Is it worth it?

Willbo · 24 Jan 2008 at 00:34

I've currently got an E6600, 4GB PC2-6400, 8800GT 512MB GFX on Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R Motherboard.

I'm tempted to sell my E6600 and 4GB of memory and replace with the E8400 and the 2GB OCZ PC3-10666 Memory thats on weekly offer.

I'm not big on overclocking, so would there be any improvement in performance, mainly for gaming and photo editing? And as the topic suggests...would the upgrade be worth it?

steve258 · 24 Jan 2008 at 00:38

CPU yes but RAM no.

You should notice performance improvements in general with 600Mhz faster speed and 2Mb extra L2 cache, but not by a very huge amount.

DDR3 is just expensive atm and because of the insanely loose timings the performance is similar to DDR2, same thing happened when DDR2 was first introduced which didn't offer a lot better performance over DDR.

jak731 · 24 Jan 2008 at 00:40

the ram will not be, as wolfdale cpus can still reach decent speeds with pc2-6400 RAM when OCing. as for the cpu, unless you OC the wolfdale, i doubt you will see any real shocking rise in performance although benchmarks should show a higher score

Willbo · 24 Jan 2008 at 00:45

So from what you say, the best thing for the memory is to wait for the performance and range of memory available to increase, once DDR3 is more main stream and important? Sounds fair enough to me as its still a relatively new technology released to the public.

Willbo · 24 Jan 2008 at 01:32

I've got the Noctua NH-U12F CPU Cooler with my E6600. Will this still work on the E8400? And if I do keep it, will the cooler that comes with the E8400 be compatible with the E6600 for sale purposes?

steve258 · 24 Jan 2008 at 01:46

Yes the Noctua will work on any LGA775 chip.

AFAIK the stock cooler on E8400 has only half the height and aluminium base instead of copper, so whilst it will work on E6600 the temp wouldn't be ideal.