Intel 946 chipset performance and Core 2 Duo

[steveyoule]

Is there a big difference in the performance of Intel 946 (+ ICH7) and 965 (+ ICH8) motherboards with E6300 or E6400 Core 2 Duo processors. Mesh have a very attractive Base Unit PC (ELITE2 C2D) with the 946 chipset (ASUS P5B-TMX) but all the technical articles on the Web point to 965 as the chipset of choice if SLI is not required.

[kalniel]

965 is a newer chipset and has a couple of fancy things that theoretically improve performance. However I think it's hard to say these improvements are big or even noticible in any situation that is going to be bottlenecked by the GPU or CPU.

[steveyoule]

Thanks for the prompt reply.
Am I correct in thinking that 946 is still a new chipset? It tends to get referred to as a 'budget' platform for Core 2 Duo, which to my mind implies cheap and restricted.

[kalniel]

I think it's a variation on the 945 chipset, which can also support core 2 duo in the right situation.

945 chipset is no more budget than 965 to be honest - originally it was the budget of the 945/955 pair. 975 became the new premium, and a new mid-budget board, the 965 was released more recently.