• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Is the E5200 the 'best bang per buck'?

Yes. The E5200 is a fantastic cpu. It is a big improvement over the E2000 and E4000 series cpus's. I have a E5200, E4300 and a E2160. I've also had a E2180. All clock to 3Ghz and beyond. The E5200 will do 4Ghz but i can't get it stable so i have settled on 3.6Ghz for the time but it has more to come. The E4300 does 3.4Ghz, the E2160 does 3.2Ghz and the E2180 did 3.6Ghz. The E5200 does it with a lot less volts and runs cooler too. It also has double the cache of the E2000 series and is based on the 45nm Wolfdale cores. Best bit of all is that i only paid £52 delivered for mine. :D:D:D
 
Just to clarify my earlier post, the E5200 for £50 or so is great bang per buck. If overclocking you might get to 4Ghz or close and it still has a decent amount of cache.

The actually speed difference between an e5200 and e8600 both running at 4Ghz is very small especially compared to the price difference.

It is the current "bang per buck" cpu.
 
I notice the AMD 5000+ can be had for £38. How much slower is it compared to the e5200? Is it worth paying £20 extra for the e5200? I genuinely want to go the Intel route. Its just that i'm a sucker for a bargain. :)
 
fozzybear said:
I genuinely want to go the Intel route. Its just that i'm a sucker for a bargain. :)
Click to expand...

If you don't go down the Intel route, you will be forever branded as a heretic on these forums.

And people will hunt you down and cause unimaginable misery to you.

Your life will be ruined.

Go towards the light.

Choose Intel.
 
fozzybear said:
I notice the AMD 5000+ can be had for £38. How much slower is it compared to the e5200? Is it worth paying £20 extra for the e5200? I genuinely want to go the Intel route. Its just that i'm a sucker for a bargain. :)
Click to expand...

yes worth every penny. I went from a dual core amd running at 3ghz not the stock speed of 2.6Ghz to albeit a q6600 running at 3.6Ghz and my framerates went up 12 fps in crysis alone.

I reckon in games not using the quad, the e5200 would be on par.

So the e5200 will be 20%+ quicker plus it will overclock way higher than you could get a AMD 5000+ to.
 
I just bought a E5200. Running at 3.5ghz easily. Thats 60-70% faster than the stock speed of 2.2Ghz!

Guessing you could probably take it 3ghz with the stock cooler in a well vented case. :)
 
Stock speed for an E5200 is 2500MHz! :)

I don't see a problem hitting 3000MHz with the punon stock cooler, even with the Q-Fan feature enabled and maxus load I was getting 65°C top temp in a case with no fans apart from one on the CPU.
 
pastymuncher said:
Yes. The E5200 is a fantastic cpu. It is a big improvement over the E2000 and E4000 series cpus's. I have a E5200, E4300 and a E2160. I've also had a E2180. All clock to 3Ghz and beyond. The E5200 will do 4Ghz but i can't get it stable so i have settled on 3.6Ghz for the time but it has more to come. The E4300 does 3.4Ghz, the E2160 does 3.2Ghz and the E2180 did 3.6Ghz. The E5200 does it with a lot less volts and runs cooler too. It also has double the cache of the E2000 series and is based on the 45nm Wolfdale cores. Best bit of all is that i only paid £52 delivered for mine. :D:D:D
Click to expand...

I ran my 6400 @ 3.8ghz 3.6ghz seems slow for this chip or am I missing something?

13hrs3.jpg
 
easyrider said:
I ran my 6400 @ 3.8ghz 3.6ghz seems slow for this chip or am I missing something?

13hrs3.jpg
Click to expand...

My E6600 does 3.8Ghz and my E4300 does 3.4Ghz but they are also 65nm cores that like higher fsb's and are more tolerant of voltages. The E5200's don't like high fsb's and because they are 45nm you have to be careful with the voltage. As other people have replied in the other thread, they are stuck at speeds as low as 3.2Ghz. Just because it's a 45nm core does'nt mean that it will hit 4Ghz. There is someone on XS that has one that does 400 fsb but it takes a stupid 1.9v to do that and at that voltage it is'nt going to last long.
 
Last edited:
My e6300 does 3.4Ghz stable and my mates e5200 only seems to like 3.3Ghz (both without going daft with the voltages!), both have 2Mb cache and because mine is running at 7x486 (1:1) compared to his 300x11 (1:1.2) I think I have the better system and wouldn't swap if I was asked.
 
Don't forget that high FSB does not necessarily mean high bandwidth these days.

Remember that the memory controller is still on the motherboard and has timings of its own.

If you have a motherboard that does not have the ability to change the tRD (aka Performance Level), then running a high FSB may actually give you lower bandwidth, as it will switch to a relaxed tRD.

If you do have the ability to change the tRD, you can run pretty much any FSB you like, tuning the tRD down to suit.
 
Also don't forget that this is a budget cpu costing £52-60 depending on where you look. The E6000 series was a lot more than that. 3.6Ghz is still coming on for a 50% overclock. I doubt that you would get the same from a similar AMD cpu.
 
Cairnsey said:
My e6300 does 3.4Ghz stable and my mates e5200 only seems to like 3.3Ghz (both without going daft with the voltages!), both have 2Mb cache and because mine is running at 7x486 (1:1) compared to his 300x11 (1:1.2) I think I have the better system and wouldn't swap if I was asked.
Click to expand...

The E6000 series has 4mb of cache actually so it would be a downgrade in your case anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom