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An Overclocking Powerhouse: The new G0-Stepping

10:28 - Tuesday 21 August 2007 by Bert Töpelt
Source: Tom's hardware UK – Keywords: overclocking, intel
Categories: Hardware

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An Overclocking Powerhouse: The new G0-Stepping

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The dual-core processors using B2 stepping as well as the quad-cores using B3 stepping have no trouble at all operating on an FSB running at 333 MHz. In some cases, the multiplier has to be lowered, since the resulting frequency would otherwise be too high.

Nonetheless, Intel has developed the G0 stepping for its new FSB1333 processors. As we have shown, this effort would not have been necessary for a simple FSB upgrade of just 66MHz. The current cores would have been able to cope with the higher frequencies and the higher power consumption.

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The new revision raises the front-side bus by 25.18%. However, the processor frequency of the fastest processor rises by just 2.28%, to 3 GHz.

Our hypothesis is that Intel implemented this optimization to the Conroe architecture to pave the way for another, faster model running at 3.33 GHz a few months from now. After all, our samples of the Core 2 Extreme QX 6850 (3 GHz) and the Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66 GHz) were easily able to reach this speed without us having to increase the core voltage.

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Of course, this alone is no proof that the G0 stepping is optimized for high frequencies. After all, we were able to overclock several of the older Core 2 samples with B-steppings in a similar manner. However, we were surprised to find that both the dual-core and the quad-core G0 processors were able to reach even higher clockspeeds in our overclocking tests. Even with their core voltage set to the maximum, our B-stepping CPUs were unable to even POST at these speeds.

The G0-stepping brings no new power saving features or instruction set extensions with it. All FSB1333 processors come with the same MMX, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, VT, and NX instructions as their predecessors and also include SpeedStep as well as Thermal Monitor 2 and the C1E.


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Talkback
spuddyt 22/08/2007 03:46
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spuddyt

I hope Intel doesn't start 2 get a monopoly...

Cabelo 28/08/2007 04:19
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Cabelo

You're probably right to worry, but I read that AMD has taken a big upswing this month... hopefully it'll sort itself out.

I even fear the game monopoly :(

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