3DMark2001 and 3DMark2006Let's start off with the beloved Futuremark tests :
3dmark 2001 is up first :
Difference in cache is amazingly noticeable in this benchmark. I expected a nice advantage for the E8600. As 3dmark always loved bandwith and high FSB action. But this was more than expected as the E8600 trashed the E7400 clock for clock with an average of 5000 points. For your info I reran each test 3 times. If there were big discrepancies I redid them once more to verify the results. 3dmark2001 loves cache, if benching is your game, then there's only one obvious choice here.
3dmark 2006 next :
The E8600 scores slightly better than the E7400, but the performance gain isn't as big as with the 2001 benchmark. 3dmark2006 loves multiple cores. The more cores the merrier, but since both competitors are quite alike performance difference is negligible.