Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 is $200 dollars more than Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 on newegg.com. Unless there's a better price elsewhere, is it really worth the extra $200 dollars? Also, what is the best cooling system to overclock it, and by how much could I overclock it reasonably.

Go for the E6600. You can overclock moderately with the stock HSF but if you really wanna push it, you'll need an aftermarket unit. With the stock unit, you *should* be able to raise the FSB from 266MHz (1066 effective) to 333MHz (1333 effective) with a slight CPU voltage boost. That would increase the CPU speed from 2.4GHz to 3.0GHz.

You'll get best performance with a CPU:DRAM ratio of 1:1 so even if you get DDR2-800, it should be clocked down to match the CPU, & when doing so, you *may* be able to tighten up on the RAM timings a bit.

Agreed. Both have 4M of cache, that's what's important, not so much the clock speed.

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wow, great advice, i really appreciate it. I might just try out an aftermarket unit just to push it, and also adjust the RAM (Patriot eXtreme Performance DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)) to 4-3-4-11 at 2.30V since i've read it is stable.

"Agreed. Both have 4M of cache, that's what's important, not so much the clock speed."

Granted the C2D are not built like the A64s with integrated memory controller & they stand to gain from large L2 caches, your assertion from above is still only true to a certain degree & within lower class CPUs - especially those predating the C2Ds.

With respect to the current C2D lineup, 4MB vs 2MB differential has actually been shown to be mostly intangible considering that majority of mainstream applications (at the present time) do not have a working data footprint that is nearly large enough to take advantage of that much L2. IMHO, the extra cost involved in moving from 2MB to 4MB is just not worth it & by the time it really does - most would have upgraded anyway.

"It now makes sense to think which processor to take with overclocking kept in mind. Clearly, you should buy the cheapest, i.e. Core 2 Duo E6300 built on the Allendale core. It is also important to note that although the L2 cache size in Allendale is twice as small as in the Conroe core, the performance difference at a similar clock speed is within 2% (in some applications - up to 5-6%). Therefore, you don't have to worry about the small cache."

http://www.digital-daily.com/cpu/in...

Also from the URL below, you can see how the lowly C2D newcomer (E4300) - overclocked - makes mincemeat out of the "extreme" X6800 even with half as much L2, so the clockspeed does matter much.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware...

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"Granted the C2D are not built like the A64s with integrated memory controller & they stand to gain from large L2 caches, your assertion from above is still only true to a certain degree & within lower class CPUs - especially those predating the C2Ds."

The E6400 over the 6300 is less than $100, and also has a clock speed advantage.

Cache makes a difference. It's disconcerting digital daily made that statement, but conspicuously missing from that article are benchmarks to prove it. They actually did not provide benchmarks at the very least in that article that prove it.

They didn't do a very good job of comprehensively benchmarking the Core 2 Duo. They didn't even benchmark a 2M variant version, and they didn't include benchmarks on such things as media encoding, which benefit more from increased cache.

"Also from the URL below, you can see how the lowly C2D newcomer (E4300) - overclocked - makes mincemeat out of the "extreme" X6800 even with half as much L2, so the clockspeed does matter much."

To get that performance, the E4300 had to be overclocked massively. Overclocking is something the original poster was going to do anyway. So why get a CPU that is only stock clocked higher, but no different otherwise? However, overclocking a high cache CPU compared to a lower cached variant is more beneficial.

Finally, you must also remember that cache speed is arguably more important than size. By overclocking a lower size cache CPU to = the clock speed of a higher cached CPU, you aren't fairly comparing the true performance advantage of cache size because you increased the speed of the lower cached proc's cache. You overclocked the FSB, which determines the speed of the cache as well, to raise the total clock speed.

People were amazed back in the day when a Celeron 300A at 450MHz (4.5 x 100MHz FSB) could perform as well as a P2 450MHz which had 4x the cache. The reason was because the Celeron A's cache was on die and 1:1 with the bus speed, which = 450MHz. The p2 450MHz however had cache modules on the CPU card, and ran 2:3 the bus speed.

A true comparison of what performance you'll get of the E6400 over the E6300 (or 4200) is overclock both to their full potential, and benchmark them. That's TRULY what you care about if you're going to overclock whichever one you actually buy. Neither article does such a comparison.

Do you honestly think an E6300 or 4200 would make mincemeat out of an E6400, with both maxed out for overclocking?

I won't argue which would be better value for the money because I haven't seen direct benchmarks yet. However, without seeing a direct benchmark comparison, if I'm performance minded, I'll take the E6400. :-)

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http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgs12.html

Just wondering, would I be able to overclock the PCU and get the RAM to 1:2 ratio/1067 DDR2/ 4-3-4-11 timing? Would this be at all benificial?