Core 2 Extreme CPU worth it?

[Hunain]

Hey there, a friend of mine wants to get a core 2 extreme, x6800 probably, he saw my e6300 clocked to 3.0Ghz, it leaves the 2.93Ghz x6800 behind in almost all benchmarks, so he was asking if he should get the x6800 or a simple C2D and overclock it to 3.0Ghz? is it the same in real world performance as well?

Is there any plus point besides the 4MB cache it has, which according to reviews and comparisons has little effect on performance.

Is there any drawback of overclocking a normal CPU to extreme levels?

To sum it up,Is it worth getting a Core 2 extreme when you can overclock to that level easily?

Thanks in advance.

[SiM]

No its not worth it... get a duo/quad and overclock

[Lanky123]

Quite simply, no. The x6800 wouldnt be worth that money (£600ish IIRC) even if overclocking didnt exist. Overclocking invalidates your warranty, but you'd have to fry about 5 regular CPUs to make an x6800 with warranty worth it.

The current sweet spot as far as price is concerned is probably the E6750 (£120) or maybe an E4500 (£75) if youre on a budget build and dont mind the halved cache. The Q6600 is excellent for about £165, and normally overclocks very well.

[Hunain]

Thats exactly what we wanted to hear, thanks guys, cheers

[masscrazy]

Overclocking does invalidate your warranty, except how is the manufacturer or retailer supposed to know if the CPU is overclocked? So therefore, overclock and still expect to retain your warranty!

[Robbie G]

I got an E2140 for £40 and it's running at 3.2GHz (twice stock speed) on the stock cooler 24/7 with zero issues. These really are amazing chips and the Extreme editions are pointless imo.

[Hunain]

I got an E2140 for £40 and it's running at 3.2GHz (twice stock speed) on the stock cooler 24/7 with zero issues. These really are amazing chips and the Extreme editions are pointless imo.

With stock cooler? what are your temps? Just curious, have you tested for stability or just working with windows with out any issues?

[Robbie G]

I said stock cooler in my post lol.

As far as I'm concerned it's stable if I can use it without it going balls up, so I haven't prime'd or orthos'd it or whatever people do to prove stability. I play games intensively including CoD4 and SupCom. I also use it for encoding DVDs, and watching vidoes unrar'ing internet word office MP3s etc etc and I've never had CPU-related issues. It's volted at 1.40 though, but temps still seem reasonable.

[oralpain]

I also have an E2140 that has been running at 3.2Ghz (400x8) for the last few months with 1.375v and a beatup Zalman 7700CU cooler.

Personally I am not satisfied with anything less than total stability in adverse conditions, so I have tested stability quite extensively and the chip is 100% stable in everything I've thrown at it. It will loop S&M 1.9.1 till I get sick of not having a computer and turn the thing off, I've primed it for 80 hours straight (prime95 25.5, rounding checks on, 2 threads, large FTTs) with no hint of problems, and nothing else I've run has experienced a CPU related crash. The FSB wall on this chip is around 420MHz, which is exceptional for an E2140. I'm hoping for 3.3 to 3.4GHz when I get my new heatsink this weekend.

I have another E2140 @ 3Ghz with a retail Intel cooler that is also 100% stable. However, this chip has an FSB wall of 385Mhz and nothing will allow it to boot beyond that. 375-385Mhz is a pretty typical FSB wall for these chips.

[danroyle]

i have an e2140 at 3ghz and temps are 38 idle 45 load 100% stable