bit-tech Shopping: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Dual Core Processor

Rating: 10

Time with product: 4

Strengths: 45nm, 6mb cache, 1333mhz

Weaknesses: none

Summary: This is a great processor that appears to overclock well. Along with a great price.I used to use AMD, and when I first installed this I was shocked to see that Intel has no pins on their cpu's. I never knew that before... I'm not sure if thats a good thing or a negative.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 1 Days

Strengths: Low power; dropping in price; great performance

Weaknesses: Not compatible with many motherboards

Summary: I had an ASUS P5W-DH motherboard. This came out in summer 2006, and was one of the first motherboards to support Intel's new (at the time) Core2Duo CPUs. The board worked great with my E6600 for 1-1/2 years. I decided to upgrade to the E8400 when they came out, so I updated the BIOS and installed the new CPU. I proceeded to have a slew of compatiblity problems. The temperature readings were out of sight, even with my Zalman CPU cooler. Reading up, this was a problem with many systems. The other issue was lockups and bootups. I couldn't get my Crucial 4-4-4-12 PC2-6400 RAMs to be stable at any speed. I ended up selling the CPU, as it wouldn't work in my system.As a result, I'm not really going to ding the processor, but wanted people to be aware before they go for an upgrade on an existing motherboard. Read up user forums on compatibility of the E8400 w/ the motherboard.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 3

Strengths: Very fast. Running at 3.16 GHz no problems.

Weaknesses: none

Summary: I used to be strictly an AMD buyer, but since AMD hasn't been very competitive with Intel for speed, I chose this processor, and I am very pleased with it. I would highly recommend this processor to anyone that wants to upgrade.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 21 Days

Strengths: Fast, stable and easily overclockable at low Vcore

Weaknesses: NONE

Summary: I replaced the E6750 with the E8400 3 weeks ago and have been very pleased with the performance of this CPU. Currently I have the E8400 OC'd at 3.5Ghz, but could not achieve anywhere near this with the E6750. Since I use my pc primarily for flight simulation, the E8400 is perfect for running FS9 smoothly.

Rating: 10

Time with product:

Strengths: 3.0ghz and can be overclocked to 4.0ghz, fast dual-core, cheap for what it does, new technology 45nm, runs pretty cool, great gaming and multi-tasking processor

Weaknesses: Might have temp problems on some boards until bios update, besides that this processor is a winner in my opinion

Summary: The e8400 was very hard to find when it just came out, and all the retailers/etailers raised their prices by $50+. I eventually got it for the cheapest price i have seen from a retail store. This processor gives you a slight advantage over the e6850 which i have on my other PC, so if you have a e6850, no need to upgrade yet. I had the e8400 on an ip35 pro which worked fine but the cpu temps were off the charts, until bios update like someone previously stated. I think this is the best processor performace/price. If you find a good deal for it and if you need a new cpu, this is the way to go i think, quad-cores are not needed unless all you do is encode.