better'?

The other question I wanted to ask is whether it would be better to overclock a basic Core 2 Duo E6300 (as described on Tom's Hardware website for example) for better value for money as apparently it has been shown to be capable of much better performance or to just buy a higher spec CPU in the first place? Is there any risks when you overclock in this way?

now that's really the interesting subject, OC'ing

first you need a good motherboard with all the bios tweaks and controls

Amd still wins here, but works better when you buy an even cheaper dual core and take the extra money saved and invest in a
great HSF which you'll need with intel also

The reason intel stock core duo's don't need better memory is related to their architecture and the off board memmory controller, going from cas 5 to cas 4 gives low single digit performance improvement, likewise from cas 4 to cas 3

The amd's onboard controller gives much better performance with low cas ram

Now if you get ambitious with a core2duo buy real good ram, even looking for a specific chipset? which is the only way you can hit higher OC's

OC'ing is not user friendly or for the beginner, it takes many hours of research up front

I was quite happy with my last build 1 1/2 years ago
--------[ Memory Latency ]-----------

Athlon64 2250 MHz Asus A8V Deluxe K8T800Pro Dual PC4000 DDR 2.5-4-4-10 45.9 ns

CPU Speed:
CPU Clock 2249.80 MHz
CPU Multiplier 9.0x
CPU FSB 249.98 MHz (original: 200 MHz, overclock: 25%)
Memory Bus 249.98 MHz

my cpu will go to 47% OC, but I have to back off the memory too much

dangerous?

Temperatures:
Motherboard 24 °C (75 °F)
CPU 32 °C (90 °F)

I overclocked for years and burned up quite a bit of equipment doing it. It's a nice hobby, and it's a challenge to extract the most from your equipment. On the downside, overclocking will reduce the life of an electronic component so tread with care.

That being said, after I got the overclocking "bug" out of my system, I found that the perceived performance increase wasn't as great as the benchmarks would indicate. Also, I found that the effort on each little tweak didn't give significant payback in terms of performance. BUT, I did find that I could see a performance increase with a combination of tweaks from my overclocking efforts.

Next comes the stability issues. With most overclocking you'll see reports of problems running things. In fact, one of the "standards" for overclocking (in some places) is "Will Windows boot?" But then you'll have to ask yourself "If it does boot, is it running stable?". IME the answer to that has been a resounding "NO".

So, then you'll have to crank your overclock back down a bit in order to get stable performance. How much? I dunno, that's part of the fun of overclocking - guessing what's fastest AND most stable.

In the end I just found that it was easier to use the standard settings and not worry about strange bugs popping up at the most inopportune times. My system is stable and works quite well.

Finally, I generally find that I can get more "perceived" performance increases out of tweaking the OS rather than by overclocking the hardware. As with overclocking - it takes a combined stack of effective tweaks to give you an observable performance increase.

The most basic Core 2 Duo is the E4300, which has a block speed of 1.83 Ghz and L2 Cache of 2MB. It's extremely cheap at only $115 US. According to hardware sites, you can easily overclock this to E6600 speeds on air with stock coolers. So for overclocking, the Intels are a GREAT value. Even if you don't overclock it, the E4300 is a great performer.

The best way i've found to check the stabilty of an overclcok is to use F@H (console edition works best for this). If you dont get a BSOD or an outright crash (screen goes black and shuts down) your OC is stable.

The reason for using F@H is the program will use every last bit of your CPU's processing power and if there is a fault it will be found. Why not 3DMark(or another benchmarking program)? Because while they do the same thing as F@H they only test for a short amount of time.

Click the signature for info on F@H (This feels like shameless self promotion)

with stock air

vs

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819103036

with a premium ~40$ cooler

it would be nice to compare temps and lifetime at highest stable overclock

E6600 is the way to go if your budget allows. Has twice the Cache and will O/C way past 3.0Ghz on air. The previous O/C comments are all valid. It is time consuming and frustrating at times, but if you go for good components can be rewarding. The performance gains will be relative to what it is you use your pc for.

Actually no... now both the E6400 and E6300, now dubbed E6420 a E6320 respectively, both have 4MB of L2 Cache, the E6600 really isn't that good of a deal anymore.

For the extra £20 I would prefer the 10% + extra speed. As I said, depends on your budget..