So considering the price difference between the E6400 and 5200+ is about $50+.. Would be better to go with the E6400?

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I'd say E6400 and here is why. The E6400 is running at 2.1ghz. The 5200+ is running at 2.6ghz. The 5200+ is beating the E6400 by a small margin, and that's with the E6400 running 500mhz slower then the 5200+. Now if you overclock the E6400 to just 300mhz faster then it defualt speed to 2.4ghz,then it will not only beat the 5200+ in almost every benchmark, but beat it by a nice margin. These Core 2 Duo's are great overclockers, you can overclock these processors 500 to 600mhz faster on avg just on the stock heatsink and fan alone and still be under 50c. AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz 2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200 Nvidia 7900GT SATA II 2x 300gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0+1 Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

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I've always advised against the E6400, just because of it's strategic position - I would rather you go with an E6300 and a good inexpensive board & overclock it, or skip the E6400 and go for the E6600, if you want something more than an entry level C2D. IMHO, the superiority of the E6400 over the E6300 has never been as compelling as that which exists between the E6600 and the E6400.

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I just upgraded from AMD 64 3500. I've always preferred AMD, but when Fry's had MBD/CPU(Core 2 Duo 6600) combo for $299 I had to get it. The vast majority of the in depth tests I reviewed showed the 6400 being comparable to the best AMD had and the 6600 being even better. (I believe some 6400's have 4meg L2 cache and some 2 ?) The MB is an ECS P965a-t, so it's 965 chipset, not the 975, and I only have 2 gig of mem(PC6400) & low/mid level video card(nVidia 6500-steals system memory) but the performance is awesome. On my old machine, using the same card, I could play CounterStrike, alt-tab back to windows and use my computer, but it was very, VERY, slow. On my new one I tried doing the same thing, opened up a few addition browser windows and then started up BattleField 2 and played(I have eye candy turned on). I couldn't tell that BF2 was slowed down at all! I then switched over to task manager(while everything was still loaded). One CPU was fluttering up near the top and the other was fluttering around the middle! Awesome! Can't wait to get a 7950GT or 8800 video card!

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"(I believe some 6400's have 4meg L2 cache and some 2 ?)" The authentic retail E6400s all come with only 2MB of L2 (other 2MB factory-disabled) cache, the ones you are talking about are from the ES batches.

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Ok and you all are saying the E6600 is def. worth it? Anyone have any recommendations for a cheap mobo for either e6400 or e6600?

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Look for the cheapest 975X motherboard for your E6600 and you are set.

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Go for the 5200+ because it is a better value. I have mine overclocked to 3.0 Ghz Stable without water cooling and it kiils the e6400 in all benchmarks. Also, AMD has always been better then Intel in the memory performance department so that is another reason to buy the 5200+.

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The Intel Core Duo E6600 beats the X2 5200 in almost every category, it also beats the FX60 in some categories including Frame Rates in FEAR and Doom 3. For a change, AMD is getting their butts handed to them by Intel. I would expect that to change when AMD's real(not fake)Quad Core chip comes out in the near future. Intel's Quad Core is nothing more than 2 Core Duos sandwiched together. Expect it to run cooler and faster than anything Intel has at the time. The X2 5200 is still a great processor.

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Well heres my opinion.. I am currently in the same situation as urself.. I had the right amount of money to get a E6400 setup.. But went for the 5200+. The main reason i chose AMD is because The MoBo with Sli are up to 150$ cheaper.. so that leaves you more money to spend on Processor power. I recommend to you the X2 5200+, 2gb DDR2 5300, ABIT KN9 sli premium. This is a setup which is affordable and will beat any E6400 setup, and saves you A fair amount of money!. On another note the Cache difference between the 2 companies (AMD &Intel) is nothing major.. All that cache is .. is to speed up the process of doing something.. (ie. opening a document) ... everytime you do it! And i can say safly i have had both Intel and AmD setups... and never had a problem with AMD.. and nothin but trouble with the intel chips... So I would advise AMD.!

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As antiquated as this argument may be, I prefer the AMD because I am loyal to the manufacturer that as FORCED Intel to play its hand so well. If you want to be sure to get the very best proc you can, and you can wait, then just wait for the true quad cores that AMD will be releasing. Intel has always found a way to eventually surpass AMD on many benchmarks, but they generally use tweaks and shortcuts, these will often have drawbacks. With the amount of $$$ being pumped into R&D, they are likely not able to hold for the long haul, I suggest that for a long term strategy, AMD is going to be, on balance, the best bet. If the one poster above who has a 3.0GHz (OC) 5200, and indeed that is reliable (suggest water cooling of course), then go that route. As another poster wrote, you can then better afford a quality SLI board since it will cost less. Finally, because I am very biased, fully admitting that here, I would take a slightly slower AMD if it suits my needs, after all tomorrow there will be a faster X, Y, and Z proc out there. Get what works for you, and forget the fastest - you will pay more for it and for what tangible gain? Just so you can say for a couple of weeks you have the fastest?

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