Help needed! E5200 vs E7300 vs E8400

[asdf634]

First of all hi everyone!

I want to upgrade from my cappy Skt939 3500+... but I can't decide which CPU to buy!!

How well will those chips overclock? I intend to get a Artic Freezer 7 Pro. From what I gathered on the web the E5200 seems to have a ~330FSB wall... what about E7300 and E8400?

I know the prices for those chips are quite different. So is the extra dough worth the cache?

Also I got a 280GTX, will the E5200 bottleneck it?

As for the motherboard, I'm thinking of getting either Gigabyte EP45-DS3 or Gigabyte EP45-DS3L (only $3 USD difference, the latter being cheaper). Which one will be better to get?

Lastly, any recommandation for the ram?

Thanks in advance!!

P.S. I live in New Zealand so those newegg links will be useless to me...

 

[evongugg]

If you want to keep the socket 939, get a AMD Opteron 185 Denmark 2.6GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 110W Dual-Core Processor if your mobo supports it. Very overclockable.
The GTX280 will be slightly bottlenecked with a e5200. You will be getting the maximum experience that your computer can deliver with a high end card.
e8400 would be better.
For RAM go with the qualified vendor list for your motherboard.

 

[evongugg]

Here is a comparison sheet for the motherboards. I would go with DS3L, because DDR3 is still too expensive.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_ComparisonSheet.aspx?ProductID=2852,2844

 

[fullmetall]

since your throwing around a 280, might want something that will perform with it as in the e8400 or 8500..

 

[Outlander_04]

you need more grunt to feed that gtx 280

An e5200 definitely isnt enough

I have an e7300 OC at 3.3 Ghz , it benches slightly higher than a stock e8400 so cache isnt that important in the games Im playing . I havent tried to push it higher since its doing what I need it too , and it didnt need any extra voltage to hit that figure


Have a look at AM2 940 quad core systems , with a 790 series motherboard . These are good value and the gaming potential is very good . At least as good as an intel C2Q and cheaper system cost .

 

[ShannonN]

Hi All
I have 2 systems,

I had originally a 2mth old quad core athlon system (9550) 4 GB DDR2 800 Ram coupled to a ECS 512 Mb 9600GT video card and a decent Gigabyte AM2 GA - Ma770-SEP mobo , within the last two weeks built up an Intel Dual Core E7300 to compare after reading the 7300 could oc significantly and wanting the best bang for limited buck

Obviously the mobos are different The intel having a P5Q-SE

Benchmarking using same ram, hdd and video card - over the course of the same several games etc and real world BM's I gotta admit the E7300 oc'd (stable) at 3.35 is almost double the speed in real world Bench marks and eats the athlon in Crysis, Moh airborne COD 4 and WaW I only run at 1280 x 960 on a 22 inch LCD as poor eyesight means when I go back to normal desktop use text is sooooo darn tiny :lol:

I'd have gotten the 5200 as it ocs higher but no stores had stocks left

So in my own testing i'd have to sadly recommend the intel way, this coming froma long time Athlon supporter is hard I tell you but honest

Hope this helps the OP
Shannon

 

[fullmetall]

After reading and reading on these things, E8400 is actually the best Dual core cpu out there. So if your going to go with anything and thats able to stay below budget, get it.