Can someone explain the differences between these processors? (I did read the general FAQ)

I'm sure this is a topic that has been beaten to death around here, but after searching the forums and reading the Hardware FAQ, I still have a couple of questions about the differences in these processors.

I'm looking at getting an XPS 1730, with 4GB of RAM and dual GeForce® 8800 video cards (1GB RAM total). Here are the processors I'm choosing from:

Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB/3MB cache)
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 (2.5GHz/800Mhz FSB/6MB cache)
Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 (2.6GHz/800Mhz FSB/6MB cache)
Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 (2.8GHz/800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache)

In addition to usual stuff (Office, internet, e-mail, etc.) I will be doing video editing and gaming - I want my games (currently Battlefield 2...COD 4, etc. when I get my new system) to run smoothly on medium-high to high settings. Since I'll have decent video cards and RAM in the system, I don't want to go overkill on the processor, since the price difference is large.

From what I've read, the amount of cache is pretty important, so I assume I should eliminate the T8300. I was thinking the 2.5GHz T9300 would be a decent tradeoff between price and power, but I wanted some input from people more knowledgable, as this is going to be a big investment.

I'll be getting the system with Windows XP Pro, if that's any help.

I have one last question regarding specs - mainly because Dell's website is dumb in that it gives me slightly different processor options depending on whether I'm using a student discount or not. The highest option I saw (while not using a student discount) was I believe an Extreme 9000 (same as X7900, but 6MB L2 cache and overclockable to 3.4GHz, I think).

This is the only one that explicitly stated "L2" cache, as the rest are just "cache". Is it to be assumed that they're all L2, or does a notation of simply "cache" refer to L1 or L3?

Sorry for the long post - thanks for your help!

-Jason

 

The T8300 will be more than enough for your needs.

 

What are the price differences?

 

Yes, stick with the T8300. The small performance gain sin't worth the pricey upgrade.

 

Will this hold true if I decide to upgrade to Vista in a couple of years? Not sure how much processor speed will effect performance given other components, but I'd also like to "future-proof" my machine so it remains adequate for 4-5 years until I get a desktop.

With the 8300 as the base, here are the price differences:

9300: +$125
9500: +$400
On configurations where the Duo Extreme 9000 is available: +$750


The 7900 is included in the price and is the only option available on that particular configuration (for whatever reason), so I'm not sure how much more that costs

 

The differences in performance between the T8300 and T9300 are very small, I would say 3-5%.
Its definitely not woth $125 to upgrade the cpu.

The T8300 will be more than powerful enough to run applications made for computers a few years down the road.

K-TRON

 

I agree with everyone you do not need it. 8300 is fine! I believe in informed purchase decisions. K-T also gave a good guess on how much difference but I am going a little higher. Clocks I see 9300 4% faster. Alright what about L2? OK I have not seen the 3MB vs 6MB compared yet at the same clocks so I have to substitute this.

This is from AnandTech here is a link to the article.

Now I know the more you increase the L2 you start to get diminishing returns so would speculate the 3MB vs 6MB would be slightly less than 2MB vs 4MB. But would be there still, take the 4% we get from clocks and add what you guess from benchmarks and that is likely your performance difference. paladin44 (PowerNotebooks) has posted that generally a 15% to 20% speed difference is needed for people to perceive a difference. I do not see this in any scenario with above info so while there is a speed difference it is insignificant. $125 is a lot to spend for that.

Edit: oops typed 4 meant 6, that is what my points and assumptions where based on, thanks deputc26 for pointiong out, corrected. So no what I wrote is based on 6 so it all holds.

 

Greetings and congrats on selecting an extremely powerful system.

The T9300, T9500 and X9000 actually have 6mb caches not 4mb so the above comparison is less (but still significantly) applicable. Given This, I still agree with the other posters.

The T8300 is a formidable processor that will be far more than adequate for 99.9% of everthing including games. There are however some(though very few) games that are cpu limited, including Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, and to a much lesser extent, supreme Commander, these are both RTS games that don't require high fps however.

Crysis is Quasi-CPU-Limited, Crysis performance seems to be affected by as much as 20% by things that usually don't affect gaming performance such as The exact motherboard used, drivers and... cpu clockspeed (in one test, if I remember correctly, an overclock from 3.16 to 4ghz resulted in a 12% perf. increase which is extremely odd as the E8500 proc used in the test will run almost all games at over 200fps if the gpu can keep up).

I would personally get the T8300. I would definitely not get anything over a T9300 as the perf. increase will be ~5% or less. Many consider the T9300 to be at the sweet spot for price/performance but really I would say that title belongs to the T8300 which is only ~6.5% slower. Keep in mind when I say x% slower that means it will be that much slower only for cpu limited operations such as vid. encoding and mp3 ripping. almost all games are not cpu limited so you will see almost no increase in performance. The T9500 has very little reason to exist at all as it is ~3% faster than the t9300 and 50+% more expensive.

So far as future proofing, all these procs will be able to run anything for the next 2-3 years (this is obviously my guess but I'm pretty confident about it )

 

4MB error in my post above was a keystroke error not a flaw in the argument they all stand with 6 correctly typed. Sorry as that did confuse my entire point when read the way originaly written.

 

It will not make much of a difference. A processor with a 3mb buffer will be slightly slower than a processor with a 6mb buffer. The difference though is minimal. The bottleneck of your system is going to be your harddrive. Any of the penryn based processors are more than powerful enough for programs in this day and age.

K-TRON

 

Oh K-T what? Are you now trying to throw in real world? I was playing with benchmarks, splitting hairs. Was that 50ns or 90ns. Of course yes you are correct. I do love benchmarks.

 

That was 71.2ns
Isnt ns based off of the response time of the lcd?


Seriously, though.
If you had two identical systems, one with a T8300, and one with a T9300, you would not notice any difference between them under normal usage.
The only thing which more cache would help with, is high demanding video editing, or crunching numbers when your cpu is running 100% processing power.

I would listen to the penguin, if I were you, he knows what he is talking about

Just hold on loosely and dont let go if you cling to tightly youre going to loose control

K-TRON

 

Thanks everyone for your input - I really appreciate being able to ask a question and not get flamed for it! Your responses have all been extremely helpful - I've decided to get the 8300. While I do video encoding and such for a couple of projects a year, the speed on my 2GHz Pentium M has been adequate, so looks like that shouldn't be a problem. $125 isn't much out of a $4,000 system, but it'll be enough to get a new case in order to take the computer's power brick along for the ride.

Thanks again!

 

The T8300 generates around 14,000Mflops in synthetic benchmarks, where a 2ghz pentium M will get around 3700Mflops.

It will be a very big performance jump for you.

K-TRON

 

That's great to hear!

 

yeah I hadn't seen that Mflops Stat! that is cool. Also I'd like to throw a second behind K-tron's statement that the HDD is the limiting factor, this is very, very true. HDDs are always the dog slowing you down.

 

My apologies for jumping onto the back of someone else's thread (sorry jmach!) with a similar question but I figured better this than starting another, very similar thread...

I've been lurking for a while on this site and reading through a lot of the guides you guys have up. I have to say I'm very impressed - they all seem very clear and easy to read and have managed to instil at least an inkling of understanding into my grey matter.

That being said, I wondered if you could spare the time to impart some further advice for my meagre needs. Without wishing to sound like a creep, you all seem to have a far greater understanding of how the different components affect the performance of a system, and I would greatly value your advice;

As with jmach, I have read a great deal of the guides, but have little understanding in this case what the choices before me are. I'm looking to buy a new laptop (or notebook if you prefer), primarily for spreadsheet and word processing. I'm also a weary and mal-nourished gamer however and although I rarely get to play as often as I'd like, it is still a consideration that has a bearing on my choice.

After a great deal of scouring the net I happened upon the new Acer Gemstone Blue which is due for imminent release here in the UK and I very much like it (I know, it is somewhat vain). In particular I decided on the 8920G model (this will primarily become a desktop replacement), of which the following are the most pertinent specs:

T8300/T5720
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit
nVidia GeForce 9500M GS 512mb
4096mb (2*2048mb) RAM
320gb HDD (5400rpm)
Blu-Ray/DVD-Supermulti
Gigabit Ethernet
Intel WiFi Link 4965AGN Wifi
6 Cell Battery

The issue of the hard drive aside (I would prefer a 7200rpm HD but am resigned to having to upgrade to one in the future as this is not an option with the Gemstone blue models), I figured that the 9500M will more than suffice for the occasions I still get to huddle together in small sweaty rooms with other men (LAN games of course) as I have no delusions about running next gen titles such as Crisis on a laptop that isn't at least the size of a small elephant and does not contain the sort of power that one is unlikely to find for sub $3000 prices.

My main concern is the CPU. Above are the two choices I'm faced with. Now, primarily, as I said, I will be conducting a substantial amount of word processing (I'm an avid writer), spreadsheets and most likely take advantage of the Bluray drive to watch the occasional film. But as gaming is also a consideration, which of the two CPU's is the better choice?

I know that the T8300 is a newer chipset, a higher clock speed, and is also a smaller die (45nm unless I miss my guess), so more raw power for less heat and power usage as far as I understand it. However, as I said earlier, this will be a desktop replacement and therefore heat and power consumption are as far as I'm concerned irrelevant.

The T5720 in comparison is only 2GHz compared to the 2.4 and the FSB is slower... Simply put, how much of a difference am I likely to see between the two when you consider the uses I would put them to? (MS Word, Bluray/DVDs, gaming - such as GRAW, UT3, CoD4)

Having read a lot of your guides, I understand that the GPU is more of a consideration for gaming than the CPU ever could be, so it really comes down to the Word and Film usage (see, I have been doing my homework! )

The price differentials are fairly substantial:

For the 8920G containing the T8300, the damage to my wallet ranges between £1,100 and £1,250 ($2,167-$2,463) according to retailer, warranty and finance options.

The exact same laptop (as far as I can tell that is) with the T5720 is approx £900 ($1,773)

Given the price differential, is it worth forking out the extra moolah for the beastlier processor. Bear in mind that my biggest gripe would be response time (in terms of start-up/ap launches and using MS Word)

Oh, and one last thing - this being my first laptop, is it worth paying extra for extended warranties? I have tried to research as much as possible and I understand Acer to be a good brand with good build quality, but then I simply have no experience in this matter.

Thanks for taking the time to read this (I feel as if I've written a small essay); I know I've rambled on a bit (a writer's prerogative), for which I apologise.

Please help!

Thanks

 

What is the price difference? For what you have said either should be fine.

Edit: Buy the RAM on your own it will be cheaper!

 

Okay, pp, he mentioned the price difference. $2167-1773 = $394
$2463-1773 = $690.
Please clarify why there are two different price tags with the T8300 processor.

Seeing these price differences, do not get the T8300. Yes its a faster processor, but is that 5-8% speed boost worth $400+, definitely not.

I would stick with the T5720. The 5720 will have more than enough power for your needs.
What you need to understand, is that processing power does not = faster application loading times. This statement is only true, if your harddrives are not the bottleneck of the system. In every notebook, the bottleneck of the system is the harddrive. Even on a low end celeron based laptop, the bottleneck is the harddrive.
You mentioned that the system comes with a 320gb 5400rpm drive.
This is a fast harddrive. It is actually identical in speed to the 200gb 7200rpm drives, cause the 320gb drive has a higher data density.
I am not sure how good the nVidia 9500 GS is, but it should be good enough for the applications you mentioned.

It is a nice laptop, but since this is your first laptop, I strongly recommend getting at least a 2 year warranty. I would aim for a 3year warranty. The piece of mind, of being covered by say an extra $200, is well worth it, if your system does break.

K-TRON

 

I'd stick with the 5720 too. And as k-tron noted there is absolutely zero need to upgrade that HDD. The 320gb 5400rpm drives are actually the FASTEST DRIVES AVAILABLE (just barely edging out the 200gb 7200rpm drives in most tests) they're also quieter, more energy efficient and (obviously) larger.

The 9500 GS specs look very similar to the 8600 GTs meaning it's a decent card for gaming, especially if paired w/ GDDR3 memory.

Let us know how that Acer is, there's very little first-hand info on it though it certainly looks pretty cool.

 

K-T I am having a bad day! So be nice! Yes as all above have said, the 320GB HDD is as fast as any @7200 so no need to upgrade. As far as Acer goes? Well that is the downside. They don't have the best rep for build. If this is a new platform that might not matter. The Customer service also gets criticism in so far as lacking. My own experience is finding document online and manuals on the Web is very hard. But if a good deal I would not worry too much. As far as the lack of Customer Service goes, I can always go online and ask K-T or many others so that does not concern me. I would go for the good specs and low price and let the rest fall into place.

 

Thanks for the feedback

To clarify, the price differential on the T8300 version depends on the retailer and the warranty. These laptops aren't available yet in the UK except through an exclusive dealership who have them weeks early (hence the premium). But I'm not desperate enough that I can't wait the 5 weeks until general release.

I had no idea about the HD issue - my understanding equated to 7200rpm=faster... Look how wrong I was! That's a big help as it will save me forking out the extra cash on an unecessary component.

I really appreciate your feedback, based on what you guys are telling me I'll stick with the T5720 and pocket the change. As for the build quality, I took the precaution of traveling for an hour to the sales desk to see it in person and it looks to be a sturdy construction that's put together very well (I would expect this as it will be their flagship system).

I'll get this baby on pre-order and let you guys know how it all works out.

Big thanks

P.S. If I do end up with any problems, count on me asking for more help!