leejames04 Posted May 26, 2009 Share Posted May 26, 2009 Hey everyone, I recently "aquired" The Sims 3 due to being a big fan of the games and whilst it has been fun on my current system it is slow as hell and has given me a justification to upgrade my PC a little. Whilst shopping around for Dual Core Processors I saw this supposed Intel Core 2 Duo E5200 for about £55 and thought yes! A cheap yet good dual core processor. Link: http://www.awd-it.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=4733 When google searching to read about it I was getting a lot of Pentium Dual Core E5200 which confused me. But to make things even moe confusing I looked at Motherboard bundles and saw this bundle with the E5200 still as a Core 2 Duo, Link: http://www.awd-it.com/scripts/prodView.asp...rd+Bundle+BU069 So my biggest question is whether the E5200 is a Core 2 Duo or as I suspect a Pentium Dual Core. A few more things I'd like to clear up is a laymans guide to Intel Dual Cores and whether anybody has seen any good Processor/Motherboard Deals (Preferably Core 2 Duo) with support for DDRII 533 / 400 RAM, an even bigger plus would be AGP 8x support but not essential that can run Sims 3 smoothly for a while. Sorry for this big demand but my heads hurting. Leejames04 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/168061-intel-e5200-core-2-duo/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zaap Posted May 26, 2009 Share Posted May 26, 2009 It's confusing, but to my knowledge there are no E5000 series Core2Duos. The Core2 line starts at the E4300 and goes to the E4600, then skips to the E6300 and goes upward from there. I'm pretty certain the E5000's are all Dual Core Pentiums, though if I understand correctly, they are almost the same as the C2Ds, minus a larger L2 cache. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/168061-intel-e5200-core-2-duo/#findComment-1163836 Share on other sites More sharing options...
leejames04 Posted May 26, 2009 Author Share Posted May 26, 2009 Thanks, just did another google search to compare it to the Core 2 Duo version and an interesting thread came up which was reasonably easy to understand. The E5200 is a Pentium Dual Core but has 1MB Less L2 than it's more expensive brother, but is great for overclocking so can outstrip it easily. Will deposit money tomorrow when I find a good MB and possibly a new graphics card, anyone have any ideas? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/168061-intel-e5200-core-2-duo/#findComment-1163913 Share on other sites More sharing options...
theDAmartini Posted May 26, 2009 Share Posted May 26, 2009 It's confusing, but to my knowledge there are no E5000 series Core2Duos. The Core2 line starts at the E4300 and goes to the E4600, then skips to the E6300 and goes upward from there. I'm pretty certain the E5000's are all Dual Core Pentiums, though if I understand correctly, they are almost the same as the C2Ds, minus a larger L2 cache. The E5200 is based on the c2d architecture, but just has a little less l2 cache than some of its bigger siblings. You should be fine in upgrading to this CPU I would imagine. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/168061-intel-e5200-core-2-duo/#findComment-1163906 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr-pink Posted May 26, 2009 Share Posted May 26, 2009 Core 2 and Pentium dual core are only brand names. If you have a look at wikipedia you'll see they have the same codename (Wolfdale). However, from what I know, the only difference between E5200 and some core2 should be L2 cache and front side bus speed. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/168061-intel-e5200-core-2-duo/#findComment-1163954 Share on other sites More sharing options...
theDAmartini Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 Thanks, just did another google search to compare it to the Core 2 Duo version and an interesting thread came up which was reasonably easy to understand. The E5200 is a Pentium Dual Core but has 1MB Less L2 than it's more expensive brother, but is great for overclocking so can outstrip it easily. Will deposit money tomorrow when I find a good MB and possibly a new graphics card, anyone have any ideas? Depends on how much RAM you are wanting. RIght now from what I have been reading, if your after 4gb of DDR2 in your maching, The gigabyte g31es2L is a great choice and is super compatible. For graphics, the 8600gts just wins in my book for a card that is hdcp ready, supports dual dvi if you need it and is fully supported for OSX and is only ~$40. Maybe even cheaper if you find one on classifieds on a forum. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/168061-intel-e5200-core-2-duo/#findComment-1164016 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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