T5450 vs. T7300 processor for gaming

Hey guys, about to pull the trigger on a Dell 1520, but need some info. I spec'd one out for just under $1500CAN, which is my budget, with the 8600mGT and 1.66ghz T5450 processor. Thing is, if I go with the T7300 2.0ghz processor, will there be much difference in gaming? I don't really care about the extra speed in multi-tasking, as I am used to using Intel Celeron and low end AMD processors, so even the lower speed Core 2 Duo's will be a huge step up in speed I think. But I don't want to spend my money and regret not getting the T7300, if it will greatly help gaming performance. And if there is only a SLIGHT gaming performance increase by going with the 2.0ghz T7300, then I guess I could live with the T5450 1.66ghz.

Both are Core 2 Duo's, santa rosa I believe, and the T7300 is an extra $200 upgrade that I don't really want to spend if I don't really need to.

I just don't want to get a good GPU and bottleneck it with a slower processor than I should have.

Thanks,

-Krait

 

exact same situation with me (i'm from canada too) and i went with the 5450 instead of paying the extra 200 bucks. i don't think it's worth it to pay 200 just for an upgrade that would make a game a little faster. games rely on the gpu more. make sure you have at least 2gb ram too.

 

it will help you much if you are planing to watch hd videos of 1080p otherwise i would say it isnt necessesary but you should definitely get 2 gigs of ram for smooth game performance. FOr now are the processors way ahead the gpu in term of performance but im not sure if future games are going to be extremely processor hungry photoshop hd movies are some of the most cpu intensive apllications if you are planning to frequently use them buy t7300 otherwise stick with that you choose. anyway you should do fine in gaming for the next one to two years with these specs but by then the t7300 will be inferior due to introduction of 8 core processors which intel plans to lauch in cming years.

 

$200 is alot of money for such an upgrade. The performance increase isn't going to be massive, and it doesn't warrant the spending of that extra money. The T5420 will suffice, but if you still feel a slightly faster processor may be a good idea, maybe you could consider something in between the T7300, perhaps the T7100 is they offer it?

 

Yeah, the only options right now on Dell.ca are the T5450, T7300, and T7500. They had the T7100(1.8ghz) and the 1.5ghz processors on there before, but now its the above-mentioned ones.

I think the 1.66ghz will be fine too, I do want to use this for movies, games, etc but to be honest I think I will get a gaming console & high def dvd player and all that eventually, so I only need decent performance for now and occasional stuff. Especially since I am used to low tech stuff, the 1.66ghz should still be way ahead of what I've used in the past(I'm hoping anyways). And your right, the T7300 will be low tech quickly enough anyways, especially since quad-core is finally making its way into notebooks.

Thanks guys, I think I'll save my money and go with the T5450.

On a sidenote, how well will this system play games like Bioshock, Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3, etc? I would like to play these new upcoming games etc at at least playable settings(low-medium).

-Krait

 

Oh, and I will be getting 2gb's of Ram so no worries there.

-Krait

 

Does having 3 gigs of ram make the cpu run faster than upgrading the processor to t7300?

 

all those three games you mentioned should be very playable in medium settings and ok in med/high since recommended specs are go 7800/ati x1800

 

cpu cant run faster than its clocked so no. however if you mean performance increase than i would say again no. the effect would not be noticed unless you play supreme commander or anything else that is ram hungry but again than would the cpu and gpu come under pressure. so for the system which krait have chosen all his components are in balance. so adding ram upgrading gpu or cpu ONLY won't have any big effects on how he plays games