Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz Processor

Awesome bang for the buck!

Strengths: Cheap (for a cool dual-core); great documentation; works as advertised

Weakness: Stock cooler is lame

I am building two new systems, and decided to go budget on one and middle-of the road on the other. For the cheap build, I went with the e6300. For $190, how can you go wrong??!! You can't find an equivalent performer from the Intel D8xx or D9xx line in the same price range. This went into an ASUS P5WDH Deluxe motherboard with PC2-5400 DDR2 RAM, and it worked great from the get-go. I did have to...
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I am building two new systems, and decided to go budget on one and middle-of the road on the other. For the cheap build, I went with the e6300. For $190, how can you go wrong??!! You can't find an equivalent performer from the Intel D8xx or D9xx line in the same price range. This went into an ASUS P5WDH Deluxe motherboard with PC2-5400 DDR2 RAM, and it worked great from the get-go. I did have to make sure that I had the 0801 BIOS installed, as the previous versions had limited (or no) Core2 Duo support. I'm not an overclocker, so cannot comment on how fast you can get it. The biggest difference was power consumption!! My previous D830 ran idle in the high 50's, and peak in the low 70's! The e6300 idle'd at 29, and peaked at 39 (MP3 ripping). Just about everything else was a bit zippier. Thanks, Intel, for getting the power thing down finally.

I never did try the stock intel fan, as it has historically been bad. Noisy, ineffective, applies poor contact to CPU. I went with a Zalman, and love it.

By SDTechDeals - Sep 3, 2006

best cpu at the price range... bar none

Strengths: very good performance at a reasonable price

Weakness: the included stock heatsink fan is a bit loud

i've always been a fan of AMD and have used AMD processors on my previous computers. this is the first time i've ever used an intel processor as a main rig. i've already read up on most of the hype surrounding the processor, so i already knew what i was getting when i purchased it. i paired this up with the gigabyte intel 965 based motherboard and 2 1gb sticks of pqi ddr2 memory. windows was...
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i've always been a fan of AMD and have used AMD processors on my previous computers. this is the first time i've ever used an intel processor as a main rig.

i've already read up on most of the hype surrounding the processor, so i already knew what i was getting when i purchased it. i paired this up with the gigabyte intel 965 based motherboard and 2 1gb sticks of pqi ddr2 memory. windows was installed quickly and things seemed to run way faster than my old opteron 146 based system. i guess the dual cores really does make a difference.

this is really a no brainer choice if someone wants to spend about $200 on a new CPU. i was contemplating upgrading my CPU to a new AMD Athlon X2 4200+ as it was only $187. but i got this cpu instead for about $5 more. sure, i had to get a new motherboard and ram, but it just didn't make sense to spend $200 on an older cpu that doesn't perform as well as this one.

By nikehz - Sep 2, 2006

Budget Core 2, highly overclockable

Strengths: When pair with Gigabyte DS3 or Asus P5B, it could overclock to 100% of standard speed. Like others said, it depends on CPU and case cooling. Runs cool at stock speed.

Weakness: Core 2 Duo's have design errors (errata) that could cause data corruption. If this serious problem can be easily reproduced, I hope Intel will replace older ones.

I currently run at with stock heat sink. I plan to use third party cooling solution such as Scythe Infinity or Thermaltake Ultra-120 in Antec P180 case. If you have Asus P5B deluxe, don't forget to update the latest 0507 BIOS that provides better overclocking and ability to adjust the multiplier of most Core 2 CPUs. See www.anandtech.com/mb/s....

By cash4me - Aug 25, 2006

Intel core 2 duo E6300

Strengths: 3yr warranty, box includes fan, very fast; good price when on sale; runs cool at factory clock speed.

Weakness: fan a little tricky to install - to click into the motherboard; position of processor on the motherboard socket was not immediately apparent from the enclosed diagram - care must be used.

I like this processor very much. For rendering DVD's using Sony DVD Architect, this processor is 43-58% FASTER than a Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz, single core, and COOLER. Plus, even while rendering, I can use other programs such as MS Word with little noticeable slowdown in either program. Yet, the cost of this processor on sale was similarly priced to a Pentium 4 3.2 dual core as of sept 06.

By Anonymous - Oct 5, 2006

Works great for me

Strengths: Fast, two cores, cool sticky stuff for the fan

Weakness: It's not the extreme version

This processor was easy to install, fully compatible with my nVidia motherboard, really fast and generally a good processor. I especially liked the fact that the processor and fan were really easy to install.

By brcall - Oct 15, 2006