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  • jonp - Sunday, September 2, 2007 - link

    The text above the chart for the E6400 says 2.88GHz at 360 MHz FSB at 1.350V (with a multiplier of 8).
    The chart however shows 1.312V; which is what my stock E6400 runs at.
    So what's up?
  • Killer4Hire - Sunday, October 29, 2006 - link

    I agree about your test making the AMD cpu's look none overclocking and at the crazy price of DDR2 ram and the MOBO i just don,t see the bang here..

    My 3800+ X2 non AM2 on Cheap DDR ram can,t bring it also and make the FX62 look bad.. at 2.6Ghz it scored 7232points in 3Dmark05 cpu test on cheap DDR at a $45Mobo.. where dose that put me in your chart?? oh i am sure she could do 3.0Ghz also..
  • sergejvictorov - Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - link

    Can anyone help me as to what RAM clockspeed I need to buy in order to overclock the E6300 on an ASUS P5B Deluxe board to - let's say - 2.592 GHz? Is DDR2-675 from Corsair sufficient? Thanks in advance
  • Nfarce - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link

    Hey look, I was about to plunk down serious bux for an X2 setup to replace my aging P4 o'clkd 3.6xx system (that replaced an Athlon prior, that replaced a PIII prior.. blah blah). Don't you bedwetters know that this give and take is cool for everyone? No, I guess not for EVERYONE. I guess not for those butt pirates with their heads stuck so far up AMD's @ss that they can't see anything but "bias" in a review that shows FACTS. That's ok AMD girlz, take your soccer balls and go home now after trashing Anandtech. Don't forget to dry out your pretty pink wet panties.
  • aznskickass - Saturday, July 29, 2006 - link

    Man you are the thickest fanboy I have ever seen.

    Since you obviously have no interest in E6300 overclocking whatsoever, and will therefore have no fcuking clue what you're talking about, let me enlighten you:

    E6300s with Gigabyte DS3 boards are hitting 3.3 - 3.5GHz on air cooling. Check XS forums if you don't believe me. That is the equivalent of an X2 @ 4.1 - 4.4GHz. What are your beloved X2 3800+s getting? 2.8GHz? 3GHz if you're lucky?

    That means, with the right mobo, an o/ced E6300 can outperform an o/ced 3800+ by at LEAST 25%.

    You just got owned fanboy. Get a clue FFS.
  • deathwalker - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link

    So how long will it take AMD to come up with a competitive response to the Core 2 Duo? Or better yet...do they even have a competitive response in the pipeline?
  • snorre - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    It was nice knowing you, at least uptil Intel bought you lock, stock and barrel. After reading your latest reviews I have no doubts left in my mind, you're officially gone the THG route. I used to be a lojal reader and both linked and recommended your site to other people for unbiased information, but I will stop doing this now for obvious reasons. I hope you'll wake up and smell the coffee soon before you loose any more readers. Good-bye!
  • goinginstyle - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    So what are they suppose to do? Lie about Conroe's performance? You are one of the biggest AMD fanbois around, sometimes it hurts but suck it up as Intel won this round. There was not anything biased about this article or their coverage. They have been just as big AMD fans as Intel fans since the website started. Leave if you must, but do not do it because the numbers tell the truth.
  • najames - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link

    Oh boy, oh boy I want to buy one of these Conroe's right now. I'm gonna order one.

    Hmm, Newegg doesn't have them, Monarch doesn't have them, it seems nobody has them.

    Why are we worrying about comparing vaporware to something that has been out for a long time. Why don't we just compare the Conroe to an upcoming AMD 4x4 then? It's all vaporware then at least.

    Oh and let's make sure we compare lots of 64bit stuff too, after all there has been 64bit OSs around for about 15 years now.
  • Gary Key - Saturday, July 29, 2006 - link

    quote:

    Hmm, Newegg doesn't have them, Monarch doesn't have them, it seems nobody has them.


    I ordered two from Tiger Direct and one from ZipZoomFly. No issues, received one today and the other two on Monday. :)
  • Igi - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    After reading this and previous Core2 review there are still some questions I would like to be answered. In both reviews many games and standard apps were tested, but I was really hoping to see a review where some software development applications would be tested (MS Visual Studio 6 and 2005, Borland Delphi 7, 2006) on new platform.

    Currently I’m working on project with several million lines of C++ code and it takes quite some time to build the whole application regardless of distributed compiling. During the development I have to test new code, therefore I have to build my own intermediate version on my workstation. While the compiling process can be distributed the linking process can’t. Therefore single treaded performance is still the most important.

    I remember reading somewhere that more than 5 million copies of MS Visual Studio 2005 Express were downloaded in a few weeks after the release. This means the SW development community is quite large and you shouldn’t just ignore it. You can find several free large C++, and Delphi Pascal projects on SourceForge.

    I also haven’t found a decent review on the net where Solid Modeling CAD/CAM applications (Solidworks 2006, ProEngineer Wildfire 3.0) were tested either on Woodcrest or Core2 platform. I know it’s difficult to test applications you don’t know anything about them, but a few basic tests like: model rebuild times, feature build times would be enough.

    Several years ago when Johan was still publishing reviews on aceshardware web-site some of the reviews included EDA software. Millions of users around the world are using EDA software to develop hardware. Basically I’m also very interested in a review where apps like Xilinx ISE, Modelsim, Synplicity Synplify, PCAD, Specctra Autorouter, Hyperlynx and many others would be tested on new Core2 CPUs. I remember the days I bought P4 with RDRAM just because Modelsim run so much faster on a computer with high bandwidth memory interface. Several years later I bought A64 3000 computer because it was able to run Xilinx ISE (place and route of a large FPGA project) 200-250% faster than P4 3.2GHz.

    Probably Core2 CPUs will excel in all apps, but I would really like to see the numbers. I don’t care who wins, Intel or AMD. Developers in a company where I work get the machines I recommend them based on the past experience, the knowledge I gather on review sites like AT, forums and newsgroups.

    Anand, don’t let this site to become just another average “shoot-em-up games” test site. Once in a while, put together a review of apps mentioned above or similar running on new CPUs and professional users will be grateful.

    One last thing, I remember more than a year ago in one of the reviews it was said that we will soon see a review of professional graphic cards (Quadro, FireGL). Are we going to see this review anytime soon?
  • Gary Key - Saturday, July 29, 2006 - link

    quote:

    Probably Core2 CPUs will excel in all apps, but I would really like to see the numbers. I don’t care who wins, Intel or AMD. Developers in a company where I work get the machines I recommend them based on the past experience, the knowledge I gather on review sites like AT, forums and newsgroups.


    Please email me. :)
  • AtaStrumf - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    Damn you Anand! You're making me regret my recent, admittedly cheap, X2 3800+ purchase. These cheap Core 2s really seem worth the extra wait for cheaper mobos, and the mobo instalation hassle, which was a major reason I decided to go with the X2 (getting lazy lately). The swap took like 5 mins.

    But no, I'm fine thank you. This will be fine once I fugure out why I'm getting random reboots and overclock the hell out of it,... right?

    Great review BTW. Too bad some thick skulls can't comprehend it.
  • duploxxx - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    well i must say the whole article is full of crap and idiot comparing benches oc'ed versus non oc'ed.

    but finally you are getting the idea hot to start a review and how to formalize the final words... altough the the low end core e6300-e6400 might be slight better performers the do cost more if you want a decent mobo/proc combo...

    but these oc against stock is stupid, at least you should add oc'ed 3800 and 4600 to the list before you post this whole article and guess what a 149$ chip clocks eassily
    from 2000 to 2650 with minor changes. same as an e6300 and others would do.

    one more thing ever tought of just not running 1 on 1 benches but actually stress the system in some fine multitasking... then again put a chart up for compare... will be interesting to see except for the intel marketing bulldozer......

    i'll give you a hint how it looks like... bashed core 3.0 versus k8 2.6
    http://techreport.com/etc/2006q2/woodcrest/index.x...">http://techreport.com/etc/2006q2/woodcrest/index.x...
  • Guuts - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    I'm sorry, but did you even read the whole article? Or any of the previous comments where the writers explained why there were no overclocked X2s?

    I'm not going to generalize and say that ANYone that reads this and similar sites already knows the overclocking capabilities of, for example, the 3800+ X2, (which can fairly easily reach 2.6GHz on air)...but I know I sure knew that fact quite well by now, and when I was reading the article, I just substituted the 5000+ X2 results as the "overclocked" 3800+ because that is the results they would have come up with.

    So yes, the 3800+ will clock up to 2.6GHz (5000+ speeds), as will the e6300/e6400, and you can compare this very well in the graphs even without truely overclocking an actual 3800+ CPU.

    No need to say the article is full of crap and idiotic when you didn't bother to read it carefully, or because it came to conclusions that you didn't like.
  • Vinnybcfc - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    I suggest you read the article 1st a 3800+ can only obtain about 2.8 max if your lucky; guess what they had a AMD 2.8ghz processor in there list
  • atenza - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    I have just one question: How is it possible, that a 39% overclock of the E6300 results in a 53% performance increase in the Rise of Legends benchmarks?

    Anyone got an idea? Please, share it with me ;-)
  • OcHungry - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    It's final. There’s no ATI for conroe-no crossfire, no chipset, nothing, nada.
    Nvedia's SLI is up in the air, and most probably will not happen.
    As I said before, You can buy an AM2 mobo+cpu+2 cheap SLI vid card, for less than $450 and no Intel set up can beat your gaming machine considering. High end? wlet it be 4x4.
    E6300 are gouged to $295 (mwave.com) and a $250 mobo to be able to overclock the way AT is suggesting.
    This is my formal request to AT Management to revise this review to reflect what is available for conroe and please this time show us the AM2 cpu's overclocked, instead of hypothesizing everything (including availabilities of mobo and chipset), and what's the cheapest gamer's (so called enthusiast)setup.
  • Gary Key - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link


    quote:

    Nvedia's SLI is up in the air, and most probably will not happen.


    You probably should check the news section before making this kind of statement. ;-)

    "SANTA CLARA, CA—JULY 27, 2006—NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, today announced that many of the world’s leading system builders have elected to launch new enthusiast gaming Intel Core 2 Duo-based systems exclusively with NVIDIA SLI technology. The Intel Core 2 Duo processor combined with an NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 or NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI or 570 SLI-based motherboard and one, two, or even four GeForce® graphics processing units (GPUs), has already proven to be an unbeatable combination in terms of system level and gaming performance. This combination is earning early accolades from leading publications, such as Maximum PC magazine, which selected an Intel Core 2 Duo processor-compatible motherboard based on NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI technology and dual GeForce 7900 GTX GPUs for their 2006 Dream Machine cover story. ™"
  • OcHungry - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link

    Well, there was no news on Nvedia’s SLI when I posted my reply. I am glad Nvedia has come to Intel’s rescue.
    But I am not too optimistic about this announcement. It’s kind of late in the game, and by the time those boards are shipped, AMD Is showing off the K8L. Even if K8L is not due till 1Q 07, enthusiasts will have to think twice pouring out $300 on a conroe SLI ready mobo.
    Soon AMD will release the 4x4's that will cost less than $1k (according to AMD) which is faster than any conroe system. But speculation aside, let’s look at what is available today and how much will cost: A good overclocking conroe board costs $270 compared to $120 AM2 boards.
    An E6300 + mobo will cost around $500 (to be able to OC FSB to 400mhz). With that much money you can buy http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=...">A64 4200+http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">motherboard+http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">1gig of ram+http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">Vid Card.
  • goinginstyle - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link

    Dear OC-Sharikou,

    quote:

    Well, there was no news on Nvedia’s SLI when I posted my reply. I am glad Nvedia has come to Intel’s rescue.


    Do you not read any of the various articles on the internet and at this site. Everyone stated NV is releasing Intel SLI (Conroe) capable motherboards in August. Several sites have stated the 570SLI will sell between $90 to $120. Since the ATI chipset boards will be out in September or so I guess that means ATI/AMD is coming to Intels rescue also. LOL

    quote:

    But I am not too optimistic about this announcement. It’s kind of late in the game, and by the time those boards are shipped, AMD Is showing off the K8L. Even if K8L is not due till 1Q 07, enthusiasts will have to think twice pouring out $300 on a conroe SLI ready mobo.


    Those boards are shipping next month. They will cost $90 to $200 at the high end. K8L might be introduced a year from now and what makes you think Intel will not have responded by then. Both companies are back into a true competition and this is not good, why?

    quote:

    Soon AMD will release the 4x4's that will cost less than $1k (according to AMD) which is faster than any conroe system.


    That is just for the CPUs, does not include the board cost at all which is shaping up to be $300 or more according to a couple of Asian websites. I sure hope it will be faster than a E6700.

    quote:

    But speculation aside, let’s look at what is available today and how much will cost: A good overclocking conroe board costs $270 compared to $120 AM2 boards.
    An E6300 + mobo will cost around $500 (to be able to OC FSB to 400mhz).


    Your calculations are WRONG again, try $140 for a Gigabyte DS3, $226 for E6300, and an easy 450FSB. The prices will continue to drop over the next couple of months.

    Not arguing that AMD does not have an excellent solution, they do and it is all I own currently, but to continue spreading your lies is just wrong.
  • goinginstyle - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    Dear OC-Sharikou,

    Your lies are just getting worse by the day. Maybe mom should change your diaper more often as the sh!$ you spewing is getting heavier by the day.

    quote:

    t's final. There’s no ATI for conroe-no crossfire, no chipset, nothing, nada.
    Those stories over at the INQwerewrongUIER are false. ATI publicly stated they are shipping Intel based boards. The new RD series will be here in a couple of months. How does it feel knowing that Intel's purchases from ATI account for the majority of their channel sales? AMD is going to rely on this revenue stream to help pay off the debt. HaHa.

    quote:

    Nvedia's SLI is up in the air, and most probably will not happen.

    That is funny, just read a review of the first SLI Conroe boards here at this website twice already. NV launches their SLI series in a week or so. Pricing is already showing up at the distributors. Yet another lie from you.

    quote:

    As I said before, You can buy an AM2 mobo+cpu+2 cheap SLI vid card, for less than $450 and no Intel set up can beat your gaming machine considering.

    False again. You will be able to do this in about a week with the NV SLI Intel boards. Already been posted here and elsewhere that the 570SLI will be around $90.

    quote:

    This is my formal request to AT Management to revise this review to reflect what is available for conroe and please this time show us the AM2 cpu's overclocked, instead of hypothesizing everything (including availabilities of mobo and chipset), and what's the cheapest gamer's (so called enthusiast)setup.


    LOL.... What do you really expect will happen? Overclocked AMD versus overclocked Conroe still equals the same results. Does it mean I will rush out and replace my 4800+? The answer is no at this time but I do plan on going Conroe this fall. I really want to know what your infamous calculations show today? 6%+3%=11% = OC-Sharikou is still a jerk who got fired from Intel....
  • OcHungry - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link

    The pattern never changes and I should not expect civilized and logical answer/reply from most of Intel fans.
    There is no such thing as a $90 SLI intel motherboard. If there is please post the link.
    Going by AT's Motherboard article, the only SLI motherboard listed is "Asus P5N32-SLI SE" which costs ~ $205. But unfortunately the FSB can only overclock to 318mhz.
    The E6300 is a 7x multiplier which means : 7x 318=2226mhz final speed.
    There are places in the net that sell E6300 in back for $220, I agree, but considering the cheapest conroe mobo/CPU to be $425, and only able to OC to 2.3ghz, I don’t see it as attractive as an AM2 x2 setup. Today you can buy A64 3800 x2 for $153 and a good http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">SLI Mobo for less than $110. Add http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">2-GF 7600GS, you will have a very nice SLI gaming system for less than $450 (CPU+Vid Card+Mobo). The E6300/mobo will cost that much without 2 vid cards, and can only OC to 2.3ghz (according to AT's motherboard OC graph). Unlike what Mr. Anand believes, the 3800 x2 AM2 can overclock to 3ghz, (per forum members who have bought, and most of review sites). I see AM2 system a much wiser upgrade for those in budget and are concerned with price/performance.
  • wilki24 - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    "E6300 are gouged to $295 (mwave.com) and a $250 mobo to be able to overclock the way AT is suggesting. "

    And ZZF has it for $195, free shipping. A whopping $12 over the price listed in the article. Oh my, the price gouging. $12!!! However am I going to feed myself the rest of the month!

    And how many times do people have to say it before you get it through your thick skull: The cheaper motherboards will be available in a couple of weeks!

    I'm all for free speech, but this guy is a major troll who does nothing to foster intelligent commentary. Please remove him.
  • mkruer - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTE...">http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTE...

    So Anand if you read this, I challenge you to bench a real world game, and use the maximum setting for the video card not the most basic.

    Is the Conroe faster, Yes!
    Is it substantially faster playing games with resolution and settings normal people would run their games at… Probably not!

    The moral of this story is if you want better game play, buy a better video card, that is unless you like to play are your games at 640x480 with all the details turn off.
  • goinginstyle - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    Dear Kyle,
    quote:

    So Anand if you read this, I challenge you to bench a real world game, and use the maximum setting for the video card not the most basic.


    What do you consider a real world game? Are the games in the article not real world? By the way, any reason why you refused to test CPU bound games that Anand and others have tested.

    The settings you use at {T}ardOCP might very well represent 1% of the gaming population. How many "real" world gamers use 1600x1200 8xAA/16xAF settings with a single video card and are happy with 90% of their gaming experience being played under 30FPS. Really, is that "real world" gaming?

    quote:

    The moral of this story is if you want better game play, buy a better video card, that is unless you like to play are your games at 640x480 with all the details turn off.


    The moral of this story is that you need to get off AMD's payroll and realize that Intel has produced a very good processor series that out performs AMD. It took forever this time and it might not last long but you have to give them credit. Oh, based on your logic a $42 Celeron D is going to perform the same as AMD FX62. If that is the case why did anyone buy the Athlon 64 when the P4 was just as good.
  • mkruer - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    Actually real world would be system defaults, or what ever the game thinks the system should run with. If you have ever play a game you would realize that almost all game setting a set by what the video card can support not by the CPU. Now you may tweak it to get your 300FPS on your 15 monitor that only has a 60 hertz refresh. But most people leave the default setting unless they experience some massive issues with the game play.

    Conroe thoroughly trashes AMD in more or less everything but the point remains that you are better off spending your money on a $500 video card then the Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800, and just stick with the next knock down i.e. Intel Core 2 Duo E6700
  • redbone75 - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    I read Kyle's article the day it was posted and was actually taken aback by the overall tone of it. He's supposed to be taking these "real world" approaches to evaluating component performance for gaming, but how many people in the real world drop $1k plus on a processor for gaming? He only mentions the price difference between the two Intel chips, NOT the Intel chips versus the AMD chip. His overall message seemed to be "Don't believe the hype about Core 2 Duo" than anything else. Tell me this, did you once see anywhere in the article Kyle mentioning that the E6700 held its own against AMD's big gun and costs less than half the price? No, you didn't, because he never mentioned it. That he doesn't mention it doesn't necessarily mean he's pro-AMD or whatever, but to not praise the accomplishment makes you speculate just a bit. Heck, even the E6600 beats out the FX-62 in nearly every test, and it costs less than $400!

    Also, what's good for the goose isn't necessarily good for the gander. Different gamers have different tastes. Some might sacrifice a little AA or aniso in order to game at different settings. Kyles whole approach, while certainly admirable, is not the end all, be all to gaming evaluation.

    Bottom line, Intel has done an incredible job with Core 2 Duo. Gaming or otherwise, it's got it all, and don't even talk about the performance potential for overclocking.
  • mkruer - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    True, I am somewhat disappointed that he didn’t bench down to the more midrange prices (say the 4200+ 4600+) but I suspect that even those would be powerfully enough to keep the performance within 10% of the maximum, and as I posted later in the thread. Game benching should be run with system defaults. I find the whole logic of using a game to bench how powerful a CPU is fundamentally flawed. Games in general tend to be GPU bound, and if you are going to classify a price point you need to consider the cost of the entire system. I just might be that the $1000 system you put together is 95% completive with a $5000 system.
  • KayKay - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I was anticipating getting over 3 Ghz on these chips after recently seeing in the core 2 duo buyer's guide a few articles ago. There is no doubt the performance is stellar on these chips, and who knows maybe there is a good stepping out there (or coming soon) that will yield better results than what weve seen here.

    Good review though, please continue to do reviews involving "value overclocking" in the future
  • BPB - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    When are the 5000+'s hitting the shelves?
  • kmmatney - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Great article - this is exactly what I've been looking for, From what get out of it, if the user does not overclock, then the Conroe and X2's are about equal, especially when you take motherboard pricing into account. For users who overclock, then the Conroe takes over. In the end, I think the final bang/buck will depend on how cheaper motherboards perform for the Conroe.

    I don't see why people are complaining about not showing overclocks for the 3800+ - there is enough information there to figure out what the poerformance would be.
  • Sunrise089 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I enjoyed this article, and suppose everyone at AT has been working hard to give us all this Conroe content quickly, and any omission made is far more likely to stem from simple hurried forgetfullness than any sort of real bias. Still, if the question is budget-conscious overclocking, or even really any sort of budget (so anything that isn't an X6800 or FX-62) you guys are really mis-representing the comparisons.

    To an overclocker a E6300 has to be faster than the X2 that costs the same AFTER MOTHERBOARD cost is taken into account. That meens if in order to get the kind of performance the Conroe parts achieve in this article they had to have a $250 motherboard, that needs to be factored in much more than just a token "keep in mind Intel motherboards cost more" type of line. Thus the true comparisons are:

    E6300 - X2 5000+
    E6400 - X2 5000+ and an aftermarket cooler
    E6600 - X2 5000+, cooler, and $100+ left over.
    E6700 - No overclocker would choose an E6700.

    This sort of comparison yeilds a non-gaming performance/dollar ratio that is so much more important than the much more asked for performance/watt comparisons I'm sure you guys will be giving us in the future. Obviousely for games the GPU matters most, and once again, AMD has an advantage since their lower cost (with motherboard purchase) meens you can move up for free to the next level of GPU. The best and most fair comparison you guys could (and should!) be making is to compare total system costs at everything from $500 (I think that's the cheapest total price from a Conroe CPU, cheaper motherboard, and decent video card), all the way up to $1,400+ (E6600, cooler, overclocking motherboard, 2 X1900XTs in Crossfire).

    Do this and I seriousely doubt AMD performance would look that bad.

    You guys have to know this, since Anand does point out the higher cost of the Intel motherboards. But to point out the increased cost and then completely ignore it and make specific comparisions to Intel vs AMD chips based on cost borders on deliberately decietful. We all know eventually these prices will stabilize, and at that point I will be trading my Opteron up to an E6600, but right now the price comparisons you make are simply not valid.

    Finally, everything I said above hides two intangables that also go strongly in AMD's favor that you seem to be ignoring: In all likelyhood Conroe will be selling for more than Intel's set prices (X2s might be as well, but almost certainly they will be closer to MSRP), and the X2s are much more likely to have consistent overclocking results with much less risk of "engineering samples" tested by you guys that do not match the performance we will be able to purchase ourselves.
  • redbone75 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Seems almost like a convincing argument here, but you kind of defeat it yourself. You say that budget conscious overclockers would have to buy a $250+ motherboard if they want to achieve these overclocks, but if you had read through the threads you would probably have noted that Anand says the Gigabyte DS3, a 965-based board, sells for around $140 and overclocks just as well as the Asus board, but without Crossfire. I'm pretty sure a budget conscious overclocker would be looking to that board first. Also, how many budget oriented system builders really bother with crossfire? The savings would be better put towards a single higher-end card. Not only that, not all overclockers do so for gaming. I do a lot of video encoding and the overclocking ability of the E6400 and E6300 definitely has my attention. I think the whole point of the article was budget overclocking anyway, and for the X2 3800+ (AMD should really drop the '+' from their processor names now, I think) to have been relegated to budget status is quite telling. No, wait, the performance is quite telling.

    I hate throwing around labels like "fanboy" and "whiner," but when people keep reaching for excuses about why one processor does better than another instead of rejoicing that there is a better performing part available, then what exactly do you call them? Anandtech has not recommended an Intel processor for what, three years now, so for you all to start saying that their on Intel's payroll and such is rather disrespectful. Go join an AMD fans forum if this site's articles make you so upset.
  • Sunrise089 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Look - I want to be very up-front about this:

    Conroe is better than X2. It's faster, cooler, and it overclocks better. On the high-end it is absolutely the smart choice.

    It's also much more expensive than it appears, something the article does not talk enough about.

    I was under the impression that the cheaper Conroe mothervboards did not overclock as well. If they do then it does damage my aruegment. Still, AMD (though slower overall) has a big advantage in that the various X2s' overclocks are much more tightly clustered than the Conroe parts. Cache seems to matter more for Conroe as well. So if we're comparing equal cost overclocking performance a X2 3800+ will perform much closer to a X2 5000+ on air than a E6300 and an E6700 (or at least that's how I read the graphs).
  • dev0lution - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    quote:

    Really though, your s939 point is irrelevent. If the user already has s939 then obviousely anyone who considers gaming important knows that a Conroe upgrade would be a horrible deal.


    Maybe I'm missing something, since your whole upgrade argument was based on an imagined price gap that a Conroe purchaser would face. The second page of the article posted prices for AM2 and Conroe parts, which were generally in-line with the comparisons made. The article compares the nearest equivalent part from each side versus it's performance.

    quote:

    You seem to be falling into the same trap the fanboys you wish to criticise make - talking about the future and ignoring the present. I'm sure Intel motherboards will become cheaper, and I'm also sure K8L will increase AMD's performance envelope. My comments however were directed at the article that arrived today. I made no comment last week in the launch article.


    I'm not talking K8L timeframe, which is so far off not even engineering samples have been reviewed. I'm talking in the next month, which when a product hasn't even officially launched yet is pretty dang close to the present. ZZF already had the E6300 posted today for $199 which is a $16 price premium over the price posted in the article. This is for a part that "is also faster than the 4200+ and the 4600+ in some benchmarks" at stock speeds.

    If you're going value then you're not worried about SLI/Crossfire boards, which leaves you with single GPU boards, which as the article mentions... "quite a few of the P965 motherboards that can also overclock the budget Core 2 chips to reasonable levels, with prices hovering much closer to $140." Now we're in AM2 platform price range, even though this is the week of launch and most of the boards available are performance priced parts.

    The myth that there's this big price differential between the two, even though there's a premium on the Intel platforms since it technically hasn't even launched yet, is misleading.

    I believe that was your gripe with the article to begin with?

    quote:

    "They're just trying to sell more product." - Profits are actually the key, not sales. Otherwise the new Celeron launch would be the most important news of the year.


    Yields, fab capacity, product margin and chips per wafer are a whole 'nother topic. To summarize 65nm > 90nm

    The original posts sounded fanboy-ish, so don't get mad if someone paints you with that brush...
  • Sunrise089 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    You make a number of good points.

    Still, if we assume that not much gouging will take place and that AT's results with these chips are typical, I still think I have a valid point, even if it less significant than I thought.

    If we start with the comparison of an X6800 and an FX-62, obviousely the Conroe is far faster, overclocked or not. Moving downmarket but still overclocking, the AMD parts seem to loose reletively little performance, with an X2 3800+ will probably clocking to within 15% of the FX-62 when both are overclocked, and the cache difference seeming to not effect performance to a huge degree. With Conroe however, moving from the X6800 downward really does seem to limit performance and maximum overclocks, making the various parts in the product line much less interchangeable when overclocking compared to the AMD line. When you further reduce overclocks due to a cheaper Intel motherboard, even if dual-GPU isn't necessary, that may still meen the AMD parts perform very favoribly dollar for dollar, at least at today's listed prices.

    I think my mistake was transplaniting my opinions onto the market as a whole. I will strongly factor in overclocking performance into my future buying decisions, yet I also will require the ability to go SLI or Crossfire. I sort of assumed that would be a common view, and therefore paid less attention to the cheaper Intel chipset offerings.
  • dev0lution - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    You might have a point if you could get a 5000+ for socket 939. You can't, so you're out almost as much for DDR2 and a new AM2 motherboard. Cost difference will be negligible once more Core 2 Duo boards are out and availability is better a few weeks after tomorrow's launch.

    And I do like how the AMD fanboy's have forgotten that launch is tomorrow, not last week when the Conroe reviews started dropping.

    It's kind of sad that so many people who used to tout how buying a 3000+ or 3200+ and overclocking would get you performance better than any P4 just can't accept that a Conroe E6300 or E6400 can kick the pants out of half of AMD's lineup mildly overclocked. Intel and AMD don't care about you. Really. They're just trying to sell more product.

    Thx to Anandtech for the article. I'm still trying to figure out whether to move up to a 4800+ on S939 and use the extra cash for more memory and a better GPU, or whether I should beg for a demo samples for the Conroe parts =)
  • Sunrise089 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I'm perfectly willing to stand corrected. Are decent overclocking AM2 motherboards $250 as well? I wasn't aware of it if they are.

    Really though, your s939 point is irrelevent. If the user already has s939 then obviousely anyone who considers gaming important knows that a Conroe upgrade would be a horrible deal. It would be much smarter to use the $$$ on a GPU upgrade. The tired arguement is that they could sell the old parts, but the terrible depreciation rarely makes that the best option. You seem to be falling into the same trap the fanboys you wish to criticise make - talking about the future and ignoring the present. I'm sure Intel motherboards will become cheaper, and I'm also sure K8L will increase AMD's performance envelope. My comments however were directed at the article that arrived today. I made no comment last week in the launch article. Today though, Anandtech has chosen to release an overclocking article based around the concept of value. As of today their numbers are badly flawed. When the numbers change in the future, that's the time to bring it up in a weekly CPU or motherboard price guide.

    "...a Conroe E6300 or E6400 can kick the pants out of half of AMD's lineup mildly overclocked" - they should, since they cost more than half of AMD's lineup, and more than almost all of it after motherboard costs are factored in.

    "They're just trying to sell more product." - Profits are actually the key, not sales. Otherwise the new Celeron launch would be the most important news of the year.

    I am hardly a fanboy. My PC processors have been: Pentium, K6-2, Athlon, Northwood, Opteron, and soon to come a Conroe. In both my above comments I mentioned how I would buy a Conroe soon. In the second comment I mentioned how Intel motherboard prices would drop in the future. In the first comment I stated outright that Conroe is faster clock-for-clock, and it goes without saying that Conroe will hit higher overall clock speeds than and AMD part. My point still remains though: Conroe is very possibly not faster dollar for dollar than AMD until you go past the 5000+ level, where basically AMD no longer fields products (noone buys FXs).
  • yacoub - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    You do have a point that most overclockers are money-conscious/bang-for-the-buck folks by nature and would very much consider the overall price and thus motherboards would be a big part of that since their costs keep going up with each new chipset it seems.
  • bob661 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I wonder if motherboard prices fore the Conroe's will go down once Nvidia and ATI start making chipsets for those CPU's.
  • Sunrise089 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I'm sure they will, and I will myself switch to Conroe when prices drop enough.

    For now though, there seem to be many questions left unanswered: how much these chips actually overclock (seems both that low-end parts do not overclock nearly as well as high-end, which is very different from X2s, and it also seems that not everyone is matching AT's overclock results), how expensive of a motherboard you need to get a good overclock (seems like a very expensive one, very different from X2s once again, where a cheap DFI Infinity or ePox motherboard overclocks basically as well as an expensive ASUS), and my above point of whether or not Conroe is actually faster dollar for dollar at the X2 5000+ level and below (I suspect it isn't). These articles need to be adressing these above points, rather than pointing out what we already understand - yes Conroe is faster clock for clock.

    Anandtech is doing something very dangerous by putting certain chips together in people's minds. The X2 3800+ and E6300 are NOT competitors, the AMD part is probably $150 cheaper after motherboard purchase. But since AT is placing ideas in people's heads about the Intel part being so much faster, when Conroe is available for purchase and the very possible price-gouging takes place, people are still going to buy them thanks to sloppy reporting, since they are now convinced that Conroe destroys AMD's equivilent chips by such a large degree, and therefore paying $250 for a E6300 must still be a good choice. If AT were instead comparing the E6300 to a X2 5000+, buyers would see the true performance difference, and then be able to figure out that if the Intel part is at all above MSRP it isn't a good deal with these motherboard prices.
  • dev0lution - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    quote:

    The X2 3800+ and E6300 are NOT competitors, the AMD part is probably $150 cheaper after motherboard purchase. But since AT is placing ideas in people's heads about the Intel part being so much faster, when Conroe is available for purchase and the very possible price-gouging takes place, people are still going to buy them thanks to sloppy reporting, since they are now convinced that Conroe destroys AMD's equivilent chips by such a large degree, and therefore paying $250 for a E6300 must still be a good choice. If AT were instead comparing the E6300 to a X2 5000+, buyers would see the true performance difference, and then be able to figure out that if the Intel part is at all above MSRP it isn't a good deal with these motherboard prices.


    Again, where are you getting that? It's an AM2 AMD vs Conroe comparison, so again, you're point about motherboard cost isn't as relevant as you make it out to be. Granted, you'll pay more this week for a Conroe-capable motherboard and the E6300 is still approximately $31 more but it's not the dramatic price gap that would elevate the 5000+ parts to be equivalent.

    It would have been nice to see a 939 vs. Conroe comparison, but even that's not apples to apples since the 4800+ is rated at 110w on AMD's site vs. 65w for the Conroes. Personally, sitting in a heatwave I'm beginning to appreciate how much a s939 4000+ throws off.
  • dev0lution - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    And check the article again Mr. Attention-to-detail. An E6300 isn't $250, it's $183. Guess you skipped that part once you started foaming at the mouth....
  • Sunrise089 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Please read more carefully. I was talking about buying a post price-gouging E6300, and therefore making up a higher price it might go for. I think it was quite clear.
  • theteamaqua - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    meh no where near extreme

    ES5 stepping B1 (retail is stepping6 , B2) can go much higher

    E6400 : 8x480
    E6300: 7x500

    this is weak OCing
  • johnsonx - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Everyone knows AMD processors have always been, and will always be, far superior to the crap from Intel. Any article suggesting otherwise is clear evidence of pro-Intel bias, that indeed you all get weekly checks from Intel for the favorable press. The reality is that most Intel processors really don't even work at all; all the supposed PC's sold with Intel processors secretly use AMD processors instead, but again Intel pays off the companies to say they're Intel Inside. Intel has an endless supply of money because of their unfair business practices and the Magic Money Fairy.
  • johnsonx - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link

    hey, also, why did y'all mod me down to zero on that? come on, it was funny! at least a little funny? worth a chuckle for everyone but coldpower?
  • johnsonx - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link

    I daresay I got quite a laugh out of coldpower's response(s) to my little attempt at satire.
  • johnsonx - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link

    by the way, coldpower, I didn't include the silly /sarcasm tag because I thought it would be far less funny (just plain stupid even) if I did. The idea was to start off sounding rather fanboy-ish but potentially serious, head towards the deep-end, and then go completely into tin-foil-hat territory. I was actually going to make it far longer and more complicated, probably tie in to the Masons somehow, but I had other things to do so I just wound it up quick with the 'Magic Money Fairy' bit.

    Surely I thought anyone I got on the hook would have wiggled off around the time I claimed that most 'Intel-Inside' PC's actually had AMD chips in them...
  • Gary Key - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    quote:

    ...that indeed you all get weekly checks from Intel for the favorable press.


    Damn, Intel must have lost my address. ;-)
  • coldpower27 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    This is just so sad, how far AMD fanboys will go. I really wish there was moderation allowed, here the user point system is hardly effective enough.
  • JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I'm pretty sure that was sarcasm, Coldpower. LOL :)
  • coldpower27 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Well, I guess my bad, though without a /sarcasm tag it's hard to tell. This is n't real life where you can here the tone of people's voices. :P
  • Sunrise089 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    You were unable to tell "the Magic Money Fairy" was sarcasm?

    Why not just come clean and admit that you didn't read carefully.
  • coldpower27 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I read plenty carefully, thanks.
  • Sunrise089 - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    Seriously?

    You were seriously unable to tell the following was sarcasm:

    "...you all get weekly checks from Intel"
    "...most Intel processors really don't even work at all"
    "...Intel pays off the companies to say they're Intel Inside"
    and of course
    "the Magic Money Fairy."?

    Dude, it's understandable that you were reading fast and thought the post was fanboy-ism, which there is indeed a lot of. Refusing to admit that and stating instead that the original (actually quite funny) post wasn't clear is insulting to that poster and frankly somewhat alarming.
  • coldpower27 - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link


    Your taking this way to seriously, if I can't recognize without smiley faces or a tag that it is sarcasm, it's acceptable considering this is written language. I rely on the tone of the conversation, which is absent here.

    There is nothing to admit. There continues to be alot of AMD fanboyism at this site, even reading carefully, it sometimes isn't a simple task to deduce what is sarcasm from the rest of the fanboy drivel.

    I am not refusing to admit anything, the poster should have considered this before he made the post, that not everyone will be able to catch the sarcasm, I assume the poster would have thought about this, and I already said my bad in the above post. You may think the establish indicators are sufficient for you, for me they are not.

    Not everyone can percieve exactly the same things you can allright, and assuming otherwise is ridiculous in itself.
  • lewisc - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    lol - was a bit of a knee-jerk response, I thought the same thing until I read all the replies before, and then realised that it was indeed (hopefully!) sarcasm. You can't blame coldpower with the amount of rubbish being spouted by some users with how 'biased' this site is.
  • VooDooAddict - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Nice to see you get your own article again from time to time, reminds me of when I started visiting AT.

    The following deals with the gaming performance question most people are asking. I understand that the true focus of the article is 2m Cache vs. 4m Cache and the Overclocking impact. E6600 is still at the top of my list for a powerful new SFF thanks to the article. Regardless the article has prompted the following:

    (Maybe the following can be highlighted in a Budget/Midrange Gaming system buying guide...)

    I think it's undeniably clear that the Core 2 Duo Chips offer the most headroom for future GPUs and should therefore be at the top of most gamers’ lists if they can afford it.

    What I think some people may still find important is that with any of these amazing CPUs ... gaming is still GPU limited. It begs for the comparison of the E6300/E6400, the 3800/4200 X2, and 3500/3800 Single Cores. With a quality lower cost boards and single video cards like the 7950GX2 and 1900 XT. Do the lower end CPUs really limit gaming with a single card solution? I think the 7950 would also give a good showing as to if the new higher end and Dual Cores really needed for SLI, or if new new "low end" which used to be the high end are enough to keep that 7950 going. Most gamers I find at LANs still only run 1280x1024 without massive AA/AF simply due to the popularity of the cheep 17" and 19" sub 12ms LCDs. I also find a large number of gamers (who enjoy gaming but don't really spend much time enthusiastic about the hardware) don't ever turn on AA/AF.

    I'm not saying you didn't state that most games are still GPU bound. You clearly tell gamers clearly in the article that it's probably best to buy the E6300 with a high-end video card then a E6600 and a mid range video card. I just think that it needs to be shown.
  • saiku - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I agree with Voodoo above. I'm a gamer...with a 6800GT and an socket 754 A64 3000+. I am mostly GPU limited but games like Counter-Strike : Source are only playable (with 2x AA) at 1024x768 ( Jarred Walton, for some reason , thinks that if you play at 1024, you really dont play much games at all...I beg to disagree). Any higher res, and framerates suffer badly.

    A gamer's mid-range/high-end buying guide is JUST the ticket at this time !
  • JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I actually still use an A64 754 3400+ for a lot of my work - "if it's not broken, don't fix/replace it!" It also has a 6800GT. I just don't like gaming at non-native LCD resolution, and I think most people are switching to LCDs (given that CRTs are a dying breed). Even with a CRT, though - I've still got an NEC FE991-SB and a Samsung 997DF - I would much rather game at 1280x960 (1280x1024 if necessary) without AA than at 1024 with AA. In some games (Source engine mostly), resolution has more of an impact than enabling AA, so in that case you might need to run 1024.

    Anyway, take my comment in context: people running 1024x768 either don't play many games or they don't have the latest technology/platform (or both). That's my intended meaning, and I apologize if that wasn't clear. If you're running an AGP platform still, and you play a lot of games, it really doesn't matter which CPU you're using for gaming as the GPU is usually the limiting factor (unless you're running Celeron/Athlon XP).

    Also, I don't mean that *no one* plays games at 1024x768; however, if you were to take a sampling of most gamers these days, I don't think many would play at 1024 unless they simply lack the hardware to run higher resolutions. I'm personally recommending 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 WS displays these days for gaming, or 1280x1024 at minimum. Like I said, though, gamers looking at upgrading to Core 2 (or even AM2) are almost certainly not intending to run games at 1024x768, are they?
  • yacoub - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    What I don't get is that my X800XL runs CS:S pretty well at native res on my 2007WFP at default graphical settings (I think everything High?). I mean sure it can drop to around 20fps and very rarely lower in big fights, but my system seems to do pretty well and it's just an A64 3200+ Venice (I even undid my o/c from 3800+ speeds), 1GB of DDR ram, and the X800XL.

    I do want to upgrade something to gain some performance so it DOESN'T bog down in firefights, and I'm betting a 7900GT is the right answer, but at the same time the Asus board I'm running is a little flakey. At least if I upgrade the GPU I can always move it over to my next system, where as if I upgrade the CPU it'd be kind of a waste even with the cheaper prices since my next cpu/mobo/ram build will be Conroe/Intel/DDR2.
  • drarant - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    I have/had the exact same setup.

    The thing about about CS:S and HL2 is ALOT of the work is done by the CPU. Since the Source Engine is very physics heavy, more often then not the CPU is the limiting factor.

    You can see this in almost all the Conroe Benches, HL2 gains more fps from them then say BF2 or FEAR. While the X800XL isn't a rock solid card for HL2, you will see a pretty big FPS boost by upgrading that CPU.

    If you run with AF or AA on, that is what hurts you during firefights as that is alot of work for the CPU (calculating physics of the shots, registering, etc) and graphically doing the shaders etc. A Sound card would also help as that is handled by the CPU and CS:S is very sound heavy, but if you get the conroe that wouldn't matter.

    Cheers
  • Thor86 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    58% spread on BF2 testing. Sheeit.
  • Some1ne - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    So what's the deal with the gaming hardware config and software settings? I mean:

    1. You ran with 1900 XT's in crossfire, which is a fairly unrealistic setup when compared to what most users will actually implement. This can be forgiven, as you were testing CPU performance, so it's justifiable to use a graphics setup that provides a needless amount of power to eliminate the video subsystem as a possible bottleneck. Still, I think it would be interesting to see how the gaming performance scaled with overclocking when using a more "conventional" upper-midrange graphics solution, like a single 1900 XT or 7900 GT, because that's what most users would probably actually run.

    2. You ran the tests at a somewhat unrealistic resolution of 1600x1200. If the crossfire cards were put in to eliminate the graphics subsystem as a possible bottleneck, then this configuration just undermines that effort. Most people still game at 1280x1024, or even 1024x768, so running the tests at a lower resolution would have given more meaningful results by generating less graphics load and therefore better illustrating the impact of the CPU overclocking as well.
  • JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I would say the only people gaming at 1024x768 are people that really don't play all that many games, and very likely they aren't running even socket 939/775, let alone one of the newer platforms. Other than that, the reason for the chosen settings is a matter of balance. Personally, I would take higher resolution if possible up until I max out my monitor. Since I'm using a widescreen LCD, that's 1920x1200, and needless to say just about any current GPU configuration is bottlenecked by the graphics card at setting. Anyway, page 9:

    quote:

    Once we shift over to gaming performance, the differences between all of the tested systems are greatly diminished. Enabling 4xAA would further reduce the difference, to the point where most of the systems would be about equal. This does not change the fact that the Core 2 Duo chips are able to outperform their AMD counterparts in terms of raw performance, so once faster graphics cards become available we should see the processors begin to differentiate themselves more. Of course, by then we might also have games that are more demanding of the GPU.


    I've tweaked the conclusion slightly as well to clarify the status of single GPUs:

    quote:

    Gamers on the other hand are probably going to at least want to think about SLI/CrossFire, as typical gaming settings will be GPU limited with just about any current single GPU.


    Our reasoning is that most people don't just use their computer for gaming, even if they're "hardcore gamers", so faster CPUs are still useful. Video encoding, file compression, multitasking, etc. can benefit from faster CPUs. If you're running a single core A64 or P4 and you're happy with its performance, of course, don't run out and upgrade just because something faster is available. I'm quite certain most of my siblings wouldn't notice the difference between A64 3000+ and Core 2 X6800 in their daily activities, other than to say "it seems a bit faster." :)
  • Some1ne - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    quote:

    I would say the only people gaming at 1024x768 are people that really don't play all that many games, and very likely they aren't running even socket 939/775, let alone one of the newer platforms.


    I don't know about the veracity of that...perhaps I'm just a statistical outlier, but I'm running a socket 939 X2 3800+ system (w/ CPU clocked to 2.4 GHz...unfortunately it won't go any higher than that) with a 7900 GT, and still play the majority of my games at 1280x1024, though my monitor will do 1600x1200 just fine. Up until a month or so ago, I was running a 6600 GT (because when I built the system, I couldn't justify the extra ~$50 cost for the mainboard, plus double the graphics cost...I suppose I could have gone with a SLI board and just the single 6600 GT, and added in a second one for cheap instead of the 7900 GT, but from what I've seen the 7900 performs better than two 6600's would in SLI, and for $200 on craigslist it was a really good deal), and playing my games at 1024x768 (except for older titles, of course, but they don't really count). I'll admit that I'm not a "hardcore" gamer, though I do play most of the major titles as they come out, and I suspect a lot of people do the same...and I do plan on moving to a core 2 duo based setup (will probably get an E6600 and overclock it, assuming the expected price of $316 holds), hopefully within the next couple of months, though when I do I'll most likely keep my 7900 GT, and avoid SLI setups like the plague (unless it turns out that you can run a second video card in the SLI/Crossfire slot in non-SLI mode and have it serve as a dedicated PPU, in which case I'd get a SLI/Crossfire capable setup solely for that purpose, though I won't be caught dead running two cards in tandem for graphics processing just because current games are too much for any current standalone card to handle...the price/performance of a dual-card setup relative to that of a single-card one just isn't justifiable in that regard).

    quote:

    Gamers on the other hand are probably going to at least want to think about SLI/CrossFire, as typical gaming settings will be GPU limited with just about any current single GPU.


    I tend to disagree with the assertion that the fact that current games are GPU limited on any single card is, in and of itself, a good reason to consider a SLI/Crossfire setup. The price/performance of the dual-GPU setup should factor in as well (as well as additional headaches, such as the additional complexity and technical requirements and driver issues and so on), and though it has certainly improved from where it was when the technology was (re-)introduced, it's still not quite where it ought to be for a dual-card solution to really make sense for the majority of people.

    And what about single cards that integrate two GPU's (or that glue together two cards so that they can interface via a single x16 slot), like the 7950's?
  • JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Consider doesn't mean purchase. ;) Hey, I'm happy with a 7800 GTX and 1920x1200 0xAA/8xAF in most titles. Also, I should have stated (and I explained this below) that I mean "most gamers" don't want to run at 1024x768. People do it, sure, but given the choice almost every gamer out there would rather play at 1280x1024 minimum (for 17/19" displays). Hopefully that clears things up. We tested at a resolution and settings that show the differecnes while still allowing the GPUs to strut their stuff.
  • kmmatney - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I agree, most people have 19" and 20" LCDs these days, so 1280 x 1024 would be a bare minimum for testing, with 1680 x 1050 (or 1600 x 1200) probably being the most "desired" resolution for many gamers.
  • mkruer - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Interesting enough once you go to 1600x1200 with all the bells and whistles on, the CPU is the least of your worries. Even the AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+ performs with in 10% of the highest Conroe. LOL
  • cgrecu77 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    sadly anandtech looks like its following on tom hardware's path of intel biased reviews. Sure, the bias IS NOT blatant, but still.

    Obviously conroe is faster than amd (by ~20%) and overclocking proves nothing, both athlon and conroe have about the same room for overclocking and probably the performance difference will remain the same.

    The fact is that cost/performance definitely is on the amd side right now as the X2-3800 +mb + ram is probably more than 20% cheaper than the core and offers almost the same performance in games (most people care about that, I know I only look at gaming bechmarks). Not to mention that after going the dual core route I would definitely recommend people to NOT buy a dual core now, but stick with a single core 3700+ (or 3800 if the 3700 cannot be find anymore). For ~100$ with minimal overclocking and KEEPING your mb AND memory you will get similar performance in games (unless you ACTUALLY play at 800x600) with a much more expensive system from intel/amd. It only makes sense to buy conroe if you're going high end and you want the maximum performance you can get.

    Dual core is NOT worth it on a home computer. Anybody that says differently haa no clue.
  • OcHungry - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I don’t get this review? is it about just overclocking conroe or is it about which platform gives you better price/performance?
    If it is about overclocking conroe, then why are there AMD CPU's listed?
    and why aren’t AMD's overclocked?
    If it is about overclocking and price performance, then why aren’t AMD's overclocked and why aint we considering the motherboards?
    Today you can buy a good "SLI" AM2 motherboard for less than $150 and A64 3800 x2 for $155 and overclock the hell of it. I have seen up to 3ghz easy.
    you can buy 2 cheap SLI cards ($85 each) and build a hell of a system.
    That is $450 for CPU+mobo+2SLI cards.
    Can E6300/6400 do that? NO. For one, you have to buy a $250 motherboard hoping Nvedia will release SLI drivers to Intel.
    I am very disappointed at Mr. Anand and this whole outfit.
    Mr. Anand, you know, there are AMD users that will question the merit and integrity of this article. Why are you doing this? why didn’t you show any AMD's overclocked? And why aren’t you giving the readers the total package? If it’s about overclocking low end conroe alone, the what are AMD’s doing there? And not overclocked? Is this article for stupid readers?
    I mean, I am not trying to offend reader’s intelligence, but this article sure does.
    Are you and AMD in some kind of friction? it sure seems that way?
  • goinginstyle - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Dear OC-Sharikou,

    I noticed you have moved on without answering our objective points on the memory article. Let's recap, you were fired from Intel with cause, you are bitter because of it, and will take any opportunity to slam any positive results from Intel. You have an issue with Anand that you have never explained but it is obvious you are extremely jealous or maybe you have a crush on him and was upset he married someone else.

    quote:

    I don’t get this review? is it about just overclocking conroe or is it about which platform gives you better price/performance?


    Did you read the title and text? Do you have the ability to read 12 pages of written text or do the pretty graphs throw you off?

    quote:

    If it is about overclocking conroe, then why are there AMD CPU's listed?

    Please get up on your mother's lap and have her read you the story again. This time pay attention and put your bottle down.

    quote:

    If it is about overclocking and price performance, then why aren’t AMD's overclocked and why aint we considering the motherboards?

    See the above statement. Even if you overclocked the AMD cpu's and placed them on the space shuttle for launch they are not going to approach Conroe when overclocked also. Get over it, dude.

    quote:

    Today you can buy a good "SLI" AM2 motherboard for less than $150 and A64 3800 x2 for $155 and overclock the hell of it. I have seen up to 3ghz easy.
    you can buy 2 cheap SLI cards ($85 each) and build a hell of a system.
    That is $450 for CPU+mobo+2SLI cards.

    Good point, in a month or so you will be able to do the same with Conroe. The problem once again with your statement is that you have seen these overclocks. Since you do not actually own these processors then you have no idea what the hell you are spewing. Look in your diaper, that is the same crap you are spreading around here.

    quote:

    Can E6300/6400 do that? NO. For one, you have to buy a $250 motherboard hoping Nvedia will release SLI drivers to Intel.


    If you knew how to read, then you would know nvidia is launching Intel SLI boards under a $100 next month.

    quote:

    Mr. Anand, you know, there are AMD users that will question the merit and integrity of this article. Why are you doing this? why didn’t you show any AMD's overclocked? And why aren’t you giving the readers the total package? If it’s about overclocking low end conroe alone, the what are AMD’s doing there? And not overclocked? Is this article for stupid readers?


    I am a AMD user and I am ashamed of your comments. Read through Anand's previous AMD and P4 articles and you will understand how fair this site is unlike others. If he shows the AMD CPUs overclocked and they still do not perform as well as Conroe then what type of bulls&$! are you going to post. You already tried calculations yesterday that blew up in your face. You are consistent, consistently WRONG.

    quote:

    Are you and AMD in some kind of friction? it sure seems that way?

    How much does AMD pay you for your daily trash blog and to post this crap at AnandTech?

    In conclusion-
    Conroe owns AM2 - Get over It!
  • jjunos - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    LOL!!

    lol sorry, that was a great response!! haha

    I have to agree with the above poster....while I guess I'm a bit pro AMD, what I cant' stand is amd freaks bashing anand for his reviews. Do all you amd freaks really think that when K8L comes out, that he won't do just as many indepth reviews of that?
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    As I stated in the review, the only AM2 CPUs (non EE/EE SFF, those will be looked at in a later article) we have on hand are a X2 5000+ and a FX-62. Overclocking either one of those is not representative of how a X2 3800+ overclocks, so it doesn't make sense to include those numbers as we're talking about overclocking on the low end. As I also mentioned in the review, most people are able to reach anywhere between 2.4 and 2.8GHz with their X2 3800+ CPUs without much effort, which we already happen to have numbers for in the review. What we didn't know prior to today was how the 2MB cache Conroes performed at higher clock speeds, this was the point of today's article.

    As far as your concerns about budget go, our article agrees with your point on motherboard cost. From the conclusion:

    "There are two potential concerns with building a budget Core 2 Duo system. The first is availability, and hopefully we will have a clear answer on that subject in the near future. The other is motherboard cost. The ASUS P5W-DH we used in this article is currently the best overclocking motherboard we've seen for the socket 775 platform, but at $250 it is anything but cheap. We have seen quite a few of the P965 motherboards that can also overclock the budget Core 2 chips to reasonable levels, with prices hovering much closer to $140. Unfortunately, none of those boards can support SLI or CrossFire at present."

    As far as I can tell, all of your issues were addressed in the review itself. Let me know if there's something I missed.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • jjunos - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    *sigh*

    Seriously guys. They already state this.

    quote:

    While we don't have any Socket-AM2 Athlon 64 X2 3800+ CPUs on hand (we will use a 4600+ and underclock it for our benchmarks), we do have performance results of the X2 4200+, 4600+ and FX-62 to give you an idea of where an overclocked X2 3800+ can get you performance-wise.


    True, I would have loved to have seen them have an overclocked 3800 directly for comparison, but really, I've seen all the articles I need to see on overclocking X2's. I don't think the point was to show AMD in a bad light, they were showing how the intels overclock. Looks good, but the AMD are just too cheap now to say no! :D
  • JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    For the record, our OC results for E6300/E6400 are *very* conservative. Stock cooling means you should easily reach these results, and anyone that spends $30-$50 on an aftermarket cooler can surpass them without batting an eye. On AM2, it's all about core clock, with maybe a 5% difference from HTT/RAM settings. 2.6 GHz with a 3800+ is reasonable (though a bit iffy with stock HSF), so you can get 5000+ performance (which is shown). Throwing in better cooling *might* get 2.8 GHz, but even that is questionable without watercooling or phase. FX-62 on air can probably get 3.0-3.2 GHz, which is still going to be slower in most cases than E6300 OC.

    That said, X2 with less expensive motherboards is still viable, and I will be buying a couple chips for systems in the near future. If you have motherboards that support X2, it's even more attractive. Going from 939 3000+ to 939 4200+ for $189 is a tremendous upgrade, and you can OC to about 2.6-2.8 GHz. Is that *competitive*? Absolutely! Is it faster than what you can get with Core 2 if you're buying a new motherboard, RAM, and CPU? Nope, but then for many people it doesn't have to be. From page 6:

    quote:

    With the extremely low prices of AMD's X2 processors, the price/performance offered is still certainly competitive. In all of the general performance testing that we have presented here, an X2 3800+ or X2 4200+ (with or without overclocking) is by no means a slow processor. Core 2 Duo is faster, though at present we also have to conclude that Core 2 Duo motherboards are more expensive (with the exception of the ASRock board, though that has a few drawbacks). If you are looking for something right now and are looking to save money, socket AM2 has a lot of reasonable choices at very good prices. For the business user, you really can't go wrong with any of these chips.


    Take care,
    Jarred Walton
  • bere - Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - link

    The 5000+ that U have there is a FSB200. U compare a FSB 200 with 370 FSB.
  • jjunos - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Since apparently you're opinion defines the world, what exactly is dual core good for?

    Really, this amd fanboi crap has seriously gotten out of hand lately. I love amd. But the FUD that you guys have been spewing lately is just garbage. In games, the fastest cpu wins, true, but that won't be the case in the future (and even now there are games that take advantage of dual core). In normal usage? Hell yes does dual core matter! The biggest upgraded I've seen in the last 10 years on my home box was when I went from 1cpu to dual cpu.

    From day to day usage, other users on my computer, everything. I love it.

    Actually, when I started a new job and they only offered me a 1 cpu box, it killed me.

    Once you go dual core, you can't go back!
  • bob661 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    quote:

    Really, this amd fanboi crap has seriously gotten out of hand lately. I love amd. But the FUD that you guys have been spewing lately is just garbage. I
    Give me a break dude the Intel fanbois were doing the same thing. Nothing to see here. Move along.
  • araczynski - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    looks like i'll be gettig the E6600 for great base performance with capability to overclock decently. I'll probably be sticking with a P965 mobo since i won't be going for crazy overclocking or crazy cooling solutions (that turniq cooler looks just about right for my tastes).

    now i just have to figure out whether to get a 7900gt/gtx/50gtx.... to last me until the second generation of the dx10's comes out...
  • drebo - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    The pricing in this article is inaccurate. The Conroes are too low and the Athlon64s are too high.

    Seems to me you're using vendor pricing for one and suggested retail for the other.
  • coldpower27 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    No the pricing is completely accurate they are using AMD's price lists that come directly from AMD itself, and they are using Intel's prices for 1000 Unit Quantities, that will also be published on their website.

    If your talking about actualy price on online retailors that will remain to be seen.
  • drebo - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    No, I'm not talking about online retailers.

    I'm talking about actual prices that I can get right now from my distributors and the listed suggested retail prices.

    Where, exactly, are you getting your prices?
  • coldpower27 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Go to AMD.com and you can get their official pricing, the listed numbers are what will be on Intel's website when they get updated for Core 2 Duo.

    OEM Distributer pricing is a different metric.
  • drebo - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Distributor pricing is what determines street and retail pricing.

    Intel can post the MSRP of $999 all they want, but if distributors are selling their products for more than that, the price will never be seen.

    What matters is that these prices are not accurate, and paint an entirely different story than should be painted.
  • goinginstyle - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    quote:

    What matters is that these prices are not accurate, and paint an entirely different story than should be painted.


    Neither are the AM2 prices currently as most places are selling the FX62 well above the $799. So what was your point? It is all about supply and demand, the same thing happened when AMD launched S939, the prices were way over the stated numbers by AMD. You have to start with a base, the published pricing is the base.
  • drebo - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    quote:

    most places are selling the FX62 well above the $799


    Genius, $799 is not MSRP for the FX-62. $799 is the price at which AMD sells the processor to its distributors. The distributor then sells the processor to retail and/or wholesale outlets with a markup. The retailers and wholesalers then sell the same product with yet another markup. Currently, my price for an FX-62 is $811. MSRP is near to $1000, but then I, and many other sellers, do not use MSRP. I use cost-based pricing.

    I'm not trying to prove anything here other than that the prices listed in this article are incorrect, and that the conclusions drawn are vastly different than conclusions that could be drawn were the pricings correct.

    By the way, all prices I've quoted have been for PIBs, not tray processors. I don't use OEM processors...too much liability.
  • coldpower27 - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link


    And, that's the thing the prices quoted are correct.

    Using distributer pricing isn't a good idea as it could vary between the companies, depending on the deal you got as well, those particular prices can't be verified.

    The prices listed on this chart can be since they are listed on AMD site and will be on Intel's.

    There isn't a choice, unless you wish to use the real world pricing floating around as that is what matters at the end of the day, but there are issues with that, as that fluctuates.
  • drebo - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    That's exactly my freaking point.

    These prices, while listed on their respective manufacturers sites, are not correct. They are two different pricing schemes. One is using the price at which Intel sells them to distributors, the other is not using any pricing scheme that I've ever seen before, except on this site.

    I have varifiable proof(read: I know for an ABSOLUTE FACT) that the AMD prices are too high. How do I know this? Because my distributor prices are lower than what is listed in this article. Ergo, the prices listed CANNOT be the prices at which AMD sells to distributors.

    Thus, you're using two different pricing scales, making any conclusions based on pricing completely bogus.

    Here are accurate pricings(I'll list my price as well as listed MANUFACTURER Suggested Retail Price):
    Athlon64 X2 3800+ - $149.00 - MSRP: $186.25
    Athlon64 X2 4200+ - 183.00 - 228.75
    Athlon64 X2 4600+ - 235.00 - 293.75
    Athlon64 X2 5000+ - 294.74 - 368.75
    Athlon64 FX-60/62 - 811.00 - 973.95
    Core 2 Duo E6300 - 199.58 - 229.95
    Core 2 Duo E6300 BTX - 209.05 - 229.95
    Core 2 Duo E6400 - 239.58 - 272.95
    Core 2 Duo E6600 - 334.32 - 379.95
    Core 2 Duo E6700 - 553.26 - 629.95
    Core 2 Duo X6800 - 1021.68 - 1164.95

    Now, regardless of which pricing you use(distributor pricing, which is based off of manufacturer pricing, or MSRP), the pairings in the article are ALL incorrect. I tell everyone who asks to take these kinds of articles with a grain of salt.
  • coldpower27 - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link


    That's not good enough, your word isn't a verifiable item. So that is what needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

    It's has to be publicly available information on the web avialable from AMD and Intel, which it is as the AMD pricing charts are avaialble at AMD's site. The Intel numbers correlate directly to Intels' 1000 Unit Quantity chart.

    The pricing chart listed for you is only worthwhile for you.

    As well the current pricing scheme you posted correlates quite well to which processor vs which processor.

    I am using the pricing scales using available information, the pricing scales you have been using aren't publically available so they can't be used. The results used in this article are jsut fine.

    The problem with the information you posted is this is the first time I have seen numbers like that and it wasn't available to all.

    The MSRP's you quoted while higher then the ones listed in the article paint approximately the same picture.

    4200+ vs E6300
    4600+ vs E6400
    5000+ vs E6600

    Your prices will not be use, as they are different from everything else we have seen so far.

    The numbers in the article are apples to apples as they are both what is available to the public by both corporations.
  • drebo - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    quote:

    The Intel numbers correlate directly to Intels' 1000 Unit Quantity chart.


    That is EXACTLY what I said. Do you even read things before you reply to them?

    The Intel pricing is using Intel's price to distributors. The AMD pricing is not using any pricing that is available in any chart or anywhere else.

    Hence: the Intel pricing is too low and the AMD pricing is too high...thus forcing processor comparisons that do not actually exist.

    And, no, my pricing is not only available to me. It's available to any company that uses distributors, because the pricing is the same, within a few dollars, between all of my distributors. Regionally, every company generally uses the same distributors. Thus, the pricing available from distributors is extremely relevant, despite the fact that you would like it to be otherwise.
  • wilki24 - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    Erm... pulling the two (closest) price points out from ZZF:

    A64 X2 4600+
    Anand: $240
    ZZF: $260
    Delta = $20

    E6400
    Anand: $224
    ZZF: $239
    Delta = $15

    *****

    A64 X2 3800+ (Really should be the 4200+, since it's closer to the E6300 in price, but ZZF has majorly overinflated prices for that chip for some reason.)
    Anand: $152
    ZZF: $154
    Delta = $2

    E6300
    Anand: $183
    ZZF: $199
    Delta = $16

    In one case, the delta between the two is $5 in Intel's favor, and in the other (not quite matched up price point) it's $14 in AMD's.

    Going by ZZF, it would seem that the point you're trying to make doesn't seem to be based in fact.
  • coldpower27 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    The prices are completely accurate as they are MSRP's. You want "real world" pricing, this fluctuates based on supply and demand, and is pointless to report as it constantly changes.

    If AMD wanted they could have listed their "OEM Distributer" pricing on their website, but they don't so we go by what they have listed there. If you want, you can complain to AMD about not listing the distributer pricing on their site.
  • coldpower27 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Like I said if your talking about prices at online retailers it will be a different story, I already discussed this part. Those reamin to be seen.
  • bob661 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    quote:

    Distributor pricing is what determines street and retail pricing.
    The AMD prices are a tad higher than listed at ZZF and Monarch. We'll have no way of knowing Intel pricing until the chips are released. I heard it got pushed back to 8/7.
  • coldpower27 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Yeah judging by what we have seen so far, no online store has decreased below AMD's retail pricing on their website for the time being. Let alone the OEM distributer prices reported by Dailytech earlier before.
  • gmallen - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    For AMD owners, the true cost of using Conroe includes a new motherboard. I can upgrade to the 5000+ with my current board. So, for me, the AMD solution is much cheaper.
  • krisia2006 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    The AM2 AMD cpus in the review also require a new mobo/platform for many AMD owners, no?
  • coldpower27 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Assuming you have the Socket AM2 platform, then yes you can, remember 5000+ only exists for Socket AM2, and not Socket 939.

    Since that platform is relatively new, only a handful who have would consider upgrading to anything.
  • Gigahertz19 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I'm definetly going with the Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 2.4GHz since it is the cheapest one that has 4Mb of L2 cache and overclock it to 3GHz or whatever is stable.
  • Olaf van der Spek - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I'm also missing any mention of single core solutions. Sure, dual core is the future, but in the present, single core is just as fast for games and a lot cheaper.
    An Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4 ghz costs only 110 dollar/euro.
  • krisia2006 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    AMD left me wanting for an affordable dual core cpu and Intel answered.
    I bought the Pentium Ds and will buy the Core 2 Duo.
    In the present, I play games fine on my Pentium Ds.
  • Olaf van der Spek - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    quote:

    Gamers on the other hand are probably going to at least want to think about SLI/CrossFire, which means they might need to pay more for an appropriate motherboard, especially if overclocking is a primary concern.

    Isn't way too much attention given to CF/SLI?
    Given the costs, it's only interesting to 'diehard' gamers that spend very much money on their systems.
  • JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    The benefits in some games are huge, and I would say just about any gamer would at least *think* about CF/SLI before making a decision as to what to buy. That doesn't mean they have to go that route, but without CF/SLI you will certainly be GPU limited at higher resolutions. This is a well-established fact, as in recent titles you can't run 1600x1200 or 1680x1050 with 4xAA/8xAF and still get CPU-limited results.
  • samuraiBX - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Hey guys, I like the article, but I was wondering, why did you go with medium settings instead of ultra high or high? I'd like to see the performance in that arena more than the medium settings. Any chance we could get those? Thanks!
  • coldpower27 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    The performance is obvious, even on a Crossfire system with image quality settings tunred up you will get a straight line down the middle between NetBurst, K8, and Core based products due to the GPU being the bottleneck, since the emphasis was CPU performance, they need to kick back on the GPU settings a tad to make sue the CPU is the limiting factor.

    Real world, a Pentium D 915/945 would be sufficient for gaming.
  • bob661 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    What impresses me the most about these Conroe's is their OCing ability. Almost as fast as a Conroe EE for less than a 1/4 of its price.
  • mkruer - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    You might want to pick up the new stepping 6 (mass produces ones) A lot of people over at xteamesystesm are complaining that the stepping 6 doesn’t over clock nearly as well as the stepping 5 and that the temperatures are staring to go though the roof.

    Personally I would love to know if this is true
    http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...">http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...
  • goinginstyle - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    quote:

    You might want to pick up the new stepping 6 (mass produces ones) A lot of people over at xteamesystesm are complaining that the stepping 6 doesn’t over clock nearly as well as the stepping 5 and that the temperatures are staring to go though the roof.


    Read the entire post and see what the outcome is before posting this kind of information.
  • Kiijibari - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    quote:

    You might want to pick up the new stepping 6 (mass produces ones) A lot of people over at xteamesystesm are complaining that the stepping 6 doesn’t over clock nearly as well as the stepping 5 and that the temperatures are staring to go though the roof.


    That's the reason why he was using stepping 5 cores, if he would have used stepping 6, no article, no clicks, no advertising money (from Intel(?) ;-) )

    I mean an overclocking article itself is nonsense, exspecially if you only have 1 kind of a specific CPU and that one is directly from Intel...

    Just wait until the first guys bought E6300s because of anandtech and then stuck around ~2.0/2.2 GHz. Guess who is angry then ...

    Sadly but it looks like anandtech does not care too much about that :(

    regards

    Kiijibari
  • Gary Key - Saturday, July 29, 2006 - link

    quote:

    ust wait until the first guys bought E6300s because of anandtech and then stuck around ~2.0/2.2 GHz. Guess who is angry then ...


    The retail chips are overclocking just as well as the ES chips from all indications the past few days. I know my retail E6400 is 150MHz higher than the ES sample. ;-) Here is an example at XS.......

    http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...">E6700 Retail
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    As soon as we can get our hands on something other than B1 stepping CPUs we'll include those results. As far as I know, there's nothing that has been changed in current silicon revisions to severely limit overclocking. I haven't run into the issues myself but I will do my best to follow up once I can get later silicon.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • mkruer - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Thanks Anand,

    I don’t know if this is true any more but I seem to recall that Intel has a small scale FAB just for engineering samples, and I think that they tend to use it both as a test to validate the new FAB process as well as the CPU design. Thus the engineering samples tend to be better then the mass production chips. Remember the 5 GHz Prescott Intel showed off. I don’t think that anyone go a 5 GHz Prescott running from production chips without having to use liquid nitrogen to keep the chip cool.

    This is something to keep in mind when benching the ES ability. The real production chip might be totally different from a thermal and OC aspect.
  • mine - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    its been reported that there is one change in b2 retail stepping .
    based on 3 6800 retail versions (b2) @ (xs) b1 stepping seem to oc better than the retail versions

    so right now it seems to early to prejudge ..
  • PetNorth - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Anand, your X2 4200+ $215 is wrong. It's EE version. Normal version is $187

    http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInforma...">http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/Pro...ion/0,,3...
  • aldamon - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Get a better mobo AT and you'll see what the E6300 can really do. The $150 Gigabyte DS3 goes well over 400 FSB with the right RAM.
  • goinginstyle - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    His motherboard is fine, using stock cooling is what limited the overclocks.
  • rjm55 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    It's been interesting to watch as AT has paid more and more attention to overclocking. Fortunately for me, the overclocking on good air cooling has been a perfect match for what I'm looking for. I just checked and the monster Tuniq cooler we saw in the Conroe launch sells for just $49. People using it say it is silent because of the huge fan that turns slow inside the core. The point is I can likely go even further with the Tuniq than Anand found here - which was impressive enough.

    Now that we see the headroom on even the cheapest Conroe CPUs it is hard to understnad why anyone can consider an AM2 for anything but the low-end. Until Am2 drops to 65nm the Conroe OC blows away anything I can do with my AM2 chip.

    Thanks for showing us what great overclockers Conroe is turning out to be! The E6600 with 4MB cache for $312 is looking mighty sweet for me. If I remeber you got yours to 4GHz.

  • getbush - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    There is a for that should be four and you start the oblivion page with will instead of we'll.
  • JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Thanks - I gave the document a final proofing now that I'm a bit more coherent and squashed several more "typos" (speech-recognition-os?) I helped Anand fill in a bunch of the text, but it was late and my eyes weren't cooperating. LOL
  • yacoub - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    What I see here is that the E6400 is easily the way to go for folks who aren't interested in overclocking but want the best bang-for-the-buck.

    For very little more $$ than the E6300, you get a chip that rides quite a bit higher up on the charts in many tests.

    Now the question: What affordable motherboard is recommended for stable, reliable non-overclocked C2D Conroe performance? Perhaps the Intel P965 board?

    There's no reason to drop $200-250 for a motherboard when you aren't going to utilize its overclocking functionality. I believe that opens up the user to the more affordable P965 boards, right? They tend to be more around $150 and if it's made by Intel it should be plenty stable, right?

    Also most boards now are passively-cooled which is excellent since the dinky fans on older motherboards were always noisy and died quickly. Avoiding those is another benefit as I believe the Intel P965 board is passively cooled as well.

    Thoughts?
  • anandtechrocks - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Check out the Gigabyte DS3. It uses the P965 chipset and costs ~$144. It overclocks just as well as the $250 Asus motherboard in this article and it uses very high quality solid capacitors. Only drawback is that no SLI or Crossfire.
  • yacoub - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    I don't know, looks like there's some cause for concern about currently available 965 boards now...
    http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...">http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...amp;thre...
  • anandtechrocks - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Very good article, I really enjoyed it. I think there is an error on page 4, on the 3rd graph from the bottom. The E6300 and E6400 bars are miss-labled.
  • JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Fixed - thanks.
  • code65536 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    How do the OC'ed chips do with power consumption. Does a 6400 @ 2.88 use more or less power than a 6800, for example?
  • supremelaw - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    ... and heat.

    I assume that the stock Intel HSF hasn't changed:

    http://www.supremelaw.org/systems/heatsinks/warnin...">http://www.supremelaw.org/systems/heatsinks/warnin...

    and that a superior HSF with proper backing plate
    is still recommended for Conroe CPUs, even though
    they run cooler in general.


    Sincerely yours,
    /s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
    Webmaster, Supreme Law Library
    http://www.supremelaw.org/">http://www.supremelaw.org/
  • houe - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    fp
  • Comdrpopnfresh - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Unfortunately, this article goes on the assumption that the AMD chips are not overclocked. To say that the low-end intel chips offer overclocked performance that the AMD FX-62 cannot reach is absurd. With an unlocked multiplier, the FX can certainly stay above Core2's low end. The same could be said for Lower End X2's.... I'd like to see a review with them overclocked compared to Core2's at stock.... Especially since such CPUs on the 939 socket are mature and heavily supported by outstanding overclocking mobos....
  • OcHungry - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Just be patient till advertizing budget is dried up.
    I wish AMD was more co-operative in paid per review market that has plagued "money buys" technology.net.
  • goinginstyle - Thursday, July 27, 2006 - link

    Dear OC-Sharikou,

    quote:

    Just be patient till advertizing budget is dried up. I wish AMD was more co-operative in paid per review market that has plagued "money buys" technology.net.


    AMD would have that ability if it were not for that $2.5B loan they just signed and obviously keeping your blog up and running. I hope you are banned for these types of false and mis-leading statements. By the way, where are all of these Intel ads you keep harping about?
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Advertising and Editorial are completely independent and separate at AnandTech, we have a 3rd party ad agency that handles all advertising and sales. The agency is completely independent from AnandTech, Inc.

    The OP's points were addressed by the poster above; this article was done after response to the last one asked for more information on the E6300 and E6400. The overclockability of 90nm X2 CPUs is fairly well known, and enough reference points exist within this article to compare overclocked X2 performance vs. E6300/E6400 overclocked performance.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • bere - Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - link

    Actually I think the article is missleading(not on purpose). To compare a 370FSB OC CPU with a 200FSB on DEF is pointless. I would have OC'ed all at least 2 CPU's from both sides to see what's the best buy for an OC'er.
    Sorry for my poor english.
  • jjunos - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    This article also assumes you actually read it. From the article:

    quote:

    While we don't have any Socket-AM2 Athlon 64 X2 3800+ CPUs on hand (we will use a 4600+ and underclock it for our benchmarks), we do have performance results of the X2 4200+, 4600+ and FX-62 to give you an idea of where an overclocked X2 3800+ can get you performance-wise.
  • DigitalFreak - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link

    Again, STFU

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