Core 2 Duo T8100 (800Mhz FSB) and RAM 667Mhz FSB ???

Hi friends

i m planning to go for dell xps 1530in india
the RAM they r offering here has 667 Mhz fsb

i wanted to go for the penryn core 2 duo T8100 which 800Mhz Fsb

i know penryn is more efficient and will save me battery life , but i won't get performance a boost from it as i think thr is 1:1 ratio between RAM and CPU FSB operations

so shud i go in for a 667mhz fsb processor???(only the old Meron processors have 667 mhz fsb , so my next best option is T5750)

one more thing the T8100 has 3mb cache and T5750 has 2mb cache
i read in most places that more cache implies better performance but i also heard too much of cache size decreases the speed of the system it operates as too many cached variables really degrades the system
and error hits would be high.

so i m really confused please help me out

thanks

 

First of all lets clear some topics:

Present santa rosa notebook platform supports upto DDR2 667. Not beyond that. So no DDR2 800.

There are 2 classes of merom processors. The older class had 667 FSB for all CPUs [ T5x00 as well as T7x00]. The next class too has 2 sub-types. The newer T5xxx series for santa rosa has 667 FSB and the T7x00 series has 800 FSB and 4MB L2 [ x= 1,3,5,7,8 and T7250 is 800 FSB but 2MB L2 ].

The newer penryn processors have microarchitectural modifications over the meroms which result in a better performance. The T8100 boosts the PCmark score by quite a margin.

Both the merom and penryn processors have 2 level cache.. so it will not be much different. Larger cache improves hit ratios. That means better performance.

The bluetooth headphones offered is waste of money from my point of view. Give dell india a call and sort it if they can take the order without it. It will save some hard earned money. They generally deliver the product in about 2 weeks of payment. So place your order, and good luck..

 

you will notice the FASTER FSB,, attempting to "match" speeds with the ram has no benifit...IMO

bigO

 

I agree with bigozone the T8100 is far superior. It has a slightly faster clock speed (2.1 not 2.0), much faster fsb (800 not 667) half again as much cache, and is 45 nm. It is not better to have a 1:1 ratio. Hope this helps.

 

dingbat you made one mistake, T7100 has 2MB's L2. To OP larger and larger L2 does start to give diminishing returns, do not confuse that with reduced performance. That is not what that means. I agree with all on the FSB issue. Once again faster FSB would never lessen performance vs 1:1 it just may not substantially improve it. I have bench marks that 667Mhz RAM will see higher bandwidth with 800Mhz FSB vs 667Mhz FSB.

 

Thanks for correcting. Sorry I missed it..