e2160 vs e8400

It does make a big difference, plus the e8400 is based on the 45nm architecture that is 10-15% faster clock for clock in some cases. Of course, the e8400 will overclock easily to 4ghz in a lot of cases whereas the e2160 will top off 3-3.2ghz in most cases.

I've owned a e2160 that was @ 3.4ghz and my e8400 at 3ghz is much faster in all scenarios.

65 vs 45nm difference is not 15%.. it's the cache that would make more of a difference than the architecture. The clock per clock in same cache scenario can't be more than 10% and I think that's being really generous.

It mades a different but the E2160 is still the a good budget chip if you consider 67% OC on a $50 chip.

Let's make this simply. It won't win E8400.

The larger cache + 45nm would probably put the e8400 @ 15-20% better performance than the E2160 at the same clock speed.... definitely depends on the application though - I'm talking newer games + synthetic benchmarks

I owned a E2140 and E7200 and I would say my estimation is fairly accurate

it was big difference. i went from a e6600 @ 3.7 to a e8400 @ 4.1 i saw a 2k+ jump in 3dmark o6 with lower gpu clocks. and about 10% more frames fps

There's a bit of a difference, but I don't know about 15-20%. Cetainly in some tasks, but not all. Some apps probably will see very little difference, some will see more. For reference, I can clock my e4300 and e2160 (2MB vs 1MB) to 3.2GHz and can't notice any difference between the two unless I am benchmarking, and even then the difference is negligable. But, the e8400 also has a lot more than 2MB L2. I won't be going e8400 as my motherboard only does 400 FSB, so 3.6GHz (400x9) would be around my max with it, where an e8600 will get to 4.0GHz (400x10).