Pentium E5200

[Felixmagician]

Why is E5200 sold at almost the same price as E2200 or E2180? E2220 even seems to be more expensive than E5200.

5200 has twice the amount of cache than all other Pentium DCore processors and also the highest clock speed 2.5 GHz.
It is also the only Pentium that is of the new 45nm architecture.

Am I missing something here or is E5200 a bargain?

 

[4745454b]

Let me see if I can answer this. (the math won't be right, but you should get the general idea.) CPUs are made on wafers, currently 300mm2 big. If you have a CPU made on the 65nm process, lets pretend this chip is 100mm big. (this is where my math goes wrong.) Lets say they get 9 chips per wafer. If you shrink down to 45, the size gets cut ~ in 1/2. This allows them to get 18 out of each wafer, making the cost per CPU cheaper. This also allows them to sell each CPU cheaper, as they don't need to sell as many per wafer to recover the cost of making them. (if you know the math, feel free to correct me.)

Also remember that as a Fab shrinks to a lower size, they can't continue to make the older chips. If you are making CPUs at 45nm, they can't also make the older 65nm chips. This is the nice thing about computers. Not only do they get faster and smaller, but cheaper to.

I don't remember enough about the 5200, but it might be mostly other chips cut down to something else. Some chips come out ok, but have defects in the CPU. If the defect is in the L2 cache, you can disable that part, and sell it as something else. Thats what the old 6300/6400 were.

 

[apache_lives]

Why is E5200 sold at almost the same price as E2200 or E2180? E2220 even seems to be more expensive than E5200.

5200 has twice the amount of cache than all other Pentium DCore processors and also the highest clock speed 2.5 GHz.
It is also the only Pentium that is of the new 45nm architecture.

Am I missing something here or is E5200 a bargain?

its replacing the E2xxx at the same price point, and every generation is better so

 

[zenmaster]

Yes, the E5200 is a bargain.

As Apache points out, the E5200 is replacing the E2xxx series.
The reason the older series is more is that Intel has likely stopped producing those chips or making fewer runs to the supply is less.

Some folks with older Mobos may not be able to use the newer chips due to an outdated BIOS. The result is that the older slower chips are actually more expensive. That is actually quite common to see some older chips actually cost more than current faster chips.

 

[Shadow703793]

+1 for above posters.

 

[NewLCD123]

Probably because 65nm is all the older mobos will support. DDR1 memory actually costs more than DDR2 and the same cards in AGP cost more than PCI-E. It's easy to upgrade one component of an older computer without having to spend $ to build a whole new computer. Personally is why once newer hardware becomes cheaper, I simply start over with a new computer and sell my old computer as a whole system or part it out to cover much of the costs of a new one

 

[epsilon84]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2duo-e7300-pdc-e5200.html

It's a bargain. Time to forget the E2000 chips for good.

 

[wh3resmycar]

and considering it can reach 4ghz... thats a peugeot with a ferrari engine. bargain indeed.

 

[NewLCD123]

Show me a e5200 that hits 4GHz at 1.4v or less on air cooling. Most ive seen max around 3.5GHz unless you go nuts on the volts.

 

[epsilon84]

Show me a e5200 that hits 4GHz at 1.4v or less on air cooling. Most ive seen max around 3.5GHz unless you go nuts on the volts.

Xbitlabs got 3.8GHz with 1.4V, which is still very respectable. Not quite as good as the E7200, but close enough to make it a worthwhile alternative considering the price.

 

[NewLCD123]

That was a very lucky overclock for an e5200. Usually you need an e8400 for 4GHz. Ive seen e8600s hit 4.5GHz in the 1.3v to 1.4v range on air cooling! Still 3.2GHz to 3.6GHz below 1.4v on a sub $100 e5200 can't be beat, it's half the price of e8400 and less than a third of e8600!

 

[epsilon84]

That was a very lucky overclock for an e5200. Usually you need an e8400 for 4GHz. Ive seen e8600s hit 4.5GHz in the 1.3v to 1.4v range on air cooling! Still 3.2GHz to 3.6GHz below 1.4v on a sub $100 e5200 can't be beat, it's half the price of e8400 and less than a third of e8600!

Many E7200s can hit 4GHz too. I won't say its a very lucky overclock for the E5200, maybe slightly above average but nothing more.

 

[NewLCD123]

Id like to see you link me to an e5200 doing 4GHz superPI 1m pass at 1.4v or less. I read the OC database and have seen none. Even an e8400 only has a 50% chance of 4GHz stable at 1.4v or less air cooled. The e8600s are the top of the top of the bin and those are the ones almost always hitting over 4GHz. The 5200s are the bottom bin. If I buy one of those, id be hoping for 3.5GHz but not expecting that. One guy couldn't get much above 3GHz. Oh and theres the fsb wall, none will hit 400fsb and some won't even hit 333fsb. At least with the 12.5x multi, the fsb wall isn't a big concern as long as you can live with 333fsb being a realistic expectation.(333x10 for 3.33GHz is reasonable)