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Core2Duo Question

Essentially it wont. 2mb of cache vs 6mb of cache means the e5300 is never going to be as good as the e8400.

It's possible that a 4ghz e5300 will outpace an e8400, but I wouldn't count on it. Given you can clock the e8400 to rather over 3ghz, the e5300 is cheaper for good reason.
 
JonJ678 said:
Essentially it wont. 2mb of cache vs 6mb of cache means the e5300 is never going to be as good as the e8400.

It's possible that a 4ghz e5300 will outpace an e8400, but I wouldn't count on it. Given you can clock the e8400 to rather over 3ghz, the e5300 is cheaper for good reason.
Click to expand...

Surely that can't be right? That extra 4MB cache is worth a full GHz?
 
Its not so much a 4mb increase is worth that much, but 2mb is tiny and really cripples the CPU, whereas 6mb is pretty average.
Jon was saying the e8400 will clock much further too.
 
BIGBC said:
Its not so much a 4mb increase is worth that much, but 2mb is tiny and really cripples the CPU, whereas 6mb is pretty average.
Jon was saying the e8400 will clock much further too.
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Cool thanks for the info.

I wasn't comparing them directly, was just wondering what kind of clocks you would need on it for it to run like an E8400 stock.
 
It doesn't work like that. For cache limited things no amount of clock speed will let it catch up with the e8400. For things that are in no sense cache limited it'll be the same once at 3ghz. In practice nothing is either of these extremes, so the clock speed required to match it will vary with use. Since you specify gaming, the cache is very important and the e5300 is never going to catch the e8400.

Three times the cache is worth well over an extra ghz. Anything the processor has stored in cache it doesn't have to calculate again. I suppose in the limiting case of entirely cache limited you would need 3 times the cpu speed to make up for having 1/3 the cache of the e8400, but you will never run an e5300 at 9ghz. A few of them make it to 4ghz, but nothing like all. Even then they run at low fsb, meaning low ram speeds and poorer system memory bandwidth which is again important for games.

Onboard cache is expensive, not just because it improves performance but in terms of manufacturing (and possibly design) costs. The e7*00 series is a compromise at 3mb of cache.

Sorry for the bad news
 
Yep, its a bit like the new q9505 s775 cpu intel have brought out, half the cache of a q9550, same clockspeed of 2.83ghz, but $10.00 cheaper, intel should be looking at droping the price of the q9550/9650.
 
JonJ678 said:
It doesn't work like that. For cache limited things no amount of clock speed will let it catch up with the e8400. For things that are in no sense cache limited it'll be the same once at 3ghz. In practice nothing is either of these extremes, so the clock speed required to match it will vary with use. Since you specify gaming, the cache is very important and the e5300 is never going to catch the e8400.

Three times the cache is worth well over an extra ghz. Anything the processor has stored in cache it doesn't have to calculate again. I suppose in the limiting case of entirely cache limited you would need 3 times the cpu speed to make up for having 1/3 the cache of the e8400, but you will never run an e5300 at 9ghz. A few of them make it to 4ghz, but nothing like all. Even then they run at low fsb, meaning low ram speeds and poorer system memory bandwidth which is again important for games.

Onboard cache is expensive, not just because it improves performance but in terms of manufacturing (and possibly design) costs. The e7*00 series is a compromise at 3mb of cache.

Sorry for the bad news
Click to expand...

I was under the impression that gaming was not very cache-dependent?

http://translate.google.com/transla...refox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=pSu

If you have a look where they're comparing the E7200 vs. the 8200 (both at 2.66) there's no difference in the CoD2 benchmarks whatsoever, it's the same for most of the rest of the gaming benchmarks with AoE3 being the only one presenting any increase (10%.)

This is 3MB vs. 6MB, that's double the cache.
 
Perhaps it isn't, I'm not (yet) a gamer so am a bit hazy on exactly how systems balance out for it. I've certainly seen it written that the cache on the e5200 cripples it for gaming.

I do know that your link involves an 8800gt and very old games. This means extrapolating the results to modern games is a risky business and unlikely to be reliable. However I am assuming you're interested in first person shooters since they're either the most popular or the most vocal. I'm playing warcraft 3 at the moment and I'm pretty sure it'll run beautifully on anything I could buy new today
 
pig_dog said:
What kind of frequency would an E5300 need to be running at to match an E8400 in gaming benchmarks?
Click to expand...
Some folks say each extra 1MB of cache is worth an extra 100MHz, I think it varies between 50MHz to 100MHz so a 2MB cache chip running at approx 3.2GHz to 3.6GHz will perform at a similar level to a stock E8400 (assuming the former is also using a 333MHz-FSB).

I certainly don't think 2MB cache cripples a chip, I can't tell the difference between a 2MB cache and 6MB cache chip outside of benchmarks! :p
 
Very true big.wayne, ive used an e6600, q6600 and a q9550, cache or no cache the graphics card makes a lot of difference, ive used 6800gt's in sli, 7800gtx in sli, 7900gt's in sli, 8800gts 640, 8800gts 512 and gtx 280, graphics cards definitely make the difference nowadays in games, as an example, someone on the boards here the other night was complaining about performance in arma2 with a dual core e6400 and a 4870, apparenty this game likes quads, well i can confirm there aint much difference from a high clocked quad from a dual core, i average about 35fps in that game with a gtx 280 at 1920x1200, most settings on high.
 
Sasahara said:
There also a big difference in number of transitors

E5300 has 228 million

E8500 has 410 million

That has a big impact on performance.
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That difference is because of the cache. Big L2 caches mean lots of extra transistors, which is why cutting the cache size is the first thing Intel do when producing budget CPUs.

I certainly wouldn't say that the 2MB cache would cripple the E5300. Cache does make a substantial difference in some games, but it's nothing that couldn't be balanced out with a few hundred extra MHz. Chips with very small caches do tend to struggle (e.g. Celeron), but historically speaking 2MB is still fairly big. It's only in the last couple of generations that caches have got so massive.
 
I've had a E2160, E4400 and now a Xeon E3110 (E8400) and to be honest, the E2200/E4400's at 3.2 / 3.4Ghz are about the same as a E8400 @ stock 3Ghz for gaming... That's my personal experience with these chips and games like CoD4/WoW/Crysis/Fear 2
 
Have a read of my E5200 thread here. There are direct comparisons of E2000/4000/5000/6000/8000 series Intel dual core cpu's at various clockspeeds so you can see for yourself.
 
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