Hi
i am planing on getting a gigabyte GA-965p-DS3
and i want a good processor for it
there is e6400 and e6420 they are the same price..
what is the difference?

i have a 450 PSU
7300 GS
2 GB RAM 800 hz

6400 is the Allendale core with 2MB of cache and the 6420 is the Conroe core with 4MB of cache. Get the e6420 it's much better than the e6400. They are new and just came out.

Nope. E6400 is Conroe with half the cache disabled. E4300 is Allendale


Fire_storm:

If you are planning on running stock speeds the E6600 came down and are only about 40 bucks more then E64x0. If you are overclocking I'd say E6420.

i want to overclock it slightly but mostly will be stock speed, but if i chose between e6400 and e6420 which should i pick?

Review sites have already pushed E6420s up to 3.7, so they are already showing to be great OC'ers. Where I live 6420s are the same price as 6400s, so you might as well get an extra 2MB cache for free

For the same price, get the E6420. Mo' cache, the better.

Though, I think the E6600 would be a better deal if you don't plan on doing a lot of oc'ing. And it has a higher multiplier if do you plan on oc'ing.

This isn't entirely true. Since chips are largely similar except and multipliers and FSB(stock). It is entirely more common for someone to look for a motherboard first as the processor they'll choose will cary more in price and be decided last second depending on prices.

I would say the 6420.
Same as the 6400 except with full 4MB of cache.
The extra cache will help minorly, except in encoding heavy CPU intensive tasks.

Someone mentioned that perhaps with less and only 2MB cache there might be less heat and allow higher overclocking but that would have to be tested and I wouldn't bet money on that theory.

Enjoy your 6420.