Overclocking: Dual- vs. Quad-Core CPUs

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Ok, what is it with Tom's lately. On page 21 they review the test setup which is clearly different then the setup described in the rest of the article.

AMD Platform AM2
(Nvidia Nforce 5) Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe, Rev.1.03G
Nvidia nForce5, BIOS: 1001 (03/13/2007)
Intel Platform S775
(Intel P35) Gigabyte P35C-DS3R, Rev. 1.0
Intel P35, BIOS: F2o (05/11/2007)
Intel Platform S775
(Intel X38) Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6, Rev. 1.0
Intel X38, BIOS: F4 (09/19/2007)
Memory 2x 1GB A-Data DDR2-1066+ Vitesta Extreme Edition
DVD-ROM Samsung SH-D163A , SATA150
Graphics Card Foxconn Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX
GPU: 575 MHz
Shader: 1350 MHz
Video Memory: 786 MB DDR4 (900 MHz, 384 Bit)
Sound Card Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Power Supply Zalman, ATX 2.01, 510 Watt

^^^ What is that garbage? Its from page 21 of this article and it has in it a board for AMD.
 
Makes me glad I opted for an E6550, and an ABIT IP35-E. 3.33Ghz on stock cooling, with stock voltages, and I am positive I could push it further with adequate cooling. The main reason besides cash I did not want a quad core is because of higher PWM temperatures. Besides all that oct cores probably are not all that far off ; )

4 cores is too much for most games now days, but applications like Photoshop probably would put that extras processing power to use. Lets not forget about Andahls law . . .
 
Is there any other RAM at that price range to use? I can't get this RAM from any NCIX or TigerDirect in Canada. What would be a few more options in RAM at this price range?


As for the info on page 21 I think they had a typo or just used the info from their last review.

Snipster
 
Wow, what a great article. And very timely for me personally.

The fact that my current CPU, the E4300, was always at the bottom of that list, sure makes me want to take the plunge and go to one of their older brothers. Well, and the fact that my E4300 seems to run really hot does not help.

Now, what do I do? the e6750 $199, the q6600 $273, in real canadian dollars ;-)

Add to that another $62 over 1 year in hydro, and now we are talking big diff is $$$.

So I am thinking the e6750 for now, and then maybe 1 year from now, look at what is around in terms of CPUs and the apps that run on them.

What do you think?
 


Thats showing there normal test bed.....its where all the other benchmarks at the end come from(one would assume)....they do compare to all kinds of cpus at the end...I've seen that page in other reviews too....

@ SpeedyVV - The 6750 is a solid performer that also runs relativity cool....go for it....just make sure your current MB can do FSB 1333

@ all - Generally i think it was well done. Its true many can get there quads higher, but its all the luck of the draw.....
 

Nice article and the benchmarks showing the Q6600 putting a smack down on Yorksfield in all but 1 test was impressive. Its highly unlikely that Intel will make a CPU worth a upgrade before 2009. IE Yorksfield will have a high price for little performance gain over the OC'ed Q6600.
 
Great Article thank you Toms!
I am more convinced than ever about the q6600. Although once the Yorkfield comes out we will see which OC's best/price.

Ciao!
 
Even though the dual-core model is able to reach higher clock speeds, the quad-core wins in the final analysis thanks to multi-threaded software. If you have the extra $88 to spare for the Q6600, we recommend you choose it over its little brother. In our opinion, the dual-core version simply isn't worth it any more. The situation is even more dire for the E6850, which costs as much as the Q6600, making it an even tougher sell.



Tom's proclaims the death of the dual core processor?

 

Na just the high priced ones the E4X00 and E21X0 are great values for the dollar.
 
Wow. It is a good article for those who are still weary on dual or quad. But one thing that stuck to me is how igh your voltage is for a stock Q6600 G0.

Intel specifies that the Q6600 B3/G0 operates from 1.1v-1.5v and the G0 should naturally come lower. My G0 Q6600, according to SpeedFan and CPU-Z, is running at a Vcore of 1.12v and thats with it OC'ed to 2.7GHz(300FSB 1200QDR). When it runs stock at 2.4GHz(266FSB 1066QDR) its Vcore is 1.01v.

Maybe I got lucky and got a good CPU. Have tried to OC it wo 3GHz but have to tweak the Vcore a bit and am too lazy to do that. I say go for Quad core now only b/c at $315 dollars its a steal. 2 years ago a single core CPU would have cost $315 at 2.4GHZ or 2.66GHz. So you are really getting a steal there.

Plus I have seen the difference it makes. I can be downloading a demo, running antivirus and still play HL2 E2 without any performance hit.
 
Awesome article. Awesome parts. I would like to say I've built 3 computers at work and 1 at home almost identical to what they used. MSI p35 Neo2, Q6600, Xeon X3220 (xeon of the q6600), and Patriot ddr2 cas4 and OCZ Reaper.

I would definitely say that they could get higher ratings on the Q6600 and the X3220. I have the Q6600 and two X3220's running at 3.6Ghz (9x400) with the ram running FSB 400mhz.

My PC mark scores are all similar. Here are the scores from one machine:
CPU: 11601
Memory: 7414


That cpu and memory score is off the chart of their pc mark scores on page 35. I would like to see if someone at Tom's can reach these same scores or similar. I would like to add that these machines have 4 gigs of ram and I noticed that made the memory score go up. Memory scores with 2 gigs of ram where around 6400.

And I was prime95 stable with achieving these scores. I would certainly think these scores could be replicated since I've done it 3 different times.
 
Yep, air cooling using the zalman 9700. I did have to bump the voltage up. Its around 1.425. But they are xeons and have a higher thermal rating.
 
I love reviews like this. But there are always one problem with them. Some people like me would like to see benchmarks like this but when you overclock a CPU and up the Volts. We would like to see the temps on these benchmarks to see if its worthy of overclocking and if we need to going with a water cooling system or just air. So can some one give me the temps on these overclocking benchmarks??
 
On my Xeon X3220 overclocked to 3.6 (400x9), using CoreTemp 0.95.4, I'm reading 36,35,32,36 degrees Celsius on the 4 cores idle with a Tjunction of 100C.

after running prime95 long enough to make the temps jump up (30 seconds maybe) all 4 cores were 61 C or less. room temp is probably around 74-75.

again, i'm using a zalman 9700 full speed and a antec p182 case.

 
Remember the Q6600 is an ES, so the retail G0 stepping CPUs may have been different (with regards to vcore and OCing potential). A good article, though it would have been nice if they included a bit more info on sSpec Numbers. Just saying to look at them doesn't mean much to many people, possibly advising people what to look for specifically when getting a good chip would have been good.
 


I agree with you there. I am sure they are monitoring the temp so why not report it? It would be helpful to see temperature profiles along with the data that they presented for each setting. It tends to happen a lot though. In most overclocking articles I have read, they always generalize the temp as being "hot." Ok...so what is "hot" defined as? 55C..65C..75C...?

Overall thanks for the article...the pricing is always helpful to see. Someone mentioned something about switching the parts. I didn't follow that in the article either. Why were they showing A-Data RAM after all of the testing with Geil? Why the change? Maybe I missed it but I don't think that was too clear. Did they use Geil just to OC the CPU? Were they trying to show other memory units that worked as well?
 



Room temp at 74-75C? You would be dead my friend. 74C = 165F. I hope that you realize your core is not running cooler than room temp. (defined as ~22-23C)
 
Whos the moron who got the prices for them on this article?

On page 2 they show prices for the different chips and all their prices suck. Are they buying them at BestBuy or what?

When in doubt, use NewEgg prices. They are a little more indicative of prices people who care to read this article will actually be paying.

I would have also loved to see them put the E6850 against the Q6600 because currently those 2 chips are going for the EXACT same prices on NewEgg. I think that would be a better shootout since the cost is the same and it begs the age old question. For the same price is it better to have a faster dual core or a slower quad core.

3.00 x 2 = 6.00 Ghz total power
2.40 x 4 = 9.60 Ghz total power

You would think the choice would be obvious, but in alot of cases your only using 1 Core anyway.
 



Were you saying that it brought your room up to 74F? I am confused what the room temp had to do with your CPU temp. OC'd SLI computers do make nice space heaters...
 
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