Intel E4400 or E6300 for PC?

[UseItNow]

Hi folks,

I am having a hectic time upgrading a number of machines for family, have also got to replace an ageing Athlon 2000XP+. My query is in regards to this machine, now I am currently trying to get a hold of used parts and have had some success.

May be you can help? http://forums.hexus.net/wanted/16925...ther-bits.html

Anyway, back to the query at hand, basically I've got the option of getting hold of either an Intel E4400 or the E6300 from a friend for around £20 quid. My question to you folks is which would be the better processor in terms of performance at stock? I ask as I assume the E4400 being of a later manufacturing process might have some edge to it in that sense but I still think the E6300 has the edge in terms of performance and feature set, correct?

From what I can tell the E6300 has virtulisatuion over the E4400, however, I could be wrong.

So folks, could you help shed some light on this dilemma, the irony, whilst people think over which quad, I'm still looking at 'old' dual cores!

All help appreciated, thanks again.

[Pob255]

E6300 is 1.86ghz, fbs 1066 MHz, multiplier x7, 2 MB cache

E4400 is 2.0ghz, fsb 800 Mhz, multiplier x10, 2mb cache

both are 65nm chips

E4400 is better at stock and will overclock better
the original e6300 had reduced cache was replaced by the e6320 with 4mb cache at the same time the e4400 came out.

review to look at here http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...0_6.html#sect1

EDIT: Although for £20 if you've got 2 pc's that need upgrading getting bo0th off your friend would be an option

[UseItNow]

E6300 is 1.86ghz, fbs 1066 MHz, multiplier x7, 2 MB cache

E4400 is 2.0ghz, fsb 800 Mhz, multiplier x10, 2mb cache

both are 65nm chips

E4400 is better at stock and will overclock better
the original e6300 had reduced cache was replaced by the e6320 with 4mb cache at the same time the e4400 came out.

review to look at here http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...0_6.html#sect1

EDIT: Although for £20 if you've got 2 pc's that need upgrading getting bo0th off your friend would be an option

Won't the FSB difference matter?

My bad, I'll have to check later on if he said E4300 or E4400, if it is the E4300 will that make a difference?

Unfortunately, he'll only let me have one as he wishes to keep a hold of one for testing purposes.

Edit: With these parts being mainly used, any excuse to get into overclocking folks? Need a good guide!

[Pob255]

Well the lower FSB and higher multiplier will alow for a greater overclocking range
the e4xxx series does lack "Intel's Virtualization Technology" not that I think it matters in the slightest as it seem to have no real impact on performance.
the lower fsb at stock does reduce the memory bandwidth, however oc it to 266fsb (ie same as the e6300 @ stock) and the difference dissapeers, on top of that the slightly smaller bandwidth at stock has ab solutely minimal effect on programs even memory intensive ones.

The e4300 is 800fsb and x9 multiplier for 1.8ghz

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I still use my E4300 in my backup machine and also used to have an E4500. Both will overclock to around 3ghz usually. There are both L2 and M0 steppings too and the M0 stepping is meant to consume slightly lower power consumption at idle when compared to the L2 stepping:

http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-29...-stepping.html

[UseItNow]

Thank you Pob255 & Cat, appreciated, your links were good reads.

Looks like it's the E4300/E4400, whichever my friend has!

Will be looking at overclocking, any good places to start up on the read, anything here at Hexus, wait a minute I recall something over at Clunk's site.

Thanks again!

[Pob255]

Try the sticky originally written by Clunk before he started his own forum, I miss him
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...beginners.html

As it stands for c2d cpu's it's very easy, very basically set the memory timings manually, then set it to 1:1 ratio, turn of speed step and any other energy saveing things in the BIOS.
Now start raising the fsb and testing, untill the FSB will not go higher or you reach a speed you're happy with.

That's very basic, read the thread before trying it, but at that level should get you about 100+ extra on the fsb, before you start hitting v-droop issues.

[UseItNow]

Try the sticky originally written by Clunk before he started his own forum, I miss him
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...beginners.html

As it stands for c2d cpu's it's very easy, very basically set the memory timings manually, then set it to 1:1 ratio, turn of speed step and any other energy saveing things in the BIOS.
Now start raising the fsb and testing, untill the FSB will not go higher or you reach a speed you're happy with.

That's very basic, read the thread before trying it, but at that level should get you about 100+ extra on the fsb, before you start hitting v-droop issues.

Yeah, I miss him too!

Anyway, thanks for the link, thanks for pointing out the V-Droop issue. Care to explain what it is to an overclock noob? Thanks.

[nightkhaos]

Yeah, I miss him too!

Anyway, thanks for the link, thanks for pointing out the V-Droop issue. Care to explain what it is to an overclock noob? Thanks.

Vdroop is the drop in voltage under load. When the CPU is under load, it draws more current, and the voltage will drop. This is reduced with technologies such as Load-Line Calibration, but it is an inherient trait of electronics. The only fix for it is to increase the voltage, but that unfortunately also increases heat output, thus the challenge when overclocking is to find the lowest possible voltage where the system will run at the highest clock within it's temperature tolarances.

[Salazaar]

Looks like it's the E4300/E4400, whichever my friend has!

Will be looking at overclocking, any good places to start up on the read, anything here at Hexus, wait a minute I recall something over at Clunk's site.

It looks like you've made your decision now but just to add my £0.02...

I've had an E4300 for a long while now running very happily at 3.2Ghz on a 1600Mhz bus (largely thanks to Clunk's excellent guide) with very little extra voltage, it's great chip and for the price is an absolute bargain.

[UseItNow]

It looks like you've made your decision now but just to add my £0.02...

I've had an E4300 for a long while now running very happily at 3.2Ghz on a 1600Mhz bus (largely thanks to Clunk's excellent guide) with very little extra voltage, it's great chip and for the price is an absolute bargain.

Encouraging to hear my friend, I'm checking later on what processor it is, any chance I might be able to trouble you with a few queries in terms of that processor if indeed it is that on how you got it to 1600Mhz Bus and the voltages used? What board do you have? Memory?

[Salazaar]

My system specs are listed on the left.

It was fairly easy to do, the chip itself seems stable to up to about 3.3Ghz so I run it at 400Mhz with an 8x multiplier to get 3.2Ghz, this gives an FSB speed of 1600Mhz (400x4) and I use the lowest memory divider to keep the memory to 800Mhz (because it really doesn't like going faster).

A very small bump to the CPU and northbridge voltages keeps everything running smoothly.

[Pob255]

The motherboard you have also has an impact on V-droop some suffor from it more than others.
My msi P35 neo2 is actually quite bad for it

[UseItNow]

Hey folks, unfortunately my mates E4300 is dead, it was an OEM apparently and thus no warranty replacement and he will be keeping a hold of the E6300.

However, I have managed to source an E4500, even better, cost me £30 but I think it's worth it just for the higher multiplier.

I did briefly read the links to Clunks site and must say I've decided to use the spare motherboard I have, which was brought to test components very recently to eliminate them. It is the Gigabyte G31M-ES2L, on the box it says FSB by OC 1600, so I presume this board can be overclocked?

Realistically, even if I managed to get the board to 1066 MHz FSB, with the CPU at 2926MHz (11x266?), I would be a happy chap. Yes, I know it's not much of a overclock but I'd rather start small and have something stable. On that type of overclock, which seems small, would I need to supply extra voltage or could I leave it to auto in the board?

Thanks folks for your guidance on this subject, it's very much appreciated.

[Terbinator]

The current E6300 is a pentium dual-core which runs at 2.80Ghz, 1066 FSB and 2MB L2 cache.