Overclocking: Dual- vs. Quad-Core CPUs

Overclocking I - Dual-Core E6750 At 3.00 GHz

Our sample of the Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (G0-stepping) uses a stock core voltage of 1.3500 V. We have also seen CPUs that run at lower default voltages, meaning there are better CPUs out there from an overclocking perspective.

The E6750 at 3.00 GHz

The RAM was stable at DDR2-900 and CL4.

In order to overclock our processor to 3.00 GHz, we raised the front-side bus speed from 333 MHz to 375 MHz. Thanks to the processor's G0 stepping, it does not need a voltage boost to reach this frequency. We used Prime95 to test the CPU's stability, putting a load on both cores.

Stable operation at 3.00 GHz with stock voltage.

Using the overclocked FSB, we can run the memory at DDR2-900 using the 2.40x memory multiplier.

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Core 2 Duo E6750 @3,00 GHz
CPU Frequency3.00 GHz (+12.8%)
FSB375 MHz (1500 QDR)
Core VoltageDefault
Memory Multiplier2.40x
Memory FrequencyDDR2-900 (450 MHz)
Memory LatencyCL 4.0-4-4-12

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