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Currently I have a core 2 duo e8400 (3.0 ghz), which works well for PCSX2, as I'm able to run almost all of the games I have fullspeed. But I'm about to buy a secondary PC for my wife, and I imagine I'm going to be using it a lot too so I would want it to be able to run PCSX2 like my current rig. However, a new e8400-based rig is way outside of her budget, much less an I3/5/7.

After shopping around, I saw an e5700 which is half of the price of an e8400. The e5700 is a 45nm wolfdale cpu that clocks in at 3.0 ghz, and contains all the extra instruction sets featured on the e8400. The only difference is that it only has a 2mb L2 cache, and it runs on an 800 mhz FSB (As opposed to the 6mb L2 cache and 1333 mhz on the e8400.)

Basically, will the e5700 be significantly slower than my e8400 (assuming that I use the same kind of hardware for the rest, vidcard, memory and all) or will the difference in speed be negligible?

If we're talking below 10fps difference it's going to be enough for me considering the savings and I imagine the e5700 is going to be less of an electricity hog.

(P.S. I'm not interested in overclocking either of the processors)

L2 cash isn't really important for PCSX2 and neither speed of fsb,as long it has good multiplier,it is important cloack speed.

I dont think it would make a huge diffrence. I would however suggest you consider an i3 instead. The i3-540 is much cheaper than the e8400 and will outperform it in pretty much every circumstance. You can also find very cheap 1156 mobos these days and ddr3 memory is as cheap as its ever been, even cheaper than ddr2.

Thanks for the replies, guys. I'm going to go with the e5700. I've seen an i3 in the shop I've visited and the price is beyond my budget. The e5700 rig is only 12,345 pesos and comes with 4 GB of DDR2 and a 9800 GT, whereas the i3 2.93 ghz package is 14,500 pesos and only has 1GB of ddr3 and integrated graphics (way beyond my budget as it is, if I upgrade the vidcard and the RAM I'm looking at 20k+ easy).

Oddly enough, the e8400 package they have is more expensive than the i3 at 15k pesos, and the other shops don't even have any e8* nor an e7500 cpu on stock. The clerk said this because the c2Ds are being phased out in favor of the core-Is and the entry level budget processors like the e5s (e5200/300/500/700)

Yeah the e8400 is no longer worth the money. Its currently more expensive than when it was actually released. The e5700 rig sounds good enough with more than enough ram than pcsx2 needs and 9800gt will be able to increase the resolution quite a bit. The i3 rig sounds quite expensive for the parts it has so given those options the e5700 is better for sure.

I have E8400 for more than 2 years /april 2008/ it was the best deal back then but now.. there are i3, i5 so why to waste a lot of money? You can even buy a PS2 with a tv for that money!

I already have a PS2, but it's currently packed (and will probably be given away to a nephew or something). Space is a bit limited ever since I got married and my wife moved in with me. PCs are given a pass because we actually depend on them for work.

The main reason I prefer PCSX2 over the actual console is the pretty graphics; ie: increasing the internal resolution of games.
I know that the PS2 has a lower polygon count than, say, the PS3 or XBOX 360, but still..
By simply increasing the scaling setting (provided your PC is powerful enough to handle it), it makes all of the Polygon Stuff look way better, especially on a big ol' HDTV or PC Monitor.