Third Step: 4.2 GHz (FSB1772)
Next stop: 4200 MHz. Please hold on to your keyboard.
We decided to move in 200 MHz increments, which is why 4.2 GHz was the next step. As we saw stability issues and system crashes, we decided to further increase the processor voltage from 1.345 V to as much as 1.45 V. This helped to bring back stability for our overclocked system, now running at a FSB base clock speed of 443 MHz (FSB1772). Although we still did not relax the timings, the memory still worked fine at a +0.3V increase (1.5 V default).
The memory was also slightly overclocked at a 4200-MHz core clock speed, as the system speed, which runs at the same base clock speed as our memory, increased to 443 MHz.
Final Step: 4.3 GHz (FSB1812)
A 4.3-GHz clock speed was the limit. We couldn’t get our sample to run faster, regardless of what we tried. Since the processors did not run hot at all during the overclocking, we assume that the system bus might be the bottleneck.
A 453-MHz Front Side Bus base clock speed (FSB1812) was the limit of our test sample. We tried increasing the voltage up to 1.5 V, and also increased the voltage of the other components up to +0.25 V for the Front Side Bus and +0.4 V for the memory. Our "overvoltaging" also involved charging the chipset up to +0.35 V. We also tried different combinations of the above. Most likely the CPU sample just isn’t capable of supporting much higher FSB speeds, which we have observed for Core 2 Duo E6x50 processors as well. Some of them could reach a 500-MHz base clock, while others do not.
Since this is only the beginning of the Core 2 Duo Wolfdale generation, we expect better clock speed margins to be available with upcoming processor steppings. The first 65-nm Core 2 Duo Conroe samples we had received in mid-2006 weren’t able to reach 4 GHz. But today, a majority of the E6750 and E6850 processors can be overclocked to this speed with little effort.
Again, SpeedStep worked well even at 4.2+ GHz.
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- Next page More Overclocking? Getting Rid Of The...
- Wolfdale Shrinks Transistors, Grows Core 2
- Intel Skulltrail II - Overclocking and Power Consumption
- Intel Skulltrail I - Feeling the Power of 8 Cores
- Intel Skulltrail III - Eight against Four Performance Comparison
- Comparing AMD CPU Efficiency
- AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition – A New Hope?
- Phenom vs. Athlon Core Scaling Compared
- Intel Power Consumption Then and Now
- The Phenom vs. Athlon Core Shootout
- Ultimate Budget Overclocking Box - A 3.5 GHz Core 2 System with a...
from that view point i would have thought it would have made sence to at least include the 8200 for comparison, If not have done the whole article on it instead of the 8500. Or am i missing the point?
Intel has no dedicated inter-connect, no onboard MMU. All inter-core communication for both dual and quad-core CPU's has to go via the FSB. Intel is late catching up because it got complacent.
Also, AMD CPU's at the bottom end still overclock well and are very cheap. I don't think everything is in Intel's favour
Socket 939 90nm Athlon64 3200+ (2.0GHz) can hit 2.7GHz or more on air. Same for Socket AM2 65nm Athlon64x2 4000+ (2.1GHz).
..not bad considering it's a generation before C2D.
Intel has no dedicated inter-connect, no onboard MMU. All inter-core communication for both dual and quad-core CPU's has to go via the FSB. Intel is late catching up because it got complacent.Also, AMD CPU's at the bottom end still overclock well and are very cheap. I don't think everything is in Intel's favour
Am I wrong in thinking the intel dual core does have inter core communication on chip. It is the quad core that communicates via the fsb for but only between the two core 2 duo dies.