Confused E6850, or E6700 why is the 2.67GHz more $$ than the 3.00GHz

[JameMore]

Hi Guys I am helping my old man with a PC upgrade and need your help as I am way out of touch with the current CPU trend and in need a bit of a hand with the build and what to get.

I picked up a Asus P5B Deluxe P5B DELUX motherboard for him a few weeks back and now looking for the processor, he is not a gamer but is in to his video editing nothing to hardcore but he is starting to get in to the higher end video packages so needs a bit of power.

The motherboard says it supports the following processor specs

Processor
· Intel Quad-core CPU Ready
· LGA775 socket for Intel Core 2 Extreme / Core 2 Duo / Pentium Extreme / Pentium D / Pentium 4 / Celeron D Processors
· Compatible with Intel 05B/05A/06B processors
· Intel Hyper-Threading Technology ready
· Intel P965 / ICH8R with Intel Fast Memory Access Technology


Based on that I was looking at either the

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 "LGA775 Conroe" 3.00GHz (1333FSB) £143.99

or the

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.67GHz £193.86

Now because its been so many years since I had to buy a CPU I am a little lost, first I guess could some one confirm that these would work in the Asus P5B Deluxe the next question is why is the 2.67GHz more money that the 3.00GHz I would have through it would have been the other way round ?

If some one could let me know about these CPUs that would be great

 

[Duke]

Hi there

Both are very good chips. The reason why the E6850 is cheaper, is due to it being part of the revised range. The first Core 2 Duo chips that came out had 1066FSB and the new range have 1333FSB. There isn't a great deal of performance difference at the same speed - maybe 5% gain. Intel have not dropped the price of the original chips, I don't know why but suspect they are more popular with OEM builders as they don't need as fast RAM and are more compatible - i.e. they work in all Core 2 Duo motherboards. The newer chips will only work in a board that supports the 1333FSB, or some models need a BIOS update to work.

Either way the E6850 is very fast, but you can get the Quad 2 Duo chip for not much more, so I would personally go for that.

 

[Vir]

Agreed with Duke, if you want E6700 successor with the 1333Mhz FSB you'd have to go for the E6750 which is cheaper then both E6850 and E6700. If you're planning on spending that kind of money go for the Q6600 (quad) or get some E21x0 and wait for januari when the penryn comes out

regards

 

[Justintime]

Hi there

Intel have not dropped the price of the original chips, .

Well they have by quite a bit too but not to the level of current '50' chips.

 

[Duke]

Very true

 

[JameMore]

Thanks Guys for the info and thanks Duke for the reason on the costing, I did not think the motherboard would support Quad core but if it does then I would be interested to get the Q6600 but now comes the other question what memory should I be looking at.

I went to crucial to take a look at there memory looking at the info given and they came back with the following.

# USB Support: 2.x Compliant
# Error Detection Support: Non-ECC only
# Chipset: Intel P965
# DDR2 SDRAM Frequencies: PC2-4200, PC2-5300, and PC2-6400
# Supported DRAM Types: DDR2 SDRAM only
# Max Unbuffered DDR2 SDRAM: 8192MB
# Module Types Supported: Unbuffered only
# Max Component Density: 1024
# Graphics Support: Dual PCI Express x16
# 240-pin DDR2 DIMM Banking: 4 (2 banks of 2)

Any recommendations on memory I was told that you have to be careful with
the memory for the Asus P5B Deluxe, He wont over clock it or have a need to and I don't want to try and get him to try and over clock it over the phone (well maybe not till I fly home some time next year)

 

[Cob]

Choose between the PC6400 Geil ULL and the PC6400 OCZ Platinum.

 

[JameMore]

Thanks Cob for you help, Is there any point in looking at 4gig of ram over 2gig as if he moves to 4gig should I look to be installing windows xp 64 rather than the 32bit version. I can't move him to vista just yet as he is the kind of guy that if you move a icon 2 pixels to the left he can not find the icon and his whole world is lost.

 

[Cob]

If he loves his video editing then even the ~3.25gb that 32bit XP allows will be of benefit.

Whilst x64 XP is a brilliant OS, it needs a different set of drivers and not all software will run on it.

 

[JameMore]

Thanks COB I think I might stay with the 2.gig for now that will keep him going to early next year, and then I will do a tiny upgrade and move him to vista and give him some more memory for a birthday gift. I know about the 64bit drivrers I had a friend who has vista 64bit and had to do a bit of tweaking to get it working with a USB headset as the drivers where not signed