I was thinking of getting the 6400+ until someone here suggested the 5000+ Black Edition OC'd in order to put the extra cash in the GPU.

The questions are :

• 1a. Will I notice any differences between the two? Assuming that the 5000+ is clocked at 3.10ghz(or higher) and the 6400+ at stock. (Taking in mind that I don't game regularly on the PC but I encode video files a lot)
• 1b. Is it safe with my setup to OC the 5000+ more than 3.10?
• 1c. Can I OC the 6400+ as easily as the unlocked 5000+?

I also noticed that the 6400+ uses more watts than the 5000+ Black Edition.
Does that mean that the 6400+ will take the temperatures higher? Maybe I will need a better cooler?

These will probably be the additional components :

• ZALMAN CNPS8700 LED CPU-FAN SKT-775/AM2/939/940
• ASUS M2N-E NF500 SLI S-AM2 ATX
• CORSAIR 2GB DDR2 PC6400 XMS2 XTREME (2X1GB) CAS4

And thanks for taking the time to go through all that reading!

1a:X2 5000 is @ 2.6Ghz , X2 6400 is @ 3.2, u can easily OC a X2 5000 to reach X2 6400 or higher, but if u dont OC a X2 5000 , the difference is noticeable

1b:With good cooling , i say u can reach 3.2 or even more (like 3.3 or 3.4)

1c:no, because black edition has unlocked multiplier and will OC easier

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] b6400%252b
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103194

Differences between 6400+ & 5000+:
2MB VS 1MB CACHE
90nm vs 65nm
Locked vs unlocked multiplier

Important: Black does NOT come with a cooler. You need to get an AM2 one.

We have a member here who o/c's 6400+. Not sure if it's black though. He can tell you more about the cpu.

I o/c's the 5000+. Max stable is 3.3ghz. Right now 3ghz at stock volts.

What do you mean by safe? For 24-7 operation? 3ghz at stock volts would be safest. All I do in bios is to disable C 'n Q & spread spectrums, set up ram timings & volt, & up the cpu mutliplier to 15 (x 200 = 3ghz).

The parts you listed are quite good. If you want best o/c, go with 590 SLI.

Firstly thank you for taking the time to read through and reply.

Yes by safest i mean 24/7 stable operation.

Is the double L2 cache advantage the 6400+ has over the 5000+ significant and noticeable in everyday use like Games, apps, encoding video etc. ?

The most important question now is

• What is better for general performance? 2 Raptors36gb in Raid 0 and the 5000+ clocked at 3ghz? Or 1 Raptor36gb and the 6400+? And how big the difference will be?

more cache doesnt make alot of difference

More cache doesn't make a big difference in everyday operation. However, it will show in benchmarks & time-consuming tasks as such video encoding, etc. Still not a big difference.

IMO, the point of overclocking is to get a cheap part & o/c it to or above a more expensive counterpart. i.e. o/c 5000+ to 6400+ speed or faster.

Dunno much about Raptors. You can ask in the storage forum.

hands down anything in RAID0 will perform better then a non RAID counterpart by a huge margin ~>75%

there are some risks with RAID 0 though... i.e if you loose one drive you loose all your data.. but that can be fixed with regular backups
don't let RAID intimidate you. it is quiet eazy to setup and the performance is there... for instance lastnight I setup a new RAID0 (minimum 2 disks)on my system 20minutes flat (from raid config to desktop) to install vista ultimate I almost shat my pants.

RAID 10 (minimum 3 disks) is alright.... a little less write performance (not too noticable) as it has to write to 2(or more) disks at once and provides fault tolerence

RAID 5 (minimum 3 disks) IMO is where its at.... great write/read speeds and great fault tolerance (you need to replace a failed drive as soon as possible, but I would think thats a given)

here hope this helps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#Standard_RAID_levels

as for the CPU half of the question get the 5000+ G2 stepping is great for OC'n and 65nm means less power loss (heat) at lower volts

Cheers!