Question on which CPU to purchase.

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sohcahtoa

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I want to purchase a Dell M1530, but I am struggling at the CPU choice at the moment.

I have not been following CPU close enough to really make a good decision on which to purchase. I am planning to use this laptop mostly for gaming when i bring it up to college. I am looking for the most bang for the buck. I've been told that getting the cheapest Core 2 Duo is enough, and the rest is almost equally powerful. But this was told to me when Core 2 Duo just came out last year.

Heres the selection and price difference:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5250 (2MB cache/1.5GHz/667Mhz FSB) [Included in Price]
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5450 (2MB cache/1.66GHz/667Mhz FSB) [add $50]
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7250 (2MB cache/2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB) [add $100]
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache) [add $175]
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7700 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache) [add $300]
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7800 (2.6GHz/800Mhz FSB, 4MB Cache) [add $575]
Click to expand...

I'm hoping someone can help me choose something that is justified by the price. And of course i know the one thats the most expensive is the best :p
 
My biggest question is T7500 notably different from T5250, does it justified the 175 dollars difference?

How much of a difference is 2mb cache and a 4mb cache? 677mhz and 800mhz FSB?

Someone please help me out, much appreciated. Thank you.
 
sohcahtoa said:
My biggest question is T7500 notably different from T5250, does it justified the 175 dollars difference?

How much of a difference is 2mb cache and a 4mb cache? 677mhz and 800mhz FSB?

Someone please help me out, much appreciated. Thank you.
Click to expand...

It doesn't justify the $175 difference. Here are a few links detailing the performance increase from a larger L2 cache:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/pentium-e2160_4.html#sect0
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3127&p=2
 
Um those links compare cpus with the same clockspeed, whereas the $175 cpu is 700 mhz faster than the cheaper one in addition to the increased cache and bus. Now I don't know exactly how significant this is in real world performance as I don't have benchmarks, but I would imagine that a near 50% increase in clockspeed would give noticeable results.

In desktop core 2 duos the lower end models can be overclocked to similar speeds as the higher end models, but however this is a laptop purchase and overclocking is a lot less common due to heat concerns. So if you aren't planning on overclocking, and I have no idea how far it would if you did as I have very little experience in this area, the stock clockspeed difference is the most important difference between those two cpus, not the cache.
 
Since Prism123 brought it up and I forgot about it, here's a comparison between the E6400 and E6850. The E6400 is clocked at 2.13Ghz, has a 2MB L2 Cache and a FSB of 1066Mhz. The E6850 is clocked at 3.0Ghz, has a 4MB L2 Cache and a FSB of 1333Mhz. While the difference in clock speed between the two CPUs is 870Mhz, it should still give you a rough idea of the performance difference between the T5250 and T7500. Play around with it:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=872&model2=880&chart=433

Another good comparison would be the E6750 and E6300. The E6300 is clocked at 1.86Ghz, has a 2MB L2 Cache and a FSB of 1066Mhz. The E6750 is clocked at 2.66Ghz, has a 4MB L2 Cache and a FSB of 1333Mhz. The difference in clock speed is 800Mhz:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=873&model2=881&chart=433
 
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