Intel E5400 vs Intel E7400 vs Phenom 9750

[athlondude]

Ok folks, what should I do? I am getting ready to upgrade, and I am really torn about what I should do. On the one hand I already have an AMD ready system (MB Biostar TF560 A2+) that I could drop a phenom 9750 into, but I have not seen any great performance number on this chip, and although the board supports it I am also told that I might not get the best performance out of it because it is an Nforce board and one of the first to support phenom. I am also contemplating going with either the E5400, or E7400 Intel chips and a new mainboard. I would prefer to go with the E7400, but that is really stretching my budget, the E5400 sounds nice, but I want to make sure it will be a step up from what I am currently running which is an AMD5600+ with 1mb of L2 cache. What do you folks think?

Athlondude

 

[sprucebr1]

Either the 5400 or 7400 are better than the original Phenom chips. Though, honestly, Unless you are going back to using AMD (Phenom 2). You should go with the E5400. Or wait, Intel will have "i5" out soon. These should work just as well as "i7" but should be cheaper. I've also heard something about a new "P55" chipset. I would say either wait a few months, or go with the E5400 + P45 if you need something now. Anything Intel (45nm) will be better at this point.

 

[loneninja]

The E5400 would be better than your X2 5600 but I don't think it'll be a very large upgrade unless you intend to overclock.

 

[orangegator]

I would not get a phenom chip. The phenom II are good, but I doubt your motherboard supports it. And for the cost of a new motherboard and cpu, it's not worth it to upgrade to the e5400 or e7400. If I were you I'd just buy a descent heatsink and overclock the 5600+ to 3.2Ghz or higher.

 

[erdinger]

You're comparing a Phenom quad core with intel dual cores..

Why not buy a Phenom X2 720 it's cheap and beats the E5400/7400!
I'm not sure if your Motherboard would support it but i think so....

If it supports it go for the X2 720 it's cheaper then the Phenon 9750 and brings a better overall performance.

Otherwise I would take the E5200 and overlock to 3.3ghz+ (i think every chip would make 3.3)

 

[athlondude]

Not worrying too much about overclocking, or even trying to gain FPS, its more about not losing FPS in top end games like Crysis or FarCry2. Those games run great as long as there isn't much going on, but Crysis will take a huge drop in FPS when getting into some serious action, and while FarCry2 doesn't drop much, it does start dipping below the 30FPS limit I want to maintain. I am thinking that is because of the 1MB of cache that my current CPU has. My Video card is fine, I have a GTX 260, so the bottleneck must be my CPU.

 

[athlondude]

You're comparing a Phenom quad core with intel dual cores..

Why not buy a Phenom X2 720 it's cheap and beats the E5400/7400!
I'm not sure if your Motherboard would support it but i think so....

If it supports it go for the X2 720 it's cheaper then the Phenon 9750 and brings a better overall performance.

Otherwise I would take the E5200 and overlock to 3.3ghz+ (i think every chip would make 3.3)

Unfortunately it doesn't support it, and Biostar's support staff aren't forthcoming with much info on wether or not it will be added later on or not. Right now I am just trying to get the best I can without pushing the boundaries of my budget.

 

[The Third Level]

How much is your budget?
Because if you're planning on buying a new Intel mobo + E7400 i'd recommend saving a little more and getting an AM3 or AM2+ mobo + Phenom II X3 720 BE

 

[athlondude]

Trying to keep it real low, like around $170.00. I have found some descent deals on both the E5400 and the E7400, but the new phenom chips require so much more power and are considerabley more expensive, that unless I find a super awesome deal on them, I'm not really considering them.

 

[sprucebr1]

If its about Crysis and Far Cry 2, then don't worry about a CPU, save for a better GPU and RAM. As long as you have a dual core, games a more dependent on GPU's now more than ever. Check out a 4830, or 4850 if you care about FPS in Crysis. 4850 + 4GB RAM would be more than enough to take these games. Try these: 9800GT,GTS250,GTX260core216,HD4830(if you can find one),HD4850,HD4870,HD4890, or HD4670.

 

[athlondude]

I have a GTX 260 core 216, Just stepped up to it thinking this would solve the problem but it didn't. Most every game runs great with absolutely no issues. The only games that have given me any grief are Microsoft Flight Sim X, Sacred 2, Crysis, FarCry 2, basically anything new that REALLY pushes your PC. With all those games I noticed almost no improvement. Now I did have to RMA the card because it did end up being defective, so when I get it back there is a chance that I may not need to upgrade at all, in fact that is what I am hoping for. Trust me I do not look forward to the R&R routine. But if that isn't the case then the only other thing I can do is try a different CPU, or Mainboard and CPU.

 

[athlondude]

Also, Having 4Gb of ram does you no good if your running a 32 bit OS. I currently have 3 Gb of ram and then of course 896 mb on my video card, so even with that some of my ram is useless anyway.

 

[orangegator]

If you don't want the gtx 260 to be bottlenecked, then you'll need to either overclock a cheaper cpu, or spend money on a high end core2 duo, core2 quad, or phenom II. Original phenoms will not help. But an X2 overclocked to 3.2Ghz will not be a bottleneck much, if any.

 

[athlondude]

Yes but is overclocking a cheap CPU going to make a whole lot of difference if it doesn't have the cache to back it up? I mean the 5600+ I have now is far above the recommended specs of all those games, and it still struggles. I'm just not sure that faster willl be better, rather than something similar that has more cache to it. Do you see what I am saying?

 

[jitpublisher]

More raw mhz is better for gaming. Don't worry too much about the cache, it'll help but it won't make a world of difference. Since you are wanting to do something different anyway, crank that ol X2 up a few notches and see what happens.

 

[athlondude]

Tried that, It's a locked CPU, and the board doesn't allow for much head room. I got it up around 3.1 GHZ for a while and it did next to nothing for performance. I don't know, I have looked at alot of different reviews on processors and seen alot of charts and benchmarks and the only real difference I see is that with the exception of the old phenoms, the cpus with the large cache have better marks. Like the C2D E7400 has almost always won out over the top of the line Athlon x2 CPU. The E7400 runs at 2.8 GHZ and has 3 mb of L2 cache on a 45 nm die, the AMD Athlon 64 x2 6400+ runs at 3.2 GHZ and has 2 mb of L2 cache on a 90 nm die, and loses. I imagine that the cache doesn't mean everything, but if that is not the reason for the difference then something has to be. I just want to know what that is so I know what to look for.

 

[orangegator]

Obviously, you have yourself convinced that biggest cashe = best cpu. Since you don't want to listen to the advice people are giving you, buy a cpu with the biggest cache size you can afford and be happy.

 

[athlondude]

LOL, no not at all, I am merely looking at the information I have available to me. If I could afford it I would buy all of the ones that I have in question and see for myself. Unfortunately I can't do that. What I do know is that as far as my system goes, my 5600+ isn't cutting it, not even when overclocking it. I know my video card is fine, the ram is fine, the board is ok (questionable). What I have for a CPU right now is not going to cut it, and I am looking to upgrade. According to the information I have looked at raw MHZ alone isn't the deciding factor, I don't know if its cache size, the size of the die, or the instruction set. I am trying to balance all three and get the best that I can with what I have. Obviosly I am not going to go and plunk down a pile of money on something that is terribly slow with a massive amount of cache, nor am I going to get a cpu with crazy fast MHZ and then poor or outdated instruction sets. It all has to balance. Although you don't think I have listened to the advice the folks have given me, I indeed have and I appreciate it. Unfortunately as I stated in the beginning I am wanting to get away from what I have because it is not performing up to my expectations, and while several posters seem to think that merely cranking up the MHZ is the thing to do, I am past that point. I do not want to spend money on something and then end up in the same boat I am in now.