Looking for budget processor for gaming

[WilhelmPrice]

Looking for budget processor for gaming; my current setup involves
an Intel DG31PR(LGA775 socket) main board
2GB RAM
9800 GT 1GB, but my current processor is embarrasing..
a Pentium Dual Core E2180.

I live in the Philippines.....

I wanna get the potential of my 9800 GT and some acceptable performance in Crysis and Mass Effect by upgrading my processor.

My budget is up to 5,500 PHP(our currency)

I'm most interested in the Intel Pentium Dual Core E5300 2.66 ghz which is 3500 PHP; but I am also interested in the:
Intel Pentium Dual Core E5400 2.7 ghz ...3700 PHP
Intel Pentium Dual Core E6300 2.8 ghz ...4000 PHP
Intel Pentium Dual Core E6500 2.93 ghz ...4160 PHP
Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 2.9 ghz which is ...5,450 PHP

My goal is to get something within my price range and VERY hopefully below 4,500 PHP that can run Crysis and Mass Effect at high with atleast 1152 pixel resolution with my current setup.

I am sorry for the inconvenience of makin u guyz think about the currency being in PHP but if you guyz refer, just post so and I can convert every one of those to USD...


Ryt now with my current E2180 setup Crysis runs at 1152 res with 27-60 FPS....27 in complex situations with lots of enemies and exploding....35 in usual..sometimes 40 and 60 indoors.....

I set the

textures to high

shadows to medium

water to high

no AA

Shaders tweaked between high and very high and all others at low...

.and I also tweaked the Object Distance LOD....a lot, like I cannot see most objects afar. IT SUCKS...bcoz if its alredy degraded in visual quality that much, it wud perform well in stealthy approaches and if less than 20 enemies are running around or attacking....but it goes 20+ fps once there are 30 or once there are lots of explosions.

My Mobo won't allow to me OC, and I really don't plan to...and I really can't afford to buy some cooling stuff or other stuff other than a CPU.

Please and THank YOU! ALL help is HIGHly appreciated

 

[dividebyzero]

Judging by your pricing I'd probably go with the E6500. Except for the lower L2 cache (2mb) compared to the E7500's 3mb the CPU's are identical except that the E6500 is branded "Dual Core" and the E7500 is a "Core 2 Duo". Both are Wolfdale (Penryn 45nm) CPU's.
Theoretically the E7500's larger cache should make it faster in some applications, but the E6500 should still provide 90-95% of the E7500's performance .
This review of 131 CPU's includes all the processors you have listed, and as an added bonus includes a Crysis benchmark. The only downside is that the review is in French, although Google translate might help you out. The graphs of course are self explanatory.
Here is a Crysis optimization guide to help get the best out of the gamehttp://www.tweakguides.com/Crysis_1.html should you need it.

 

[Douken]

I say go with E6500. If you had an AMD setup you could grab a quad core with that kind of money. But the E6500 will work.

 

[captaincranky]

The only issue with the E6300 and almost certainly the E6500 would be whether there is a BIOS update available for your board to run it. If your board is too much more than 6 months old, it will absolutely need an update.

If there is, that's great, since the E6300 E6500 and support "virtualization" where the E7300 and E7400 C2Ds do not.

I have an E6300, and it puts up a 6.2 performance index in Windows 7, for whatever that means, or whatever that's worth. Actually though, that's pretty sprightly for a CPU that cost me $72.00 USD (Newegg "Shell Shocker", Regularly $80.00 USD) Meh, still a bargain @ 80 bucks, methinks.

It's just a guess, but I don't think that an E5300 is really altogether that much more than you have.

Intel is sort of rude about the overclocking thing, but with all due respect, they have to honor the warranty.

 

[dividebyzero]

Good point captain.
Thankfully Intel seem up to date with their compatibility.
CPU support list here http://processormatch.intel.com/CompDB/SearchResult.aspx?Boardname=DG31PR for the DG31PR (BIOS revision 0068 or later for the E6500). Clicking on the BIOS revision link will take you to the download support page for the board.
Remember to update the BIOS (if required) before you swap out the old CPU.

 

[captaincranky]

It's just a guess, but I don't think that an E5300 is really altogether that much more than you have.

After looking through the charts provided by DBZ, (en Francais) I correct myself, the E5300 is actually quite a bit more potent than an E2180.

In spite of that, I'd still shoot for the E6500 which is about a 20% improvement over the E5300.

"Temps" is time, yes?

@ DBZ, Speaking of CPU reviews, (from your "Tech Report link) I am amazed at how the i3-530 goes toe to toe, frame for frame with an E8600. I just bought an I3-530 for $100.00 US, and the E8600 goes for nearly triple that, ($270.oo US) Even more interesting is the graphics score that Win 7 gives the i3-530. >> 4.9 << (for Aero) and 5.3 for business and games! OK, I know that isn't going to impress many gamers, but compare it with a G41 chipset board which yields >> 3.5 <<...!

 

[dividebyzero]

The E8600 always seemed a bit of an oddball CPU, as is the E8700 (3.5GHz-if it was ever released in volume, which I doubt)- launching dual core CPU's in the same price bracket as very competant quads (Q9450 and Q9550) and relatively late in the cycle to boot.
The 530/540 i3's seem like very good deals in relation to the performance of both the faster clocked 6xx series and the i5/i7 range (and of course the AMD offerings, which I won't dwell on lest the red militia launch an offensive) and the C2D/C2Q. Natively fast core speed, plenty of voltage overhead, an L3 cache and excellent pricing all coming together to produce an excellent performer. The L3/architecture change is the technological leap above it's Wolfdale/Yorkfield ancestors here I think.
I haven't as yet had the opportunity to put together an i3/H55/H57 system- most of my customers are either gamers or aren't in a financial position to run a seperate HTPC. A certain wariness of Intel IGP's is likely coming into play...this is after telling them that even with the graphics disabled the CPU's are significantly better than most of their 45nm predecessors.

 

[captaincranky]

That's not the half of it. The little system I assembled last night, (i3-530, Gigabyte H-55, GSkill 4 GB 1333Mhz CL8, Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200.12 + Sony Optiarc Sata DVD, Antec EA430 PSU) The SATA drivers are built into the BIOS, you just click "AHCI" in BIOS and away you go. It's not RAID, but that's pretty much above my pay grade anyway. Came to $440.00 with the case, not counting tax or shipping. I fudged a bit and kept the stock cooler. The CPU puts up a 6.9 (!) in Windows performance. Surprisingly, the RAM doesn't score dramatically higher than 800Mhz Kingston Value RAM in my E6300 machine. (?)

 

[dividebyzero]

Certainly beats the hell out of having to make a SATA driver floppy!.

Here's another CPU comparison by our eastern european contingent at Xbit . Their "How CPU features affect CPU performance" (links near the bottom of the page) is an excellent series made better by the Russian style Joe Friday dialogue.