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Can't decide between E5200 or Athlon II 240, owners please post underclocking results

M

Mothergoose729

Senior member
I am going to get an upgrade for my linux machine. It uses a opteron 165 in it, which is way to hot. I am thinking about either an E5200 or an athlon II dual core for a replacement. The perform about the same, I want to underclock them in my system either at stock speeds or down to about 2.0ghz. Ideally I want the one with the lowest power consumption.

If any owners of an E5200 or an Athlon II dual core could post their voltages and speeds underclocking their processor I would really appreciate it, and would help me make a better decision. I am interested in particular with results of:

E5200 (or similar processor) at 2.5ghz and 2.0ghz

Athlon II 240 (or similar) at 2.0, 2.5, and stock speeds.

Thanks in advanced 🙂
 
Mothergoose729 said:
I am going to get an upgrade for my linux machine. It uses a opteron 165 in it, which is way to hot. I am thinking about either an E5200 or an athlon II dual core for a replacement. The perform about the same, I want to underclock them in my system either at stock speeds or down to about 2.0ghz. Ideally I want the one with the lowest power consumption.

If any owners of an E5200 or an Athlon II dual core could post their voltages and speeds underclocking their processor I would really appreciate it, and would help me make a better decision. I am interested in particular with results of:

E5200 (or similar processor) at 2.5ghz and 2.0ghz

Athlon II 240 (or similar) at 2.0, 2.5, and stock speeds.

Thanks in advanced 🙂
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How long can you wait? The reason I am asking is because Core i3 (32nm dual core with hyperthreading) is supposed to be released either next month or January.
 
Computer Bottleneck said:
How long can you wait? The reason I am asking is because Core i3 (32nm dual core with hyperthreading) is supposed to be released either next month or January.
Click to expand...

I could wait that long but budget comes into play too. Needs to be less then a hundred dollars (and I have read it will probably be about 120+). Current intel and AMD CPU's are more likely to have better support for certain software under linux too.
 
Mothergoose729 said:
I could wait that long but budget comes into play too. Needs to be less then a hundred dollars (and I have read it will probably be about 120+). Current intel and AMD CPU's are more likely to have better support for certain software under linux too.
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At one point Intel had a simpler 32nm dual core (without hyperthreading) listed at either $83 or $87. I am not sure if this part is still planned though.
 
if you care about low temp and wattage then the amd will be slightly better. I had a E2160 upgraded to a X2 and the temp and wattage at idle and low load is better than E2xxx. I assume the same will be true for E5xxx vs X2. if you overclock then E5200 will be better but underclocking I say from my own experiences say AMD will be pretty efficient for most situations especially if you pair it with a nice chipset like 785G.

I also suggest you give x4 620 a look, pretty low power at stock speeds and runs very well in Ubuntu (I run this and win 7). it's very fast for most linux apps and compilers I use with it.
 
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nyker96 said:
if you care about low temp and wattage then the amd will be slightly better. I had a E2160 upgraded to a X2 and the temp and wattage at idle and low load is better than E2xxx. I assume the same will be true for E5xxx vs X2. if you overclock then E5200 will be better but underclocking I say from my own experiences say AMD will be pretty efficient for most situations especially if you pair it with a nice chipset like 785G.
Click to expand...

E2160 is 65nm.

Whereas E5xxx and X2 are 45nm.
 
Computer Bottleneck said:
E2160 is 65nm.

Whereas E5xxx and X2 are 45nm.
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yes true, I also upgraded a E7200@3,5 to X4 620@3,25 it turns out at idle the same identical system is about 10W less. This means that if you do not OC a whole lot or underclocking quite a bit, the platform became the main energy factor and compare to intel the amd platform like 785G consumes less. this is why many people find amd all in one setup perfect for htpc, especially with built in Hd4000 that accelerate 1080P playback so well.

On my older E2160 it just can't do 1080p at all, but using 785G+X2 combo it plays it now and consumes about 15W less than the old platform when playing normal DVD video.

anyways OP is building something similar to HTPC and I just can't recommand amd 45nm for this job enough. great choice if you plan to undervolt.
 
Dude the AMD 45W processors would win in this contest. :T

The only other solution which would be lower is a laptop platform on desktop with a laptop cpu.
 
My server uses an E5200 on a Gigabyte G31 chipset board. I have it underclocked in BIOS to 1.2GHz (6x200) and set to 0.800v (BIOS monitoring detects it as 0.788v, FWIW).
 
Accord99 said:
Silentpcreview has system power consumption values for the Athlon II 250 and the Intel E7200.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article949-page3.html
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Yeah, i saw that. I did some research further and found that in most test the E5200 consumes a few watts less then an E7200. I am thinking though that if I get an Athlon 250, underclock it 500mhz, and undervolt it as far as i can, I will still end up with a lower power consumption and roughly equal performance to an undervolted E5200. Just by decreasing frequency by 500mhz I will theoretically be cutting power consumption by nearly 20%.
 
Huh, color me confused. What is this stuff about upgrading a processor to get slower speeds?

What is our OP trying to do here.

Is he trying to cut down on the number of watts that goes to the CPU to get the benefits of less CPU heat?

Or is he trying to cut down the total watts that goes to his entire computer system to save on his electric bill?

As an e5200 user, I could refer him to some KenMitch threads on under and overclocking that processor. Or simply state that I have tried mild overclocks with under volting vcore, but presently I just run stock speed while running very cool with even the lousy stock cooler that came with the E5200. And as it is with speed step, with little load, the e5200 runs at only 1200MHZ and will throttle up to 2500 MHZ under load.

But if I wanted a slower system I would have bought a must slower processor.
 
Its really about heat and power consumption. I have three PCs in my room. Usually two of them are in sleep mode, but while they are on they make me very uncomfortably hot. Getting a processor with performance that is adequate and economical is really what I am looking for, my operton just can't do that.
 
Mothergoose729 said:
Its really about heat and power consumption. I have three PCs in my room. Usually two of them are in sleep mode, but while they are on they make me very uncomfortably hot. Getting a processor with performance that is adequate and economical is really what I am looking for, my operton just can't do that.
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I use an Opteron 165 in my home server. I fixed the multiplier at 6x (rather than 9x) to reduce electrical power and heat since I don't need a lot of processing power. Have you tried that? I honestly don't think you're going to see a big reduction in heat with any other processor. Even an Atom system can get pretty warm.
 
Lemon law said:
Huh, color me confused. What is this stuff about upgrading a processor to get slower speeds?

What is our OP trying to do here.

Is he trying to cut down on the number of watts that goes to the CPU to get the benefits of less CPU heat?

But if I wanted a slower system I would have bought a must slower processor.
Click to expand...

He is indeed trying to reduce heat output and lower power consumption thus increasing reliability and extending CPU life.

The point of getting a faster CPU then underclocking/undervolting it is almost always a 3ghz 65w CPU when clocked to 1ghz with minimal voltage will pull less watts than a 2.5ghz 65w CPU run at 1ghz with the same voltage. The ones sold at higher frequencies are generally more effecient than lower clocked ones with the same Thermal Design Power and thus remain more effecient at lower clocks/voltage keeping thier lead over lesser clocked retail products.
 
If you are talking about power usage, LostCircuits is the best bar none for representing the real power consumption numbers for load and idle. I understand there are many Intel employees, fanboys, and average users alike on this forum, and thus tend to disregard anything from LC, but the fact of the matter is, MS does the best power measurements on the web.

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//...task=view&id=70&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=4

In a nutshell, the '240e beat our wildest expectations with respect to idle power draw. Bear in mind here that the power numbers are un-adjusted gross input into the motherboard's voltage regulator module and are, therefore, inflated by roughly 30%. meaning that the CPU itself draws somewhere around 3-3.5W power in idle mode.
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Here is some data from a single e5200 that I tested in a Gigabyte G41M-ES2L

2.00ghz (333x06) bios vcore 0.884 OCCT vcore 0.86 Temps 35*c idle 37* loaded
2.33ghz (333x07) bios vcore 0.900 OCCT vcore 0.88 Temps 35*c idle 38* loaded
2.66ghz (333x08) bios vcore 0.948 OCCT vcore 0.93 Temps 35*c idle 42* loaded
3.00ghz (333x09) bios vcore 1.028 OCCT vcore 1.01 Temps 35*c idle 44* loaded
3.33ghz (333x10) bios vcore 1.108 OCCT vcore 1.07 Temps 35*c idle 50* loaded
3.66ghz (333x11) bios vcore 1.188 OCCT vcore 1.15 Temps 35*c idle 60* loaded
4.00ghz (333x12) bios vcore 1.300 OCCT vcore 1.27 Temps 35*c idle 72* loaded

System was tested with Intel Burn Test then OCCT and then prime at all above speeds.

Currently running it at 3.66ghz with all speedstep functions enabled in bios.
 
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piesquared said:
If you are talking about power usage, LostCircuits is the best bar none for representing the real power consumption numbers for load and idle. I understand there are many Intel employees, fanboys, and average users alike on this forum, and thus tend to disregard anything from LC, but the fact of the matter is, MS does the best power measurements on the web.

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//...task=view&id=70&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=4
Click to expand...


Nice.

what I find interesting is the i5 750 idles at 6.8W vs. the absolute lowest (on that chart) being the Athlon II X2 240e at 4.4W. But looking at load power the differences jump up dramatically

I don't see any 45nm Core 2 Duos on the list unless I am overlooking them
 
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Kenmitch said:
Here is some data from a single e5200 that I tested in a Gigabyte G41M-ES2L

2.00ghz (333x06) bios vcore 0.884 OCCT vcore 0.86 Temps 35*c idle 37* loaded
2.33ghz (333x07) bios vcore 0.900 OCCT vcore 0.88 Temps 35*c idle 38* loaded
2.66ghz (333x08) bios vcore 0.948 OCCT vcore 0.93 Temps 35*c idle 42* loaded
3.00ghz (333x09) bios vcore 1.028 OCCT vcore 1.01 Temps 35*c idle 44* loaded
3.33ghz (333x10) bios vcore 1.108 OCCT vcore 1.07 Temps 35*c idle 50* loaded
3.66ghz (333x11) bios vcore 1.188 OCCT vcore 1.15 Temps 35*c idle 60* loaded
4.00ghz (333x12) bios vcore 1.300 OCCT vcore 1.27 Temps 35*c idle 72* loaded

System was tested with Intel Burn Test then OCCT and then prime at all above speeds.

Currently running it at 3.66ghz with all speedstep functions enabled in bios.
Click to expand...

Which heatsink are you using? What is the stock vid of this processor?
 
I snagged a Gigabyte 785g and Sempy 140 on the cheap. The Sempy unlocked to an Athlon II and cranked in the range of 3.8Ghz (probably would have gone higher but I got chicken because of my cooling).

Before pulling it out of the box I did a few benchies on undervolting and HD capture/recording. Here is a pic recording an 4Mb HD stream at 0.878v, 900MHz with 28% CPU utilization.

I can't recall what the total system power was --- I think at sleep it was 6w.

I think Anand had an article where AMD was kinda pissed at some mobo vendors for not properly enabling some power-saving features in their BIOSes. You may want to check on that if you choose an Athlon II.



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piesquared said:
If you are talking about power usage, LostCircuits is the best bar none for representing the real power consumption numbers for load and idle. I understand there are many Intel employees, fanboys, and average users alike on this forum, and thus tend to disregard anything from LC, but the fact of the matter is, MS does the best power measurements on the web.

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//...task=view&id=70&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=4
Click to expand...

Oh really? Why's that?
 
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