Overclocking Intel's Wolfdale E8000

[jbj190]

guys, try playing a ps2 emulator with a quad core at 3.2 ghz. then try it with a wolfdale at 4 ghz. makes a hugeee difference in fps.

Emulators I've seen are unoptimized monolithic programs. No **** Sherlock.

 

[zenmaster]

They are old Engineering Samples from what I read.
Not sure it's even legal for them to be sold.

 

[Craxbax]

Well, they had 43 of them last week and they are down to 6. Essentially, the are the same as the x3210 and so they have 8x multiplier. If the are ES then they might OC well. I have seen several x3210 at 3.4-3.6 ghz. Anyone want to gamble for $200?

 

[jimmysmitty]

Interestingly, the Q6400 isn't even listed on Intel's C2Q product sheet. If that is indeed a new quad from Intel to be available en masse, then it's certainly a steal and will put immense pressure on AMD's Phenom.

I wouldn't be surprised if they're just rebranded old B3 Q6600s and Xeons.

Well, they had 43 of them last week and they are down to 6. Essentially, the are the same as the x3210 and so they have 8x multiplier. If the are ES then they might OC well. I have seen several x3210 at 3.4-3.6 ghz. Anyone want to gamble for $200?

I doubtt the Q6400 is a ES as it is on Intels spec list here:

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/s3000ah/sb/cs-023166.htm

It came out back with the other Core2 E6 series and I think what Intel is doing is very smart. 1 they are getting rid of excess Conroe inventory to make room for Penryn/Yorkies and making a cheaper low end quad core to compete with the Phenom 9500/9600. And 2 making a low end quad core.

Basically this is 2 E6400's made into a Q6400. Now it may be a B3 stepping but I am sure it will still compete very well and OC good too. The G0 stepping of Q6600 was able to OC higher on air i.e. 3.6GHz for most compared to B3's 3.2GHz but still for the price its not that bad considering it will probably still outperform the 9500 and give the 9600 a run for its money.

Hell if Intel really wanted they could do the same with every dual core they have such as a Q6300 or a Q4500 and make uber low end quads out of the Pentium DC and rename them Pentium Quad-Core Q2160/2180/2200.

But still the E8400 is great for those who want the best single threaded app performance but the Q6600 will be a more future proof way to go or even the Q6400 as what programmers will do is set the apps to take advantage of every core that is available wether it be a single, dual, quad or octo.

Or at least that would be the smart way to go but most software companies wont do that and will release a "updated" version when octo cores come out to make more money.

In the end both the E8400 and the Q6600 are great CPUs and there is no fighting that. It is up to the individual person since oth are in the same price range. I prefer the quad cores some prefer the dual. Tomato/Tomato.

 

[someguy7]

Odd. That list doesnt have any of the 45nm cpus on it. It also doesnt have any of the E6*50 cpus on it

 

[dark41]

I'm curious to know how TG figured they reached 4.2GHz or 4.3GHz. Has something in the forumula changed for Wolfdale? By my calculations, 443x9=3.987GHz, and 453x9=4.077GHz. All they had to do was run something, like SuperPi, to temporarily shut down speed stepping and show actual figures on CPUZ. This would have also showed a little system stability.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/02/19/wolfdale_on_steroids/page5.html#final_step_43_ghz_fsb1812

The mass majority of software and games still doesn't use 2 cores effectively, let alone 4.

But if I were to buy a quad, it would be a Q6400 before spending the extra $100 on the Q6600. Unfortunately the Q6400 isn't available in my country (probably a gimmick to use up the E6400/E6420s in the USA), and I've been much less than impressed with the Q6600.

Bottom line is that everyone has to take their own usage into consideration when choosing their CPU. If you mainly use apps or mainly play one of the few games that can use 4 cores, get a quad. You'll have better overall results this way.

Most ppl don't use many (if any) apps or games that will use 4 cores and will get better performance from a C2D or Wolfdale than a quad in the long run, not to mention save a bit of $.

I guarantee a E6750 at stock speeds will spank a stock Q6600 on any app that doesn't use multiple cores. The quad's shared cache makes very little difference for most apps. The same goes for overclocked versions of both CPUs.

Even GO stepping Q6600s were lucky to ever see 3.6GHz stable and run too hot at that speed to be run there daily (without water cooling). The extra cores put out a significant amount of heat, and the 4 cores make the chances of reaching high OCs twice as unlikely. Most can't get much over 3.2GHz and remain stable, and all aren't much of a difference from the B3 stepping models.

Every E6750 will easily do 3.6GHz on the stock cooling, and I've yet to find one that won't do 4.0GHz with aftermarket air coolers, but again wouldn't run them above 3.8GHz or so because of heat issues. Anyone that doesn't think 3.2 to 3.8GHz is a substantial difference doesn't know much about Intel systems and their memory controllers. The higher the FSB goes on an Intel system, the better the overall system performance.

Water cooling gives the Q6600 somewhat better results but doesn't effect the E6750/E6800/E6850 much. A GO stepping Q6600 on water will still be very lucky to match the overall overclocking of a GO stepping E6750 on air.

So again, it all comes down to what you use your computer for (multi-core apps vs single-core apps). But then I've only had about 500 of each CPU in house to test so far, so I'm sure someone who's used a couple of one or the other knows more about them than I.

I found the results of the Wolfdale impressive. While my own system has achieved 4.12GHz on air with a E6750, the (claimed, but not shown) 4.2GHz-4.3GHz of the Wolfdale doesn't seem all that impressive. However the performance per GHz is a nice improvement. I'll definitely be using Wolfdale for my own systems rather than wasting money on a quad for the time being. I have about 50 games (none are FPS or shoot-em-up), not one uses 4 cores. I use only a few apps that use multiple cores, (encoding mostly) and don't use them enough to warrant slowing down everything else I do. Many people were saying software would be caught up by now with multi-core versions when quads first came out. They were wrong. Software may catch up tomorrow, or may not catch up for another 5 years or more. We'll see.

 

[hughyhunter]

I'm curious to know how TG figured they reached 4.2GHz or 4.3GHz. Has something in the forumula changed for Wolfdale? By my calculations, 443x9=3.987GHz, and 453x9=4.077GHz. All they had to do was run something, like SuperPi, to temporarily shut down speed stepping and show actual figures on CPUZ. This would have also showed a little system stability.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/02/19/wolfdale_on_steroids/page5.html#final_step_43_ghz_fsb1812

I'm thinking you confused the article for a E8400. The article talks about the E8500 and the multi for that chip is 9.5... so 453x9.5= 4303

 

[jimmysmitty]

dark41, I agree that the Wolfies are better for OC'ing and dual cores are too but how does the Q6600 not impress you at all?

For a quad core to be able to easily hit 3.2GHz(a 33% OC) and still run stable and cool is awesome. Plus it will futureproof your system for the next 2-3 years when multi-threaded apps and game become more common.

Games are already here, maybe not a lot , but are here. Intel aquired Havok Physics probably to help expand the use of physics on multi-core CPUs in games.

 

[hughyhunter]

I'm really not impressed with a quad either though... not when I'm kicking it's a@# in 3dmark06 with the same setup except cpu.

 

[jbj190]

I love how this article takes the Wolfdale up to voltages that has shown to rapidly degrade the CPU and barely mentions that... er.. debilitating fact. Looks like 4.0ghz is the safe voltage limit for Wolfdales.

 

[hughyhunter]

I love how this article takes the Wolfdale up to voltages that has shown to rapidly degrade the CPU and barely mentions that... er.. debilitating fact. Looks like 4.0ghz is the safe voltage limit for Wolfdales.

I agree... i've already read posts about people taking er up to 1.5 even 1.6 and less than two weeks later they have a dead chip... that's not cool when you spend 200+ on this thing... I dont have a money tree and want this thing to last... but at the same time like to see how high it can go!