The chaps over at TechSpot take a look at the Intel Pentium E2140 & E2160, a stripped down Conroe processors featuring a tiny 1MB L2 cache with an 800MHz Front Side Bus (Conroe processors have a 4MB L2 cache and use a 1066/1333MHz FSB). Clocked at 1.8GHz the E2160 matches the E4300 in terms of clock speed while featuring half as much L2 cache. The E2140 on the other hand is now the slowest desktop 'Core 2' processor, clocked at just 1.6GHz. Although list price for both of these CPUs is slightly cheaper, for the time being retail cost around the web is about $99 for the E2160, while the E2140 is priced at around $84.

The E2160 delivers exceptional performance for just $99, while the E2140 is also incredible at just $84. These new processors certainly fill the sub-$100 price range well, far better than the Pentium D processors ever could. For general-purpose Windows performance, the E2100 processors are more than powerful enough. Particularly for those that just want to run office applications as well as Internet and e-mail usage. Considering the overclocking potential of the E2140, for example, this $84 processor can be overclocked to 3.0GHz with ease and at this frequency it should rival the Core 2 Duo E6700.

However, if you have a budget that allows you to purchase a Core 2 E4000 series processor, which would be a better buy? Also, if you plan to overclock either option, which would be a better buy?  After spending two weeks testing the E2140 and E2160 processors I have come to a few conclusions. First of all, gamers will want an Intel dual-core processor with as much L2 cache as possible. This means that the ideal budget processor for gamers would be the Core 2 Duo E6320 at around $165, regardless of whether or not you plan to overclock.

Those that cannot afford a $165 processor should look at the E4300, which costs just $114 and was faster than the E2160 in all our gaming tests. While a 10% performance margin might not seem like much with a GeForce 8800 GTX, it is far more noticeable with a less powerful card like the GeForce 8600 GTS, for example. Therefore saving $20 on a processor is not really a smart idea for gamers.