Budget Gaming Machine E5200 Vs. E7300 Vs. E8400

I guess some of this will depend on what the rest of your system looks like, and what you intend to do with this system. Are you into PC Gaming?

Obviously the e8400 is the best chip of those three. That sucker is an absolute machine for gaming purposes, and OC's very well from what I've seen on these forums. The benefits of this chip would be the higher FSB (1333) and the 6MB cache. For gaming situations those would both come in handy. Problem here is, this thing is over the budget you set.

With a stock speed of 3Ghz the e8400 doesn't need much of an Overclock to allow modern video cards to perform at their peak. Games like Crysis really start to shine performance wise with a CPU of 3Ghz or faster.

That e7300 is a good chip too. Seems like I had read about really good results with the e7200 and it OC'ing really well. With a FSB of 1066 and a 3MB cache, it'll outperform the e5200. This is also at the top end of your budget of $100-$125.

The e5200 has 2MB of cache (which really isn't a lot by today's standards) and an 800Mhz FSB. It's probably a very good chip, but for gaming purposes it's probably not the best choice possible. But it's also under your budget, which might allow you to add a couple extra dollars spent elsewhere (video card) if you were upgrading anything else.

My plan was to upgrade my MOBO/Ram and CPU i have an ATi x1650 case and PSU i was planning on bringing over. if the extra money is worth putting into the 8400 chip over the 7300 chip i probably will do it i just dont want to spend that much over my budget to not gain that much performance.


Tom

The C2D's overclok very well and so long as you dont use too much voltage they wont die .

For a budget the e7300 is the choice . Manually setting fsb to 333 will get the processor to 3.33 Ghz. At that it will out perform an e8400 at stock speed . Its as simple as that [ though follow the overclocking guides on this site ]

If you use an aftermarket cooler many people have run e7300's at close to 4 GHz, but unless you already own the cpu cooler it might be cheaper to buy an e8400 in the forst place .

The motherboard sweet spot is pretty much intel p45 based boards . I like ASUS and GIGABYTE but others are ok too .

no matter the chip i choose im going with artic cooling freezer 7 pro. Stock heatsinks and fans i have had problems with in the past.

The E5200 is a good value but it seems to max out around 3.0GHz as far as an overclock goes. While the E8400 is the fastest and the best overclocker of the three, I say go with the E7300 so you can put more money towards a better motherboard or video card. No matter what CPU you go with your system will be limited by that x1650 as far as gaming goes.

with the x1650 i should beable to get world of warcraft at high settings and get better FPS than i am now im only getting 15ish FPS now

i think it is my AMD 3700+ causing the slow down(maybe it is the vid card i am not entirly sure)

I would say pick a $$ limit and build a new system. That X1650 needs to go.

Hell I would be willing to bet that you could put in a 9600GT or a 3850 in your current system and it would give you a bigger boost than putting in a new CPU with the current GPU. But I would say you need a new system.

If you don't have a lot of cash go for the E5200 and a nice MB that will OC it at least to 3Ghz then invest most of you $$ into a good video card like a 4850.

How much of a budget do you have? I know that WoW will take advantage of dual core cpu's but not sure about quad though.

Give us a budget.   Tell us what you can reuse.

i currently have

Case - Raidmax Scorpio
PSU - HEC 585w w/ 2 fans
MOBO - MSI MS-7184
CPU - AMD athlon 64 3700+(2.2ghz)
RAM - 2GB PNY PC3200(4x512mb)
VGA - HIS - ATI X1650 pro (512mb)


Im planning on buying a new HDD and Vista home premium

with everything im hoping to spend about 500$

but i figure i can reuse the case,PSU, video card, DVD-Rom drives

but everyone is now saying my X1650 is killing me so maybe i wont keep using that like i initially thought i would beable to.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-pc-marathon,...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-graphics-overcl...

I have been using these as rough outlines as well...


thanks for all the input keep it coming.
Tom

if i have to wait a few weeks and bump up to 600 or 625 (including vista home prem) i souppose i could wait.

my problem with oc'ing is i dont want to sacerfice my CPU life(however i am planning on upgrading the Heatsink and fan)

You could always try keeping your current system and upgrading the video card. The worst case scenario then is that you're not satisfied with the performance and you can carry over the new video card to a new system.

Also, I wouldn't recommend upgrading your current system to Vista, as Vista doesn't run so great on single-core CPUs. I have an almost identical system to you; I recently upgraded to 2GB RAM and the 2600XT from an X600 and 1GB RAM, and I'm pretty happy with the performance. I don't play WoW, though, so I can't say anything there.

If you have an XP license, you could put the $100 that you save into your new system; you can build a pretty nice system for ~$600. That way, you get to keep your current system intact and use it as a second computer... You could always acquire Windows through other means, though...

Save your money. If you have XP OS I would just continue to use that in a new build.

Tom's $625.00 gaming PC is a very respectable system. You could probably reuse your case but will probably need to replace the power supply.

Your system is a 939 and is a single core so you are at a dead end. Trying to get a 939 X2 processor is not really worth it they are all over priced. But if you could pick up a 939 X2 for less then 40 bucks I would say go for it and OC it then get a new video card and you would be set for a while. But that is a pipe dream.

Ebay has 939 X2 but they are all way over priced.


http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-graphics-overcl...

maybe i will just build toms 625$ system and add vista home premium too it.

I am using E5200 @ 4ghz on 1.4v on ASUS P5K-VM(G33) and it gives me 13K 3DMark06
my system is
Corsair XMS2 2gb ddr2
ASUS P5K-VM
ATI Radeon HD4830 (HIS)
E5200 OCed @ 4ghz (1.4v)
3DMARK06 score=12.7 to 13k (depends upon GPU OC)
I can play Crysis, BF Bad Company 2, GTA4 at highest settings on decent playable fps GTA4=40+FPS , BF BAD CO 2=35 to 40fps, Crysis(high)=30 to 40fps, Crysis(very high)=20 to 30fps. Resolution for all games is 1440x900 @ 75hz

Yep, the E5x00 series are very good overclockers.

I have my E5300 OCed to 3.6GHz (1GHz OC) with 1.31v and with cheap $12 air cooler, it doesn't go above 57'C in Prime95.

Ya, its totally awesome

Get quad core Q8400 instead. It costs merely $2 more than E8400.

its been 16 months since he posted the question, lets hope hes made the decision...