Core 2 Duo 6600 vs 6420

Is the 6600 worth the extra money?

  • 6600

    Votes: 10 30.3%
  • 6420

    Votes: 23 69.7%

  • Total voters
    33

realzeus

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Apr 16, 2007
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Hi guys,

I am considering building a new gaming PC on a reasonable budget. Till now, the way to go was the 6600 as it was clearly superior to the smaller 6400. With the advent of the 6420 though, which has 4 MB cache as its bigger simblings do, I am not so sure anymore. So, is it worth spending north of $100 (I live in Europe) more for a 6600 or perhaps save some money and spend the rest on a slightly better GPU (i.e. Radeon X1950 XT instead of X1950 Pro)? Tom's doesn't have the 6420 on its charts yet but thought that you boffins should know a few things. Thank you in advance. :)
 

wiley15

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Jan 9, 2007
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Not sure I would agree with the 6600 being "clearly better" than the 6400 based on it's 4MB cache (versus 2MB). Benchmarks have shown that the cache matters very little. It's the extra clock speed that makes all the difference between the two. But I don't think the 6600 is worth the premium since the 6400 overclocks fairly well.
 

Viperabyss

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Mar 7, 2006
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Hi guys,

I am considering building a new gaming PC on a reasonable budget. Till now, the way to go was the 6600 as it was clearly superior to the smaller 6400. With the advent of the 6420 though, which has 4 MB cache as its bigger simblings do, I am not so sure anymore. So, is it worth spending north of $100 (I live in Europe) more for a 6600 or perhaps save some money and spend the rest on a slightly better GPU (i.e. Radeon X1950 XT instead of X1950 Pro)? Tom's doesn't have the 6420 on its charts yet but thought that you boffins should know a few things. Thank you in advance. :)
if you're into overclocking, E6420 is the choice no doubt. overclocking Core 2 are so easy that the conventional jumper tweaking overclocking is completely obsolete. however, if you're not, E6600 will be suitable for you.

in terms of GPU, i would suggest you getting a DX10 card (nVidia's G80/ ATi's R600). those cards will be more compatible in the future. plus Geforce 8800GTS 320mb is actually cheaper than X1950XTX, while perform better than X1900XTX.

you can wait for ATi's R600, which is slated to launch by 23rd of April.
 

wiley15

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But if your not overclocking would it be worth it then???????

Depends how cost sensitive you are. In Canada the 6600 is about 35% more expensive than the 6400 for about a 10 - 15% increase in speed. If you can afford, it great if you'd rather save a few bucks then the 6400 (of course the same argument first to a less extent for 6400 vs. 6300).
 

realzeus

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Rock: Thanks for the heads up, interesting read. I knew that there were price reductions down the line but not exactly when. Unfortunately, in Europe prices are much higher and so is the price difference between modells compared to the US, thus the $100 overhead; the price cut will be sweet anyhow though and certainly worth waiting for.

Wiley15: Well, I did not mean to imply that the 6600 is faster than the 6400 based on its larger cache momery size alone; I was rather saying that perhaps with the larger cache of the 6420, the latter could close the gap a bit and thus become a smarter choice. It seems not though.

I am not into overclocking as it shortens the lifespan of the CPU (electron migration and the lot). It happened to me on a Celeron several years ago. After 5 years who cares you might ask, but I do since I tend to keep my old PCs for secondary use - if they still work that is.

Viperabyss: The 8800GTS is in another league altogether but so is its price compared to the X1950 Pro and X1950 XT (not the XTX). The new 8600 GTS though seems like a good and reasonably priced GPU and I will give it some serious though. Don't know exactly how good it is though, benches anyone?

All in all, it seems that the 6600 is the better choice but even with a 6420 I shouldn't be too bad off. And better to splash out on a faster GPU rather than a faster CPU given than I intend to use the rig for games more than video editing, right?

Any thoughts?

Cheers.
 

epsilon84

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Oct 24, 2006
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It's a toss up, if you are overclocking, then the E6420 is the better choice (from a value POV) as they are essentially the same chips with different multipliers, 8x vs 9x. Of course at stock speeds the E6600 is better.

I wouldn't worry about electromigration too much, Intel is binning their CPUs very conservatively - the lower end chips have a LOT of untapped headroom.
As long as you don't raise the Vcore, it should have negligible effect on the longevity of your chip. Most C2Ds can reach ~3GHz at stock volts. Since a ~3GHz C2D @ stock volts is virtually no different to a stock 2.93GHz X6800, you either worry about electromigration on both, or you don't worry at all. I'm opting for the latter. ;)

Btw, after the April 22 pricecuts, the E6600 will only be $40 more than the E6420. Official pricing is $224 for the E6600 and $183 for the E6420.
 

realzeus

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It's a toss up, if you are overclocking, then the E6420 is the better choice (from a value POV) as they are essentially the same chips with different multipliers, 8x vs 9x. Of course at stock speeds the E6600 is better.

I wouldn't worry about electromigration too much, Intel is binning their CPUs very conservatively - the lower end chips have a LOT of untapped headroom.
As long as you don't raise the Vcore, it should have negligible effect on the longevity of your chip. Most C2Ds can reach ~3GHz at stock volts. Since a ~3GHz C2D @ stock volts is virtually no different to a stock 2.93GHz X6800, you either worry about electromigration on both, or you don't worry at all. I'm opting for the latter. ;)

Btw, after the April 22 pricecuts, the E6600 will only be $40 more than the E6420. Official pricing is $224 for the E6600 and $183 for the E6420.


What you say about o/c makes sense but you know how awkward it feels to push your new baby like that... kind of like red-lining a non-run in car. On the matter of the price cut though, such a small difference should settle this for good. The 6600 will make perfect sense and and you can always o/c that too (midly as we better play it safe) if the need arises in the future. I trust that a modest o/c is capable even with a 965 chipset.
 

epsilon84

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It's a toss up, if you are overclocking, then the E6420 is the better choice (from a value POV) as they are essentially the same chips with different multipliers, 8x vs 9x. Of course at stock speeds the E6600 is better.

I wouldn't worry about electromigration too much, Intel is binning their CPUs very conservatively - the lower end chips have a LOT of untapped headroom.
As long as you don't raise the Vcore, it should have negligible effect on the longevity of your chip. Most C2Ds can reach ~3GHz at stock volts. Since a ~3GHz C2D @ stock volts is virtually no different to a stock 2.93GHz X6800, you either worry about electromigration on both, or you don't worry at all. I'm opting for the latter. ;)

Btw, after the April 22 pricecuts, the E6600 will only be $40 more than the E6420. Official pricing is $224 for the E6600 and $183 for the E6420.


What you say about o/c makes sense but you know how awkward it feels to push your new baby like that... kind of like red-lining a non-run in car. On the matter of the price cut though, such a small difference should settle this for good. The 6600 will make perfect sense and and you can always o/c that too (midly as we better play it safe) if the need arises in the future. I trust that a modest o/c is capable even with a 965 chipset.

Sounds like a plan, you seem a bit nervous about overclocking so the E6600 is probably the 'safer' option in your case. ;)

P965 chipsets are capable of far more 'unmodest' overclocking than you may expect, btw. LOL
 

realzeus

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Epsilo84: It depends on the price cut (hopefully it is going to be that much on retail and it is going to pass on to the market soon) but yeah, that's the general plan. Do you reckon that under its stock cloak the P965 is an overclocking gem? LOL!

Dobby: If it is like the old Celerons and Celerons A of the late 90s then that could be the trend but I think that they have much faster cache than the old Celerons did so it should not be a problem; after all E6600 and upward models don't have difficulties in that shape and form when o/c.