E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" or E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz

Marky67 · 7 Jan 2007 at 11:09

Hi, looking for some help on the last few stages of building a new system, just got the CPU to finalize these are the 2 I have shortlisted: Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £215.01 inc VAT
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £111.61 inc VAT.

The thing that is swaying me with the retail "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz is it comes with a 3 year warranty, will there be much in performance diffrence to warrant nearly double the price difference with the Allandale!!

jamjar · 7 Jan 2007 at 11:25

Marky67 said:
Hi, looking for some help on the last few stages of building a new system, just got the CPU to finalize these are the 2 I have shortlisted: Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £215.01 inc VAT
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £111.61 inc VAT.

The thing that is swaying me with the retail "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz is it comes with a 3 year warranty, will there be much in performance diffrence to warrant nearly double the price difference with the Allandale!!

The E6400 is also very good

clone · 7 Jan 2007 at 11:32

I had a E6400 @ 3.5ghz no sweat,cracking chip,also the E6300 is good.

harris1986 · 7 Jan 2007 at 11:36

one quick thing will you be overclocking? if so go for the 6300/6400 i'd personally advise the 6400 through my own experiences

easyrider · 7 Jan 2007 at 11:45

The 6600 has double the cache and will alow higher clocks.

The 6300 is a great cpu the 6400 a waste of 40 quid extra.

If the 6300 is notin stock and you have the funds the 6600 is a great cpu and could see you 3.6ghz.

If you get a good one 3.8ghz

OC_A64 · 7 Jan 2007 at 12:08

easyrider said:
The 6600 has double the cache and will alow higher clocks.

The 6300 is a great cpu the 6400 a waste of 40 quid extra.

If the 6300 is notin stock and you have the funds the 6600 is a great cpu and could see you 3.6ghz.

If you get a good one 3.8ghz

Both chips should see 3.6ghz with the correct cooling and treatment. You need 515 FSB for 3.6ghz on the 6300, which is do-able on a fair few of the 965 boards with ease. P5B (whole range) won't have any problem at all hitting 500+ fsb 24/7 stable. You will however need to splash out a bit more on ram compared to the 6600 which reaches 3.6ghz @ 400 FSB. However, the money saved on the CPU and mobo (975/680i/RD600 really are the only sensible choices for a 6600) should pay for quicker ram.
Middleground would be 6400, still need a 965 board, but you can spend a little less on the ram.
The limit with the 6300's ISN'T the cpu itself, it's usually mobo related. To pull high clocks from the chips you need 600+ FSB which is hard to wring out of any board!
If you're a newcomer to overclocking, the 6600/975 or 6400/965 combo's will probably be the easier of the 2 to live with.

If you're planning on running stock then go for the E6400. It's a good middleground and won't cost the earth. Real world performance between the 6400 and 6600 is minimal, even in a gaming rig. If you couple both CPU's with a high end card like the 8800GTX it's going to be CPU limited by either of the chips (ok slightly less so the 6600 but again minimal difference)

jamjar · 7 Jan 2007 at 12:17

help please

easyrider said:
The 6600 has double the cache and will alow higher clocks.

The 6300 is a great cpu the 6400 a waste of 40 quid extra.

If the 6300 is notin stock and you have the funds the 6600 is a great cpu and could see you 3.6ghz.

If you get a good one 3.8ghz

If your not going to overclock ,which one would u go for ? and is the £40 quid more worth paying ? E6400 or E6600 ? :confused:

easyrider · 7 Jan 2007 at 12:39

jamjar said:
If your not going to overclock ,which one would u go for ? and is the £40 quid more worth paying ? E6400 or E6600 ?

If not overclocking then the 6600.

The extra cache and clock speed are worth it when running stock

easyrider · 7 Jan 2007 at 12:49

OC_A64 said:
Both chips should see 3.6ghz with the correct cooling and treatment. You need 515 FSB for 3.6ghz on the 6300, .

6300 would need a bump in voltage and would need watercooling 24/7.

I have yet to hear anyone running a 6300 @ 3.6ghz on air 24/7

OC_A64 · 7 Jan 2007 at 12:59

easyrider said:
6300 would need a bump in voltage and would need watercooling 24/7.

I have yet to hear anyone running a 6300 @ 3.6ghz on air 24/7

Running a 6600 at 3.6ghz would require the same cooling as running a 6300 at 3.6ghz. Most 6600's also need a voltage bump to run at 3.6ghz orthos stable, using that argument isn't valid imo.
I've got Orthos stable shots @ 3.45ghz (STOCK COOLER @ ~ 1.32v real) and 3.75ghz (Watercooling @ ~ 1.42v real - though this will probably add fuel to your argument that you NEED watercooling to run 3.6ghz on the 6300's see next sentance before making a comment......) This chip runs REALLY hot even under water temps were into the 70's at times, with a cooler running chip 3.7ghz aircooled wouldn't be a problem. (In fact you'd probably get 3.6 under decent air from this chip)
The only difference in terms of clocking a 6600 and a 6300 is the FSB required to reach a set speed. Cooling, voltage etc will be the same/similar between the 2 chips.

Marky67 · 7 Jan 2007 at 13:03

Thanks for the help. overclocking is a route I would like to go down, from what I have read so far on this forum most people say that E6300 is the best bang for the buck, as it has great overclocking capabilities, from what I can gather from the advise above is that if I do not want to go down the overclocking route the go for the E6600, I will be using a Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard, with GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit. Decisions :confused:

easyrider · 7 Jan 2007 at 13:04

OC_A64 said:
Running a 6600 at 3.6ghz would require the same cooling as running a 6300 at 3.6ghz. Most 6600's also need a voltage bump to run at 3.6ghz orthos stable, using that argument isn't valid imo.
I've got Orthos stable shots @ 3.45ghz (STOCK COOLER @ ~ 1.32v real) and 3.75ghz (Watercooling @ ~ 1.42v real - though this will probably add fuel to your argument that you NEED watercooling to run 3.6ghz on the 6300's see next sentance before making a comment......) This chip runs REALLY hot even under water temps were into the 70's at times, with a cooler running chip 3.7ghz aircooled wouldn't be a problem. (In fact you'd probably get 3.6 under decent air from this chip)
The only difference in terms of clocking a 6600 and a 6300 is the FSB required to reach a set speed. Cooling, voltage etc will be the same/similar between the 2 chips.

I beg to differ.

I know about the multis.

Running a chip at 70c full load is not advisable.

And saying the same vcore is required between the 6600 and the 6300 for reaching similar clocks is just not correct.

easyrider · 7 Jan 2007 at 13:07

Marky67 said:
Thanks for the help. overclocking is a route I would like to go down, from what I have read so far on this forum most people say that E6300 is the best bang for the buck, as it has great overclocking capabilities, from what I can gather from the advise above is that if I do not want to go down the overclocking route the go for the E6600, I will be using a Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard, with GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit. Decisions

With that combo go for the 6300.

with the 6600 you will have double the cache and will more likely get a stable overclock of 3.6ghz on air than you would with a 6300.But it cost's 100 quid more.

anything above 3ghz+ will be fine as it really shows you how fast the C2D compared is to K8.

At 500 FSB the NB on the DS3 gets really hot and I would advise a fan of some sort.

Marky67 · 7 Jan 2007 at 13:17

Cheers eayrider, do you think the DS3 would be the a good board at the £100 price point to go with E6300 or will an extra £20-£30 give me a better overclocking performance board? trying not to stray of topic just looking for the best combo!!

OC_A64 · 7 Jan 2007 at 13:20

easyrider said:
I beg to differ.

I know about the multis.

Running a chip at 70c full load is not advisable.

And saying the same vcore is required between the 6600 and the 6300 for reaching similar clocks is just not correct.

Sorry, but I've had first hand experience with BOTH 6600's and 6300's. Clocking on the same mobo, same cooling, same bios. I know what 6600's AND 6300's are capable of. From reading other users experiences of the 6300's I'd say my results aren't unique either.
There WILL be some cases where the 6600's clock better at a given voltage, likewise there WILL be cases where the 6300's clock better at the same voltage.

Re the 70 deg comment - yup it's pushing things but it's only for a short period of time so it's not too much of a risk to the chip. Wouldn't recommend to most people though

@ OP - with that ram the 6400 *maybe* a better option. Really depends on what sort of speeds you're aiming for. The Geil can be a bit hit and miss FSB wise, and you may find 500FSB a struggle. If you're happy with 3.2ghz or so however then the 6300 will be ideal. You'll see 3.15 @ 450 FSB which should be fine for that ram.

mercyless · 7 Jan 2007 at 13:25

have to agree which that, mild overclock go for the 6300, any more 6400 should be the better choice as the mobo might/will be the limiting factor.

Andeh · 7 Jan 2007 at 13:27

in my opinion, any overclock that is better (or faster) than you're previous CPU is a good overclock, and if you can keep it stable, then stick with it, regardless of how fast or slow it is.
In my case, I have an Athlon64 3500+ at the moment, which is running at 2.2ghz. I'll be purchasing an E6300 soon with plans of overclocking it, any overclock I can reach that is faster than my old CPU, I will be happy with, regardless if it goes over 3ghz

subxero · 7 Jan 2007 at 13:37

I had the same dilema, and went with the E6600 option.

My reasons were for the obvious extra 2mb cache to squeeze that little bit of extra performance out of it.

For example, if you have an E6300 and an E6600 at 3Ghz, the E6600 should just edge it out in benchmarks purely because of the extra cache.

Just trying to get a bit more life out of the processor, getting a bit bored of the yearly upgrade process that I was doing.

Awaiting my memory now to see what speeds I can get out of my new toy.

harris1986 · 7 Jan 2007 at 15:28

easy rider i agree on the cache front and maybe i just got lucky with my 6400 but i've seen benefits of the multiplier over the 6300 and i haven't seen many 6600's that are doing 3.4ghz on stock volts on here as mine does? so in this respect i'd hardly say that a measley £40 is a waste of money, but again maybe i just got lucky with a good cpu, i'm fairly certain this baby will do 3.6+ with some voltage through it but for now i'm happy on stock volts at 3.4ghz

Margaret · 7 Jan 2007 at 15:39

harris1986 said:
easy rider i agree on the cache front and maybe i just got lucky with my 6400 but i've seen benefits of the multiplier over the 6300 and i haven't seen many 6600's that are doing 3.4ghz on stock volts on here as mine does? so in this respect i'd hardly say that a measley £40 is a waste of money, but again maybe i just got lucky with a good cpu, i'm fairly certain this baby will do 3.6+ with some voltage through it but for now i'm happy on stock volts at 3.4ghz

I'd say it's a waste of money, considering I can run my 6300 Orthos stable at just 3 voltages up from stock volts, which is a tiny temperature increase I can put it below stock volts however it won't be fully stable (aka Orthos stable). Can get to 3.4, not tried 3.5 as I have to increase the voltage that bit more for 3.4 in the first place.