Legit Reviews

Hi, its my first time on the forum, i have a question about a possible processor upgrade. I am currently using an Intel Core 2 Duo e3300 @2.5ghz.

I have an Intel core 2 duo e8400 @ 3.0ghz in my possession, and kinda iffy on replacing the E3300 with the E8400.

I know that the e8400 is a better processor, i was just wondering if anyone knew how much of a boost i would see from replacing the E3300.

My current system Spec's are:

Windows 7 64bit
8gb Ram
Intel Core 2 Duo e3300 @ 2.5ghz
Radeon HD 5570 1GB 128-bit DDR3

E3300 is a celeron chip. So if it is the E3300 then a E8400 is a big upgrade. To start it has 6x as much L2 cache, 6mb compared to 1mb. It also has a FSB of 1333 compared to 800; and of course the 500mhz faster clock. Those 3 things will make a noticeable difference.

I agree with sttm, there will be a pretty hefty difference. What motherboard are you using? Need to make sure it will support the e8400, not all boards will support the 1333fsb processors

The upgrade will be very noticeable. You will not only get a nice speed boost, but the celerons have lots of disabled features so you gain some cool stuff like lower power use (C1E & EIST) and support for "virtualisation"

What make of PC is it? Or did you build it yourself?

Make sure you have some "thermal compound" like arctic silver etc before you start.
The last thing you need is the heatsink off and no way of putting it back on.

kenc51 wrote:the celerons have lots of disabled features so you gain some cool stuff like lower power use (C1E & EIST) and support for "virtualisation"

The newer Wolfdale Celerons don't. I think the only Core 2-based Celerons that had C1E disable is the Celeron 4x0 Conroe-L. The Celeron Allendales have C1E and EIST but no VT-x. The Celeron Wolfdales don't have any of these limitations, albeit it is severely cache-limited at just 1MB L2 not to mention the jump from 800MHz to 1,333MHz FSB makes the E8400 considerably faster.

To illustrate, see the beating the Pentium Dual-Core E5200 2.5GHz takes from the Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/56?vs=66

The Celeron E3300 with half the cache is going to fare even worse.

sorry, i havent been able to check up on the post recently, buy my computer is custom build, the motherboard is an Asus P5G41-M LE/CSM

I know its not a great motherboard but its all i could afford with some of the other pricy items i have in this computer, i plan on upgrading it soon, but im sure it has support for the e8400.

dgriffin0876 wrote:sorry, i havent been able to check up on the post recently, buy my computer is custom build, the motherboard is an Asus P5G41-M LE/CSM

I know its not a great motherboard but its all i could afford with some of the other pricy items i have in this computer, i plan on upgrading it soon, but im sure it has support for the e8400.

According to ASUS, the P5G41-M LE/CSM supports 800, 1066, 1333 FSB. Also, Your e3300 and the e8400 are both 65W processors. From the looks of it, you should be good to go.

http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=rEewyEfoWEbP0psi
Look at the "Specification" and "CPU Support List" Tab.

Well, thank all of you for the info and help. seems as though im going to be switching out my processor soon.