Is this overkill?

[rolph]

Sorry I'm a bit vague on this because i cant remember where i saw it.

It was a review of something, and there was a throwaway line that stated buying a Core2Duo E6600 chip for a 965 board was overkill and really only the E6300 or E6400 should be used for these motherboards.

Anything from E6600 with the 4Mb cache upwards were only worth using on the 975 motherboards.

As this is what i was planning (E6600 with Asus P5B-E 965 board), just wondering whether anybody else concurs with this.

Isn't it always better to get the best CPU you can afford?

[Richie P]

Depends on what you plan to do with your system.

965 boards overclock the Allendale (E6300 and E6400) chips better,
975 boards overclock the Conroe's (E6600+) better.

If you running stock or only planning a mild overclock, get whatever cpu and board you want.

Bear in mind that the 965 chipset's dont support SLI or Crossfire, (or only a hacked (2nd slot only 4x PCIe) version of it).

[mi9tchy]

seems like a good choice.

asus have made there latest bios's good

[finlay666]

I got a 965 P5B dlx wifi (sig needs updating) and I am happy with it, would like to see what the 975X one is like though for a comparison

[Clunk]

The E6600 works perfectly on the 965 boards.

[rob_z3_man]

I think tehy are trying to stress that since P965 is a great overclocking mobo e6300/e6400 should be more than enough. And then u play around with it. You would not need e6600 as overclocking it would produce so much processing power only that which the latest 8800GTX can consume.

[rolph]

Just to clarify a few things.

The only intensive use of my PC is for video editing.

The reason for going 965 is that i dont play much games and have no plans to go Sli or Crossfire.

Never done any overclocking, not sure if i'm ever going to try. Too worried about doing some serious damage.

So that's why i'm wondering if the E6600 is too good for what i need or if i can afford it, to always go for the best CPU.

I dont really understand how much difference the 2MB and 4MB caches make to the overall working of these CPUs.

For the work i do, does this difference warrant the £60 price difference?

[rob_z3_man]

Well, e6600 is the most popular processor now. I dunno much about cache but if you multitask a lot I think it would warrant getting it. SLi is not even worth going for if u dun have a n680i. Even so 2x 8800GTX would be overkill to the max.

[nvening]

965 boards are actually better as they use the new southbridge