Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 1.8GHz Socket LGA775, 2MB, BOXED w/fan (BX80557E4300) Boxed Processor

At the time of writing a E2180 (2gz 1mb cache) costs just over £40 new, so if you can pick one of these, a E4400/4500/4600, up for around £30-40 then you have a good deal. All should be capable of 3Ghz+ on basic aftermarket air cooling, (AC Freezer 7 is cheap but effective) and they have an extra 1mb of cache over the E2xx0 series which give extra performance in intensive tasks like games.
They also have a low starting FSB of 200mhz compared to the E6xx0 & E8x00 of 266mhz/333mhz, which means that they are much more overclockable on cheapo motherboards which have much lower FSB ceilings than performance parts.
Of course if you are after extreme performance then you should be looking at spending much more on a E8x00/Q9xx0, but one of these chips will give you very good performance on a budget providing you are happy to play with a couple of BIOS values!

One of the big advantages of these CPU's (Intel Core 2 Duo) is theeir relatively low operating temperature which means the Cooling is achieved with lower RPM coolerheat-sink fans and therefore much quiter PC.
The reliability of the CPU is excellent, provided it is operated within the design parameters and don't go into the dubious practice of overclocking whic more often than not will definitely shorten the life of the CPU and compromise the reliability of the system..
On top of all these attributes, they can be boyght at eBay at a fraction of their retail price, and if you are buying it from one of the many honest and reputable eBay sellers, you will get water tights guarantees against the CPU bein. defective.
I always shop for my CPU's at eBay, for the following good reasons:
1. You have a choice of so many types thar you can't find any retailer shop
2. The cost is much cheaper, and if you are lucky, you can get it for a song
3. When there is a choice, I prefer payment through the PayPal which gives piece of mind about my transactions.
As a last word, watch out for sellers who wilL give you little or no, or at best vague, information regarding the working of the CPU. Some will also exceedinly overcharge you diproportionately for the postage. Therfore do consider thp ostage when bidding.
lefkeli

Begs to be overclocked .Won't be worth a tenner in two years. So buy one,look up any article on google under "e4300 overclock" copy the steps shown.And be amazed. Read a few articles if you are still worried.Difficulty Rating (for novice)-piece of urine.Cheap fun... With minor adjusting to the bios at startup it should run day in and day out at 2.2GHz.With recent Asus and many other Brands you only change one setting and the clever motherboard does the rest for you.Yes,they expect you to overclock ! I have a basic Asus P5B board-so you can guess which article I copied. This applies to every core2duo from the e 2140 to the e Xpensive cpu. It makes most applications visibly faster but not games.However if you have a middle to top end graphics card you will see a difference as a processor under 2.2GHz seems to hold back the video card I,ve read.

Fast postage, well packaged and excellent communication. I chose the product based on the description in the eBay ad, I was very pleased to have recieved the product as described, the item came packaged well and arrived in good time!

I upgraded my Pentium4 to the Core Duo. It works fine (never any problem) an you can fill is quicker. I think that the idea of two cores working separately in the same chip opens a door to a new generation of computers (is that good? or just another selling strategy? you decide). It is also quieter than the Pentium4.