The chaps over at MadShrimps take a closer look at the advantages of the E8600 and its 6Mb L2 cache, versus the more affordable E7400 with only 3Mb L2 cache, which one offers the best bang for the buck?

So how do we draw a conclusion from all these tests ? These CPU's seem pretty much on par in some tests, yet in some the E8600 outshines its little brother. Maybe if we look at different users it might be easier:

* The casual PC user : is it worth to cash out big time for the E8600 ? Absolutely not. Get the cheaper alternative and don't mind the remarks from your PC minded neighbours, that you only bought an E7400. Just tell him you made the smarter choice as the little performance gain is hardly worth the extra cash. If he doesn't digg that, just give him my cellphone number!

* The Gamer : I frequently visit LANs and get pretty aroused by seeing high end hardware in some game rigs. Yet you got 2 different classes here; the show offs ( Me! Me! Me! ) and the budget minded gamer. If maximum gaming performance is what you are after and you cannot live with the fact that the person next to you might have a few frames per second more than you, than buy the E8600. If you rather put that money in some brewskis, grab an E7400.

* The Overclocker : World record beaters will not even think one second about grabbing an E7400. Every extra feature could mean the difference between establishing a new level or just being one of them wannabees. I've got a nice E7400 in my possession and it clocks really great, though heat output above 4.2Ghz is hardly controllable by my Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme cooler. Also looking at several forum users with the same lower end CPU's overclocking varies a lot. 3.6Ghz-3.8Ghz seems pretty common between the E7XX users, for the "let's call them real wolfdales" 4Ghz is average. I mentioned the heat output before and I think this is due to the fact that the IHS (Internal Heat Spreader) is not soldered on the E7XX series, but glued.

So to sum things up: Is the cache worth it for most PC users ? Absolutely not ! Put the money in a faster GFX card, better CPU cooler etc... The price difference is too big to justify the few gains you will get in real world applications. With the first Core 2 Duo the 1Mb vs 2Mb vs 4Mb L2 cache was definitely more noticeable. Between 3 and 6mb the gap is pretty small.