E6400 vs E6600 2mb vs 4mb.

[fps justin]

If you haven't already seen it, here is your chance. Its off some French website.

LINK...

It shows that with the E6600 downclocked to E6400 stock speed, the E6600 has a 10~15% advantage in FPS over the E6400.

[gvblake22]

Very interesting. Looks like the gaming performance improves more than anything else from having more L2 cache on Conroe. I'm suprised to see that 4MB of cache can actually offer improvements, it seems like it would normally be overkill, but that doesn't seem to be the case with Conroe. But I did notice that the 4MB cache chip is an engineering sample while the other (2MB L2 cache) chip is no an ES.

[yurimxpxman]

Originally Posted by fps justin

It shows that with the E6600 downclocked to E6400 stock speed, the E6600 has a 10~15% advantage in FPS over the E6400.

That's pretty awesome.

[RangerXLT8]

4mb cache is going to make a difference vs 2mb. I may have to buy the E6600.

[yurimxpxman]

It reminds me of the fact that a WDR74 w/ 8MB cache is slower than a 7200RPM Caviar w/ 16MB cache.

[Lead Head]

Originally Posted by yurimxpxman

It reminds me of the fact that a WDR74 w/ 8MB cache is slower than a 7200RPM Caviar w/ 16MB cache.

Cache is a lot different for hard drives....and considering the WDR spins at 10,000RPM and the Caviar is 7200...

[yurimxpxman]

Originally Posted by Lead Head

Cache is a lot different for hard drives....

Like I said, "reminds me" lol.

Originally Posted by Lead Head

and considering the WDR spins at 10,000RPM and the Caviar is 7200...

Were you starting to say that the original WDR is faster than a Caviar 7200RPM? If so, I don't mean to start an argument or anything, but you are mistaken. In the real-world benchmarks, the extra 8MB of cache boosted the Caviar past the WDR 8MBc.

[RangerXLT8]

Originally Posted by yurimxpxman

It reminds me of the fact that a WDR74 w/ 8MB cache is slower than a 7200RPM Caviar w/ 16MB cache.

To say WDC is faster than WDR is not accurately portraying things. The burst rate on the WDC may be faster, but burst doesn't mean that much compared to seek and average read.

If I had to pick between a 16mb WDC and a WDR, I would pick the raptor everytime, adn so would anyone in the know. And this is coming from someone who owns 3 8mb raptors and a handful of WDC 16mb drives.

[yurimxpxman]

Originally Posted by RangerXLT8

To say WDC is faster than WDR is not accurately portraying things. The burst rate on the WDC may be faster, but burst doesn't mean that much compared to seek and average read.

If I had to pick between a 16mb WDC and a WDR, I would pick the raptor everytime, adn so would anyone in the know. And this is coming from someone who owns 3 8mb raptors and a handful of WDC 16mb drives.

True. But really, it doesn't even matter now since Raptors have 16MB of cache now anyways :-P

I personally have the 8MB WDR74. It's ok. A bit louder than the other drives though. I'd like to get a WDRX 8)

[gvblake22]

Performance improvements in things like HDD's with different cache sizes and spindle speeds are all relative. Some bench's will show one faster and others will show the opposite. Same with Processor cache; not every benchmark is always going show a performance improvement between two similar processors with different cache sizes. Just look at AMD... They are actually cutting the cache sizes in new processor models while intel keeps doubling! It's all relative...