Which CPU is better? Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 or Intel i3 2120 processor

[Charu Sharma]

right now I am having old rig and I am looking to upgrade the with new hardware. But I am little bit confused about CPU point of view. I know that there are several options available in the market. I have shortlisted my choice to Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 and Intel i3 2120 7a. can you tell me which processor should be best suitable for my new computer? brief idea on above mentioned topic will be appreciated. Thanks a lot in advance.

[jamiejohn]

Basically Core 2 Duo uses socket 775 and 65nm or 45nm on the basis of model. Whereas Core i3 using e socket 1156 and 32nm. If you are using 775 socket then it is likely more power should be consumed by the processor and it would result into more heat generation. 775 socket are DD2 however there are several other models that are working with DDR2 and DDR3. The Core i3 is working with DDR3. I let you know that 775 socket is older than 1156 socket.

Also the price of hardware parts are going to be play an important role as well. we know that 775 socket is old hence it is cheap as compared to another one. Also motherboard and RAM would be cheap for the same as well. if you wanted to purchase costly hardware parts, then you can get the same.

Core 2 has couple of cores and same number of threads as well , the amount of cores is same in Core i3 however you will have 4 threads. Core i3 is having support for Hyper-Threading but Core 2 Duo is not having support the same. the thing hyper threading simply making duplicate copy of some sections which is storing architectural state. That is why hyper-threading processors are well known as couple of logical processors.

[sushantbankar]

We know that Core 2 Duo was released in the 2008 and Core i3 2120 is Sandy Bridge processor and launched in 2011. I do agree that Core i3 has support for Hyperthreading and 300 MHz higher clock frequency. It provides support for HD Graphics 2000 as integrated graphics. There is no support for integrated graphics in Core 2 Duo E8400. integrated memory controller is provided on Core i3-2120 and it allows to communicate with DDR3 memory. Core 2 Duo supposed to deal that should communicate with memory.

By performance wise Core 2 Duo E8400 is bit expensive since it is manufactured on old architecture and Integrated memory controller lacking on the same. it simply results into slow performance. However 6 MB cache making the entire thing better. We are not having turbo boost in second generation of said Core i3 processor. However you are going to get great performance as compared to previous version.

[Arun K]

You can overclock Intel E8400 however current version of Intel CPU are having less overclocking capacity. There are many motherboard processors who are providing Turbo Boost technology , so that you can easily unlock frequency limit and you will can overclock your CPU without having much trouble. however you will not be able to overclock Core i3 series processor by any mean.
Though Core i3 is much faster in terms of clock speed and it has less amount of cache as well. it developers smaller process sicne it is manufactured on the basis of new architecture. newer architecture simply making CPU clock really fast. Apps that requires more than thread, should use Core i3. Also it consuming less amount of power. The core 2 Duo processors are same performance value as that of Core i3 processor. But Core i3 is has better multitasking capabilities. I recommend that you should go for Core i3 processor. I think it would make your Computer really faster.

[Pamina]

e8400 on the top of Dual core family and it has been already mentioned previously that you can overclock it efficiently. It can be placed on 775 socket motherboard however if you wanted to be Core i3 users , you will need to upgrade your motherboard as it is using 1156 socket.. so forcefully you will need to upgrade your motherboard. apart from that Core i3 are developed on 32nm process where as Core 2 Duos developed on 45nm process. As far as I know Core 2 Duo is bigger in size as compared to Core 2 Duo. Even Core i3 CPU are using Nehalem CPU architecture and it provides better performance.