Overclocking and Final Words

Our Core 2 Duo E6750 sample was a particularly great overclocker, at stock voltage with a retail Intel heatsink/fan we were able to run the system at 3.68GHz (460 x 8.0):

With further voltage tweaking slightly faster speeds should be possible, but at default voltage we were quite impressed. Whether or not this is a testament to the maturity of Intel's 65nm process has yet to be seen, but this next batch of Core 2 processors that will be appearing in the summer could be great overclockers. It's not a tremendous surprise given that Intel's 65nm process should be quite mature at this point, as Intel is on the cusp of introducing its first 45nm processors. Intel has always been strong in the manufacturing department, but now it's more like the good ol' Pentium/Pentium II/Pentium III days of overclocking because it is shipping CPUs we actually want to overclock.

While we await the official release of Intel's 1333MHz FSB CPUs, we now know not to expect much from them, which is why we're expecting to see a price-parity with current 1066MHz chips from Intel. It looks like the big performance increase for Intel this year will come from Penryn, and if reports from Taiwan are to be believed, the performance crown may not change hands this year after all.

Our brief comparison between AMD and Intel at the $180 price point continues to illustrate how it's not architecture, but pricing that can actually determine a recommendation at this point. While AMD is still competing using its original K8 architecture, its pricing is such that its CPUs can easily stand up to Intel at price points less than $300. Once Penryn hits, the same may no longer hold true but for now you can't go wrong with either manufacturer; it's not a bad time to be buying a CPU.

Gaming Performance
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  • mbf - Monday, July 23, 2007 - link

    I've been wondering how older motherboards will work with the new FSB1333 processors. Specifically I'm interested how an ASUS P5W DH Deluxe without the latest BIOS would react to having e.g. an E6750 dropped in. ASUS claims support for FSB1333 processors for the P5W DH Deluxe as of 2205 beta.

    Would the system boot and run using a pre-2205 BIOS (although not at peak performance), so a BIOS upgrade can be performed? Or would the system fail to boot at all, like when the first Core 2 Duo processors surfaced and needed a BIOS upgrade to run at all on certain boards.

    The reason I ask this is that I've my eyes set specifically on that board (I have several reasons, ECC memory support being one of them). I had originally planned on getting an E6600 after the July 22 price cuts, but right now there's nearly no FSB1066 processor to be had locally. Also, I'd of course love to have a access to the latest processors in any case.
  • myrubbish - Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - link

    which one is original ?
    http://www.hardspell.com/english/doc/showcont.asp?...">http://www.hardspell.com/english/doc/showcont.asp?...
  • kobymu - Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - link

    quote:

    The clock speeds Intel is launching its 1333MHz FSB processors are basically the same ones that Intel first introduced the Core 2 at; we weren't FSB bottlenecked back then, thus there's no reason to expect a huge increase in performance by bumping the FSB today. Quad-core CPUs may see a performance boost, but we'll have to wait until later to find out exactly what that improvement would be
    If at all possible, I would like to see the impact of
    A) 1333MHz FSB with DDR2
    B) DDR3 bandwidth
    C) both 1333MHz FSB with DDR3
    on quadcore in multiprocessing scenarios, preferably the non synthetic ones.
  • myrubbish - Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - link

    which one is original ?
    http://www.hardspell.com/english/doc/showcont.asp?...">http://www.hardspell.com/english/doc/showcont.asp?...
  • AnnonymousCoward - Monday, June 25, 2007 - link

    I noticed that last picture shows 1.088V, and my E6600 is rated at 1.325V (and measures 1.328-1.344V). Did Intel lower the voltage for this new series? This wasn't addressed.
  • 457R4LDR34DKN07 - Monday, June 25, 2007 - link

    Y should I pick 1 of these up when a 2.66 GHz quad core will be avalable at $266 dollars. much better perfomance even at 1066 FSB and thats before overclock.
  • Chunga29 - Monday, June 25, 2007 - link

    I see both listed, with the same price and same features. What exactly then is the purposed between having two model numbers? Does one of them not have virtualization? Even if that's the case, why bother? I mean, are there times when virtualization (even if disabled) would be a bad thing? Or maybe it's just a mistake in the table and I'm reading too much into it?
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, June 25, 2007 - link

    The E6550 has Intel Trusted eXecution Technology (TXT), while the E6540 does not. The model numbers would be far too easy to understand without curveballs like that :)

    Take care,
    Anand
  • SunAngel - Monday, June 25, 2007 - link

    I like the artice and understand it is just based on dual cores. However, I believe that everyone, including myself, really would like to know which will be faster for encoding jobs the 2.4 quad-core 1066FSB or the 3.0 dual-core 1333FSB? Since encoding is big business now, it is no secret that raw power is everyones wish. So, the sooner you can get me this benchmark, the sooner I can get back to clicking on advertisements.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, June 25, 2007 - link

    It's a very valid and important request, but I do believe it's one we've already answered :) If you look back to our article on the Core 2 Extreme QX6800, I tested a Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.4GHz/1066/quadcore) and a Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz/1066/dualcore). While the X6800 not quite the E6850 (3.0GHz/1333), it's close in performance so you should be able to get an idea of the performance comparison:

    http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc...">

    To save you the trouble of looking, the Core 2 Quad Q6600 is a better buy strictly for encoding if you're doing DivX/WME encoding. Our Windows Movie Maker and Quicktime tests show the Q6600 falling behind the X6800, but for DivX encoding and heavy WME work (and potentially H.264 encoding on other software platforms) you'll be better off with the Q6600.

    I hope this helps :)

    Take care,
    Anand

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