E4500 v E6700

[pointy shadow]

Right, further to my last question about Dual Core CPUs I have a question about the E4500 and E6700.

The E4600 (allendale) has 2mb cache and runs at 2.4ghz.
The E6700 (conroe) has 4mb cache and runs at 2.67ghz.

I know that there is obviously a difference in cache size and fsb between the chips but would there be much of an actual performance difference between the chips if all I do is encode divx films and uncompress rar sets?

I have no inclination to overclock and I will be coming from a P4 3.2 Prescott CPU - will I notice much of a difference coming from my 3.2 if I decided to go for the E4600 rather than the E6700 which is a hell of a lot more expensive?

I will probably upgrade in Q3 08 where I will probably go quad core but at the moment I am just looking for a performance upgrade to my PC.

Thanks for any help offered

 

[Duke]

FSB and Cache help, but don't make a huge difference. For your board I would go for the E4600 and overclock - it isn't that hard do it and you could have it sat there at 3.0ghz. Personally though I would swap the board and straight to a Q6600.

 

[pointy shadow]

Thanks Duke but I really do not want to o/c the CPU as my mobo doesnt allow overclocking.

 

[Talrinys]

You're gonna want the benefit of the Conroe then, no doubt.

 

[Duke]

Yeah go for the E6700 and keep it a bit longer, until it is worth going for another jump in performance

 

[pointy shadow]

The thing is the E6700 is nearly double the price of the E4500.

Does the extra cache justify being double the price?

 

[Captain_Slick]

Surely the E6750 would be a better buy? It's a nudge over £100, has 4MB cache, pretty much matches the E6700 in everything.

Or have I missed something on the D6700 that makes it super powerful?

 

[CyZMyAssBaby]

The difference is the cache.

Thats about it.

 

[Duke]

Surely the E6750 would be a better buy? It's a nudge over £100, has 4MB cache, pretty much matches the E6700 in everything.

Or have I missed something on the D6700 that makes it super powerful?

The E6750 has 1333FSB, which the OPs motherboard does not support.. which is why he is weighing up the E4500 (800) and E6700 (1066) You do pay a bit more for the 'older' 1066 chips, which is why I suggested to get a new board & Q6600.

 

[Captain_Slick]

Yeah, but everywhere where I've looked the E6700 is much more expensive, usually around the £200~ mark.

Out of the E6750 and the Q6600, it depends what you want to do. If you mainly do gaming and stuff like that, the E6750 is probably the better buy since you won't see that much increased performance with the more expensive Q6600. Likewise, if you do a lot of decoding etc, then the extra money spent on the Q6600 will be well spent.