Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 & E6400: Tremendous Value Through Overclocking
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 26, 2006 8:17 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Application Performance using SYSMark 2004 SE
We'll kick off our look at general application performance with SYSMark 2004 SE and as always, we'll look at the overall score as well as the scores in each of the two suites - Internet Content Creation and Office productivity.
The applications tested by SYSmark 2004 cover the vast majority of the modern computing spectrum. Everything from multimedia to office to multitasking performance is included, and while not every application will show a substantial performance increase with a faster processor, the overall performance spread among the tested CPUs is almost 75%. If you routinely do a lot of computationally intensive work on your system (surfing the web and writing email generally don't count), there's no question that you will see a substantial difference between the fastest and slowest systems we're testing.
Our first look at the E6300/E6400 with overclocking generates some interesting results. There has been speculation that one of the reasons Core 2 Duo chips perform so well is that they have so much L2 cache. Dropping from 4 MB to 2 MB of cache does hurt performance a bit, but with a little bit of overclocking both of our budget Core 2 Duo chips perform very well. The net loss appears to be about 200 MHz, so the 2.88 GHz E6400 roughly equals the 2.66 GHz E6700, and the 2.59 GHz E6300 roughly matches the 2.4 GHz E6600. Drilling down into the individual benchmark results for SYSmark 2004, the impact of the reduced cache is more apparent in Office Productivity applications than it is in the Internet Content Creation results, but the 2MB Core 2 chips preform respectably regardless of the application being tested. Perhaps a Core 2 with 1MB or less of L2 wouldn't perform all that well, but since those parts don't exist there's no reason to worry about hypothetical bottlenecks right now.
Switching over to the AMD versus Intel comparisons, the E6300 and E6400 already compete very well, and once we throw in overclocking they are basically out of reach of any of the AM2 processors -- with or without overclocking. In overall score, the overclocked E6300 is almost 20% faster than the FX-62. A 20% overclock of the FX-62 (3.33 GHz) might close the gap, but it would certainly require more than stock air cooling, and it doesn't change the fact that we are able to get extremely good performance out of Intel's $180-$220 parts.
The individual SYSMark 2004 SE scores are graphed below if you're interested; the data is used in calculating the overall scores we've already discussed above:
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
137 Comments
View All Comments
jonp - Sunday, September 2, 2007 - link
The text above the chart for the E6400 says 2.88GHz at 360 MHz FSB at 1.350V (with a multiplier of 8).The chart however shows 1.312V; which is what my stock E6400 runs at.
So what's up?
Killer4Hire - Sunday, October 29, 2006 - link
I agree about your test making the AMD cpu's look none overclocking and at the crazy price of DDR2 ram and the MOBO i just don,t see the bang here..My 3800+ X2 non AM2 on Cheap DDR ram can,t bring it also and make the FX62 look bad.. at 2.6Ghz it scored 7232points in 3Dmark05 cpu test on cheap DDR at a $45Mobo.. where dose that put me in your chart?? oh i am sure she could do 3.0Ghz also..
sergejvictorov - Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - link
Can anyone help me as to what RAM clockspeed I need to buy in order to overclock the E6300 on an ASUS P5B Deluxe board to - let's say - 2.592 GHz? Is DDR2-675 from Corsair sufficient? Thanks in advanceNfarce - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link
Hey look, I was about to plunk down serious bux for an X2 setup to replace my aging P4 o'clkd 3.6xx system (that replaced an Athlon prior, that replaced a PIII prior.. blah blah). Don't you bedwetters know that this give and take is cool for everyone? No, I guess not for EVERYONE. I guess not for those butt pirates with their heads stuck so far up AMD's @ss that they can't see anything but "bias" in a review that shows FACTS. That's ok AMD girlz, take your soccer balls and go home now after trashing Anandtech. Don't forget to dry out your pretty pink wet panties.aznskickass - Saturday, July 29, 2006 - link
Man you are the thickest fanboy I have ever seen.Since you obviously have no interest in E6300 overclocking whatsoever, and will therefore have no fcuking clue what you're talking about, let me enlighten you:
E6300s with Gigabyte DS3 boards are hitting 3.3 - 3.5GHz on air cooling. Check XS forums if you don't believe me. That is the equivalent of an X2 @ 4.1 - 4.4GHz. What are your beloved X2 3800+s getting? 2.8GHz? 3GHz if you're lucky?
That means, with the right mobo, an o/ced E6300 can outperform an o/ced 3800+ by at LEAST 25%.
You just got owned fanboy. Get a clue FFS.
deathwalker - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link
So how long will it take AMD to come up with a competitive response to the Core 2 Duo? Or better yet...do they even have a competitive response in the pipeline?snorre - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link
It was nice knowing you, at least uptil Intel bought you lock, stock and barrel. After reading your latest reviews I have no doubts left in my mind, you're officially gone the THG route. I used to be a lojal reader and both linked and recommended your site to other people for unbiased information, but I will stop doing this now for obvious reasons. I hope you'll wake up and smell the coffee soon before you loose any more readers. Good-bye!goinginstyle - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link
So what are they suppose to do? Lie about Conroe's performance? You are one of the biggest AMD fanbois around, sometimes it hurts but suck it up as Intel won this round. There was not anything biased about this article or their coverage. They have been just as big AMD fans as Intel fans since the website started. Leave if you must, but do not do it because the numbers tell the truth.najames - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link
Oh boy, oh boy I want to buy one of these Conroe's right now. I'm gonna order one.Hmm, Newegg doesn't have them, Monarch doesn't have them, it seems nobody has them.
Why are we worrying about comparing vaporware to something that has been out for a long time. Why don't we just compare the Conroe to an upcoming AMD 4x4 then? It's all vaporware then at least.
Oh and let's make sure we compare lots of 64bit stuff too, after all there has been 64bit OSs around for about 15 years now.
Gary Key - Saturday, July 29, 2006 - link
I ordered two from Tiger Direct and one from ZipZoomFly. No issues, received one today and the other two on Monday. :)