Strengths: Fast Shipping Excellent Prices...

Weaknesses: none

Summary: E6300 retail can be safely overclocked by 25 percent and some boards get 100 percent overclock rate. You will need DDR2 800 mem, but and excellent value for the price.

Strengths: 3yr warranty, box includes fan, very fast; good price when on sale

Weaknesses: none

Summary: good overclockable CPU. Without much effort, you can overclock it 2.9GHz and it's possible to overclock more if the motherboard and the memory is good. You should overclock this CPU.

Strengths: cheapest core2, great performance

Weaknesses: 2M in stead of 4M

Summary: After such a long time Intel finally bring out such a monster family, Core 2 Duo. Although it is the cheapest one among the others, E6300 still performance quite well for most of the bench marks comparing with those in the similar price range from AMD. I used AMD's for the last two years, but I should say this is an revolution.

Strengths: A good overclockable CPU.

Weaknesses: Stock cooler is not good.

Summary: In my thought, this CPU is a good overclockable CPU. Without much effort, you can overclock it 2.8GHz and it's possible to overclock more if the motherboard and the memory is good. It's a shame if you don't overclock this CPU. It's born to be overclocked.

Strengths: Fast, two cores, cool sticky stuff for the fan

Weaknesses: It's not the extreme version

Summary: This processor was easy to install, fully compatible with my nVidia motherboard, really fast and generally a good processor. I especially liked the fact that the processor and fan were really easy to install.

Strengths: cheapest duo core

Weaknesses: its an Allendale not conroe but who cares right

Summary: ok well got this baby in gigabyte s3 mobo had it running at stock speed for 1 week to allow it to burn it then it was overclocking time jumped up from 1.8 to 3.0 with 1.175 voltage and yes its stable ,prime95,superpi,orthos stable this 1 of the most greatest product iv bought and would buy again :) :) :)

Strengths: 3yr warranty, box includes fan, very fast; good price when on sale; runs cool at factory clock speed.

Weaknesses: fan a little tricky to install - to click into the motherboard; position of processor on the motherboard socket was not immediately apparent from the enclosed diagram - care must be used.

Summary: I like this processor very much. For rendering DVD's using Sony DVD Architect, this processor is 43-58% FASTER than a Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz, single core, and COOLER. Plus, even while rendering, I can use other programs such as MS Word with little noticeable slowdown in either program. Yet, the cost of this processor on sale was similarly priced to a Pentium 4 3.2 dual core as of sept 06.

Strengths: very powerful at stock setting, and even more powerful than you overclock it!

Weaknesses: price is high, due to high price for good motherboard and memory

Summary: It's extremely easy to overclock, just make sure that you purchase right mobo and memory for it. Mine is stable at 420FSB x 7 = 2,94Ghz with stock cooler! (Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 mobo) I believe that it can go even higher, but my memory won't :( Best deal ever!

Strengths: Fast Bus Speed, LOW HEAT OUTPUT!, LOW VOLTAGE!!!!

Weaknesses: Price :/ i'm a cheap guy - might consider an OEM version otherwise :)

Summary: I have successfully overclocked this bad boy to 3.0GHz! Completely stable at this speed, but ONLY WITH LIQUID COOLING! Beware of attempting this with air cooling! This dual-core frenzy owns at voltage, owns at heat output, and DEFINITELY owns at speed (1066mhz bus!!!!). A definite for the hardcore among us.

Strengths: Dual Core, low price, low power consumption, performance potential.

Weaknesses: stock cpu fan

Summary: For performance on a budget, I'd have to put the Intel E6300 at the top of the list! I am amazed at how easy it OC's with my Gigabyte DS3 mobo and stock cooling. It is stable for me at 2.6 Ghz (same speed as E6700), but it can go up to 3+ Ghz with proper cooling. The only question is whether all the other components will function at the higher clock range (i.e. memory, video card). Basically, I've only upgraded my mobo and PC-6400 (800 Mhz) DDR2 memory. I think this CPU will satisfy everyone from multimedia to gaming needs. If you want to take advantage of bumping up the speed, this is outstanding for such an entry level CPU - an not costing an arm and a leg! I've switched from AMD to Intel this round...

Strengths: Great speed out of the box and very good overclocking potential, plus it only uses 65w of power.

Weaknesses: I hear that the stock cooler doesn't perform that well and is loud. I can't attest to this since I went with an aftermarket cooler from the start.

Summary: I was able to find this processor retail boxed for $175 and it performs very well. Originally I was thinking of getting an x2 3800+, but with the small price difference and the much greater performance and oc'ing potential of the c2d chips I decided to go with this. It runs cool at stock, about 36c idle and 44c load with my cooler. I bought a cheap board for now until prices on the better performers come down and so I could use my agp gfx card and ddr1 ram. It doesn't allow me to overclock that far, but at 315fsb I complete superpi 1M in 30s, my friend has a D805 at 3.6ghz and it takes him 38s, which speaks to the power of this chip b/c with the right board you could probably hit 3.6ghz or thereabouts. Overall it's a great buy, probably the best price/performance ratio out there for a processor, and the dual core really helps for multitasking. Playing a game and browsing the internet is no problem.

Strengths: Cheap (for a cool dual-core); great documentation; works as advertised

Weaknesses: Stock cooler is lame

Summary: I am building two new systems, and decided to go budget on one and middle-of the road on the other. For the cheap build, I went with the e6300. For $190, how can you go wrong??!! You can't find an equivalent performer from the Intel D8xx or D9xx line in the same price range. This went into an ASUS P5WDH Deluxe motherboard with PC2-5400 DDR2 RAM, and it worked great from the get-go. I did have to make sure that I had the 0801 BIOS installed, as the previous versions had limited (or no) Core2 Duo support. I'm not an overclocker, so cannot comment on how fast you can get it. The biggest difference was power consumption!! My previous D830 ran idle in the high 50's, and peak in the low 70's! The e6300 idle'd at 29, and peaked at 39 (MP3 ripping). Just about everything else was a bit zippier. Thanks, Intel, for getting the power thing down finally.I never did try the stock intel fan, as it has historically been bad. Noisy, ineffective, applies poor contact to CPU. I went with a Zalman, and love it.

Strengths: very good performance at a reasonable price

Weaknesses: the included stock heatsink fan is a bit loud

Summary: i've always been a fan of AMD and have used AMD processors on my previous computers. this is the first time i've ever used an intel processor as a main rig.i've already read up on most of the hype surrounding the processor, so i already knew what i was getting when i purchased it. i paired this up with the gigabyte intel 965 based motherboard and 2 1gb sticks of pqi ddr2 memory. windows was installed quickly and things seemed to run way faster than my old opteron 146 based system. i guess the dual cores really does make a difference. this is really a no brainer choice if someone wants to spend about $200 on a new CPU. i was contemplating upgrading my CPU to a new AMD Athlon X2 4200+ as it was only $187. but i got this cpu instead for about $5 more. sure, i had to get a new motherboard and ram, but it just didn't make sense to spend $200 on an older cpu that doesn't perform as well as this one.

Strengths: Low price but great overclocker. I build new PC with a Gigabyte DS3 motherboard, Consair 6400 2G RAM, Thermaltake Big Typhoon. I am OC'ing it at 3.1 GHz with 430MHz FSB.

Weaknesses: Stock heatsink/fan is inadequate if you want overclock more than 3 GHz. You need better cooling like Thermaltake Big Typhoon.

Summary: Overall, for about US$400, you can get a Core 2 Duo E6300 processor, a capable overclocking friendly motherboard, and an aftermarket cooler which you can overclock it that would beat the pants off any stock Intel or AMD processor available in the market.

Strengths: When pair with Gigabyte DS3 or Asus P5B, it could overclock to 100% of standard speed. Like others said, it depends on CPU and case cooling. Runs cool at stock speed.

Weaknesses: Core 2 Duo's have design errors (errata) that could cause data corruption. If this serious problem can be easily reproduced, I hope Intel will replace older ones.

Summary: I currently run at with stock heat sink. I plan to use third party cooling solution such as Scythe Infinity or Thermaltake Ultra-120 in Antec P180 case. If you have Asus P5B deluxe, don't forget to update the latest 0507 BIOS that provides better overclocking and ability to adjust the multiplier of most Core 2 CPUs. See http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2822.