Correct Prices? Doesnt Seem Right To Me.....

[Micky007]

Hi,

Im going to be buying a new motherboard and cpu and going to get a new Intel Core duo 2 2x 2.4Ghz for £199.62 inc.

But when i look at the one below that which is the 2x 2.13Ghz cpu thats advertised for £146.82 inc. Which is like £53 cheaper.

Now this is what i really dont get. the one above for 2x 2.4Ghz which is the 2x 2.67Ghz that cost £340.69 inc ! thats over £140 more!

But why is there such a big price increase in the price just for an extra 0.27Ghz when to upgrade the 2.13Ghz to 2.4Ghz which is an extra 0.27Ghz but for just £50.

I carnt work out why theres such a big price increase nearly 3x i would have thought it would be.

Thanks

[Aaron]

In a nutshell....

The E6400 (2.13Ghz) only has a 2mb cache on the cpu and has a licked multiplier.
The E6600 (2.4Ghz) has a 4mb cache and has a locked multiplier.
The E6700 (2.67Ghz) has a 4mb cache and has a locked multiplier.
The X6800 (2.93)Ghz has 4mb cache and an unlocked multiplier

I have the E6400, and its overclocked to 2.4Ghz, the same as a stock E6600. But due to having only 2mb on board, it is slower in alot of applications. It can generally hold its own in small tasks that are purely arithmatic based (ie, SuperPi/Folding etc..), but in real world tasks, the E6600 will be faster.

The X6800 is the chip aimed at overclockers hence the unlocked multiplier. It has the fastest stock core speed, and an unlocked mulitplier which means, given the right motherboard, it can be easily overclocked well passed its stock speed to the 3.7-4Ghz range.

The E6700 is basically the top end Core2Duo chip, before you hit the Core2Extreme chips (X6800), so I assume Intel is just charging a premium for that fact or may be that it costs more to produce or there is a lower yield of cores able to reach that speed and so the availability will be lower and push the price up.. I cant really see any other reason why it would cost so much more!

However, with the right cooling and motherboard/ram the E6400 can hit 3+Ghz and the E6600 can hit 3.4-3.6Ghz (see macs thread on his overclocking experiences) using the FSB only.

They are the basic differences between the chips anyway :)

If you need to know about mulitpliers, front side bus (FSB) and overclocking, there are many many threads/articles on the interweb outlining what each bit does and how they relate to each other :)