Is Conroe Extreme Edition Overkill?

[blackstone]

I am trying to decide between two chips, the 2.6Ghz conroe chip and the new conroe extreme edition chip that will be available at launch.

The system I am building is a high end game machine. My situation is, right now I am a student and am a bit strapped for cash so the 2.6Ghz looks more attractive than the extreme edition. However, I believe the extreme edition chip has a faster frontside bus.

Assuming that I would overclock either chip, are the faster core and bus speeds of the extreme edition really going to make a difference in games like Crysis, Unreal Tournament 2007, and Halo 2? I would like to get atleast a good two to three years of gaming out of whatever processor I buy.

Also, I'm not too familiar with overclocking CPUs--if I buy the 2.6Ghz chip and overclock it, say... to the clockspeed of the extreme edition chip, does the front side bus get overclocked as well? How significant is the frontside bus speed?

Thanks in advance to all you tech gurus!

 

[Atolsammeek]

I beleave the Extream edtion has Hyper-Threading. Which acts like a second cpu. But with the conroe with two real cpus it acts like there 4 cpus and like the other Extream edtions it would have extra cache.

I think it would be a waste of money. Unless you have programs that can take avantage of it.

 

[Action_Man]

The conroe EE does NOT have hyperthreading.

 

[gOJDO]

I beleave the Extream edtion has Hyper-Threading. Which acts like a second cpu. But with the conroe with two real cpus it acts like there 4 cpus and like the other Extream edtions it would have extra cache.

I think it would be a waste of money. Unless you have programs that can take avantage of it.

You can belive in anything. Core2 Duo does not support Hyper Threading.
Conroe XE is a waste of money, it is only 10% clocked higher than E6700 and it is 100% more expencive; 22% clocked higher than E6600 and 200% more expencive.

 

[tmac]

The First rumored extreme was to suppose to have faster FSB (1333).

From what I've heard, this extreme will have the same FSB of 1066 and
it doesn't have more cache.

extreme:
Core X6800 - 2.93GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 32+32KB L1, 4MB L2, Dual Core

Core E6700 - 2.67GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 32+32KB L1, 4MB L2, Dual Core
Core E6600 - 2.40GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 32+32KB L1, 4MB L2, Dual Core

 

[tmac]

The extreme I think has the clock multipliler unlock for overclocking -
Some one else can explain that benefit - since I don't know -
I'm new to overclocking - The extreme is not very extreme for the
money.

 

[gOJDO]

The extreme is not very extreme for the
money.

True, I expected that the XE will be 3.33GHz(25% clocked higher than E6700) and that it will have FSB1333. But it seems like Intel want to milk some more money on the XE series and they will introduce 3.33 XE latter.

 

[The_Abyss]

I thought that the E6600 and higher were rumoured to be unlocked. Could be wrong though.

 

[BaronMatrix]

Because the 6700 OR 6600 will blaze through games and can reach 6800 speeds, save the money and get a 6600. I doubt if you'll notice the difference in most things.

 

[NaDa]

I have a few questions that will probably answer your question.

What can a 2.93 Conroe do that a 2.2 or 2.4 cant ?
By the time the 2.2 wont run any games the 2.93 wont either.

Do you want to pay 800$ for about 500Mhz gain and a EE sticker??
The 500Mhz you can probably gain by overclocking.

Can you really afford to spend 3000-4000$ every year so you could be on top? would you want to?

I always taught the idea behind overclocking is to make your PC last longer to buy some lower end proc (like the 805D) and push it to the level of extreme.
It's realy not worth it to spend so much money so you could play games. It's really cool to buy crap like 805D and fry it if you have to.
Hell you can probably buy 10x 805D for the price of a Conroe Extreme.

You can spend the extra money on women and buzz

 

[Ycon]

C2E isnt overkill, you cant have enough performance
BUT with Conroe Intel released a premium processor as worthless as AMD FartXtreme series so it just isnt worth the massive price premium.

 

[ZimboBEAR]

Save your money get a 6600, then wait for decent mobo with crossfire or SLI and get 2 gfx cards...

 

[Pippero]

I'm also considering a 6600.
It cant be beaten for performance/buck in the next months, plus you'd be hard pressed to find any single application where you might really need a faster CPU.

 

[Guest]

From what I expect from earlier sample from around the web,
Buy an E6600, buy some good DDR2-667 with low CAS, get a good motherboard, then run the Ram 1:1 with the CPU and you will get a 3ghz Conroe that will beat the XE, given the increase in bandwith and the 100mhz and the added bandwith(conroe doesn't seam that bandwith starved, so might not be much faster...waiting for comprehensive review).

Im 99% certain you can do this with the original heatsink and at standard vCore and within acceptable temp!

Save the money on the CPU and get yourself a good RAM+PSU+MOBO+GPU, much better investment.

As some people mentioned, Xe are simply Multiplier unlocked. So this means that you can overclock like this.

266 * 11 = 2933mhz ( in bold is the multiplier).
So given the proper cooling, and without affecting anything else than the CPU(Ram stays at the same speed), you can do
266 * 12 = 3200mhz (probly X6900)...

If the multiplier were locked, you would have to OC the FSB.
291 * 11 = 3201mhz (but your OCing the RAM, you would need DDR2-583+ )

 

[dvdpiddy]

C2E isnt overkill, you cant have enough performance
BUT with Conroe Intel released a premium processor as worthless as AMD FartXtreme series so it just isnt worth the massive price premium.

There is no good way to argue with a fanboy of your calibur.

 

[RichPLS]

Depends on what you are comparing it to... If it is any of the FX series by AMD, then Conroe EE is a GREAT deal!!!
If you are comparing it to the E6700 or E6600, it is an expensive CPU, albeit one that performs excellent...
Basically, The E6800 will be the best performing desktop chip eVaR!!! but at a price...
Best performing CPU at good pricing goes to the E6600 or E6700

 

[gOJDO]

Best performing CPU at good pricing goes to the E6600 or E6700

I will say this about E6600 only. If we compare the E6700 to it, it is 11% clocked higher, but it is 75% more expencive.

 

[Guest]

I agree, the E6600 is the typical CPU that has good performance, just before the price start to get steep, Just like the 2.6c back in the day hehe

 

[RichPLS]

But the E6700 is as good a performer as the E6800, but at much better pricing... It is just that the E6600 is at very much better pricing!

 

[Heyyou27]

Someone is going to want the best of the best and the X6800 is that chip. It's just like the current Extreme Edition chips or the FX series.

 

[blackstone]

Ok yeah I see your point about the E6600. I'm not interested in bragging rights...I want games to run without a hitch for like two years. I don't mean today's games, I mean Direct X 10 generation games, with complex phsyics, ect.

I am going to rule out the extreme edition based on the comments in this thread. It is silly to throw that much money into a gaming machine anyway. The sweet spot is obviously the E6700 and E6600. So what kind of overclocks can I expect from the E6700 and E6600? I will probably stick a vapochill micro cpu cooler on there, and I'll also be using a top of the line Silverstone TJ07 case with great airflow.

 

[RichPLS]

On air, rather easily, up to 3.6GHz, and maybe slightly higher...

 

[RichPLS]

That is with mobo and mem planning, as to select good quality components...

 

[gOJDO]

But the E6700 is as good a performer as the E6800, but at much better pricing... It is just that the E6600 is at very much better pricing!

Yes Rich, but E6700 has bad price/performance ratio. Consider that everything else remains the same and the overall system performance that E6700 can offer over E6600 is lower than the clock difference(<11%), but the overall system price will be higher than that that(>11%).
And for overclocking it is a question of luck between any E6600 and any E6700, which will be stable OCed at higher freqency than the other.

 

[RichPLS]

Right, I understood from the start... But some OC's like starting with higher speed and multiplier, either way, they will top out within 100MHz of one another, even with the E6800... just one costs more... Thus it is preference, and either the E6600 or E6700 are better choice chips, with the E6600 being just a better choice. But any Conroe is a better deal comparing to AMD's offerings... so better is relative!