We look at the 45-nm Core 2 Duo E8000's overclocking potential. We also focus on power consumption, simulating real-world applications with SysMark 2007. Wolfdale truly breaks performance-per-watt records.
An OC to 4.2GHz is not that bad for a first generation 45nm. They also forgot that it uses the new HK/MG which does lower power consumption and increase performance.
Overall the Penryn series shows to be promising. I am sure as well that after the nect few revisions we will see better OC'ing abilities as well as even better performance per watt ratios.
Just out of curiosity since I know very little about overclocking. Around what kind of voltage increase do you start damaging the processor and the board? Seems like a .25 v increase on the processor would do a number on it over the course of its life.
Just out of curiosity since I know very little about overclocking. Around what kind of voltage increase do you start damaging the processor and the board? Seems like a .25 v increase on the processor would do a number on it over the course of its life.
As long as it stays within its voltage arena provided by the CPU vendor its fine.
For instance, the Q6600 G0 will run on as little as .95v and will be fine with as high as 1.5v. Of course the latter will kill the CPU much faster. But I OC'ed my Q6600 to 3GHz on air on the stock voltage of 1.25v.
Actually, there are several other points that weren't mentioned that show the advantage of a quad over a dual core. ie. The yorkie is only at 3.2ghz yet is still very close to the the wolfie at 4.2ghz. Any quad comparison with dual core at the same ghz will best the dual core. Why not show a 9450 or 9550 OC'd compared with an 8400/8500? Also in most cases where the dual core beats the quad even at stock speeds the real world results are not visible. (ie FPS at 100+) This is not to say the wolfies are a poor choice; rather only that if you can afford the quad you are getting more for your money across a much broader spectrum and really suffering no real world performance loss in the areas the OC'd wolfie bests the quad. That even applies to the Q6600 in most cases. If the Q6600 drops into the low $200 (US) it is a no brainer choice over a smiliarly priced 8400.
The E8000's may as well be celerons as they simply loss against the Q6600. Stock for stock or OC for OC the quads are the fastest so Intel better be ready for a sub $250 price for E8000's. One only needs note that the stock Q6600 beats the OC'ed E8000 at 3.8GHz on a few benchmarks to see the Q6600 can well over power the dual in quad optimized programs.
Actually, there are several other points that weren't mentioned that show the advantage of a quad over a dual core. ie. The yorkie is only at 3.2ghz yet is still very close to the the wolfie at 4.2ghz. Any quad comparison with dual core at the same ghz will best the dual core. Why not show a 9450 or 9550 OC'd compared with an 8400/8500? Also in most cases where the dual core beats the quad even at stock speeds the real world results are not visible. (ie FPS at 100+) This is not to say the wolfies are a poor choice; rather only that if you can afford the quad you are getting more for your money across a much broader spectrum and really suffering no real world performance loss in the areas the OC'd wolfie bests the quad. That even applies to the Q6600 in most cases. If the Q6600 drops into the low $200 (US) it is a no brainer choice over a smiliarly priced 8400.
First off I think that this article shouldnt and wasnt addressing Quad vs. dual! We know that a quad will best a dual any day off the week or 9 times out of 10.
The bottom line is that there are no 45nm Quads available right now besides the high end. Of course a $1200 is going to outperform and run laps around a $220 proc.
I myself bought a E8400 for several reasons. 1st: No 45nm quads available yet 2nd: super low power consumption compared to Q6600 (I really dont think the Q6600 o'cd to 3.6 is that much better than o'c 4ghz E8400... it only bests it by a mere 5% in most benches and for the $50 savings I couldnt go wrong 3rd: I wanted the E8400 over E8500 because it's almost $100 cheaper and I couldnt even find a E8500 online. Besides the E8500 is only 2-5% faster... that's not enough to justify a $100.
Bottom line is Intel came out with a good product... this puts them well ahead of AMD in the performance/price standpoint and also energy consumption. Conroe was long live but now penryn will be the next best thing. Quad's arent available yet because there simply isnt a market for them yet in the mainstream desktop. I work for a corporation called the US Gov and it doesnt buy Quad's (I'm talking millions of computers not your one sitting on the desk at home) it buys Pentium D's if that... In fact in my whole building here we have one desktop that is a dual core X2 and all the others are still Pentium 4 single cores.
Intel is wise in it's marketing strategy. They will have the market by 10-20$ in the desktop (dont know about server and mobile) for at least another 18 months guaranteed.
Actually, there are several other points that weren't mentioned that show the advantage of a quad over a dual core. ie. The yorkie is only at 3.2ghz yet is still very close to the the wolfie at 4.2ghz. Any quad comparison with dual core at the same ghz will best the dual core. Why not show a 9450 or 9550 OC'd compared with an 8400/8500? Also in most cases where the dual core beats the quad even at stock speeds the real world results are not visible. (ie FPS at 100+) This is not to say the wolfies are a poor choice; rather only that if you can afford the quad you are getting more for your money across a much broader spectrum and really suffering no real world performance loss in the areas the OC'd wolfie bests the quad. That even applies to the Q6600 in most cases. If the Q6600 drops into the low $200 (US) it is a no brainer choice over a smiliarly priced 8400.
Bottom line: If you use quad-optimized programs quite a bit, get the Q6600. If all you do is game and browse the web, get the Wolfdale as for those programs it's faster per clock, overclocks higher, uses less power, comes with SSE4, and on top of all that it's cheaper. It's really a no-brainer. Few games will be significantly quad-core optimized for at least another year or two, so when they are just drop in a quad which will be down to $150 or less by then.
The E8000's may as well be celerons as they simply loss against the Q6600. Stock for stock or OC for OC the quads are the fastest so Intel better be ready for a sub $250 price for E8000's. One only needs note that the stock Q6600 beats the OC'ed E8000 at 3.8GHz on a few benchmarks to see the Q6600 can well over power the dual in quad optimized programs.
So now all dual cores may as well be Celerons in your view?
Nevermind that 1/2 the benchmarks show the E8x00 in the lead.
Some temperature info would have been nice alongside the power consumption... some data other than the (mostly) obvious claim that temps stayed low... feels like the 8GB in Vista x64 article in that respect.
-mcg
Message edited by MrCommunistGen on 02-19-2008 at 09:08:08 PM
Bottom line: If you use quad-optimized programs quite a bit, get the Q6600. If all you do is game and browse the web, get the Wolfdale as for those programs it's faster per clock, overclocks higher, uses less power, comes with SSE4, and on top of all that it's cheaper. It's really a no-brainer. Few games will be significantly quad-core optimized for at least another year or two, so when they are just drop in a quad which will be down to $150 or less by then.
Ok, regarding this whole dual-core vs. quad core discussion.
Have I missed something or..
Everytime there is talk about the usefullness of a quad-core processor, people always talk about multi-core optimized applications.
Same thing can be seen in all the benchmarks, from for example tomshardware.. (With focus on how fast you can render a scene, or encode some mp3)
What about multi-core optimized operating systems?
I really don't care about running one single application really fast. I'm interested in running several application without them interfering with each other. Yes i'm talking about multi-tasking. And each application can very well be single threaded. But I want them to be distributed on the avalable cores, and run simultainiously.
So if i'm running a file download, watching a video, and browsing in a lot of tabs. (and having anti-virus, and other stuff in the background) How well does this perform?
I guess a lot of this is up to the operating system, as much as the CPU..
So does anyone know of any test that has focused on this aspect of utilizing a serveral core CPU?
Perhaps comparing dual-core with quad-core, on both XP and Vista.
The E8000's may as well be celerons as they simply loss against the Q6600. Stock for stock or OC for OC the quads are the fastest so Intel better be ready for a sub $250 price for E8000's. One only needs note that the stock Q6600 beats the OC'ed E8000 at 3.8GHz on a few benchmarks to see the Q6600 can well over power the dual in quad optimized programs.
And many programs are not quad optimized.
While the Q6600 is great for somethings, the E8xxx series is better for others.
The $250 price you are seeing is not Intel's price, but rather due to excessive demand. You could buy the processor for as low as $189 (MicroCenter) for the first week or so after release.
I expect the price to float down again in a couple months as stock repopulates.
Personally, I would nearly always suggest the Q6600 at near equal prices, but if there is a $60-$70 price difference the Exxxx may be better.
