Intel latest Core 2 series CPU-Pentium E6300 and Quad Q8400 Review

It’s been 3 years as Intel launched Core 2 Duo.
Core 2 Duo CPU got very good reputation as announcing and Intel launched Core 2 Quad CPU later to pull up the multi-tasking performance.
Last year, Intel announced Core i7, has higher performance, for hi-end market. And you will see i5 CPU soon.
For the Intel 3 socket structures, LGA775 is the oldest one and for mainstream market. However, the C/P value is still high.

Core 2 Duo product line can be divided by frequency and L2 cache.
Most hi-end is E8 series, 333 FSB and L2 6MB, then is E7 series, L2 is 3MB, belongs to mid-hi market.
The cheaper one is E5 series, 200 FSB and 2MB cache. Power consumption is 65W, Code name is Pentium.
Pentium is quite confusing user it’s Pentium4 structure.
It’s not so, E5 series is Core 2 Duo, just only cache different.
Of course, we cannot forget the most entry E1 series with 512K cache. The code name is Celeron. As it is Core 2 Duo structure, the performance is still good.



This time I buy is Intel Pentium Dual-Core E6300
E6300, very familiar ID, is Intel 65nm mid-hi product, and in fact it’s Pentium Dual-Core E6300 to replace E5 series.
L2 is 2MB and the FSB is 266MHz, the clock is 2.8GHz.
The current price is 2650NTD, around 80USD.

Intel Pentium Dual-Core E6300 CPU and bundled Cooler


Intel CPU all use thinner cooler after 45nm manufacturing process.


CPU is R0 stepping. In the forum, as E5200/E5300 transfered to R0, the OC ability is worse.
I hope E6300 can have better performance in R0 stepping.


This time I use MB-GIGABYTE GA-EP45T UD3R
DDR3 price has been dropping for several months. As the current market price, DDR3 platform becomes much cheaper.


SB heatsink shows it supports DDR3.


6 phase PWM, 2oz copper PCB and all Japanese solid capacitors.



System configuration
CPU: Intel Pentium Dual-Core E6300
MB: GIGABYTE GA-EP45T UD3R
DRAM: CORSAIR Dominator 2GBX2 DDR3 1800C8D
VGA: MSI N9600GT Diamond
HD: Intel X25-M 80GB
POWER: Corsair 400W Power Supply
Cooler: Thermaltake V1 AX


OS is Windows7 64bit

Defalut
CPU 266 X 10.5 => 2800Mhz
DDR3 1066 CL5 5-5-15

Hyper PI 32M => 19m 24.792s
CPUMARK99 => 404


CrystalMark

Defalut
CPU 333 X 8 => 2666Mhz
DDR3 1333 CL6 6-6-18

Hyper PI 32M => 21m 04.959s
CPUMARK99 => 385


CrystalMark


CINEBENCH
(1 CPU) 3199
(X CPU) 11446


PCMark Vantage
PCMark Score 10664


Windows7 Processor 7.2


Hyper PI can run quad cores to test stability and performance, but doesn’t support multi-core structure.
The actual performance is still little bit slower than single core. The CPUMARK99 is only for single core performance.

Other software all support quad cores, so the performance is much better.
As multi-core software, Q8400 default 2.66Ghz X 4 is still higher than E6300 OC to 4.2Ghz X 2.

OC
CPU 466 X 8 =>3728Mhz
DDR3 1864 CL8 8-8-22

Hyper PI 32M => 15m 37.749s
CPUMARK99 => 538


CrystalMark


CINEBENCH
(1 CPU) 4480
(X CPU) 15957


PCMark Vantage
PCMark Score 12362


Windows7 Processor 7.5

How about some Prime 95 results? 3.7 Ghz for the Q8400 w/ 1.3 vcore sounds impressivebut is it stable?