E2*** and E4*** chips getting 60-80%+ overclocks. Why not the E8400?

[Capitalizt]

Just curious...People have reported getting awesome overclocks on these lower end chips. The 2140 can actually hit a 100% overclock according to some (going from 1.6 to 3.2ghz).

Yet most people posting results for the E8400 and quad core chips are only reporting mild OCs of 20-40%. Seems to me these more expensive chips just aren't worth it considering their low end brothers cost less than half as much and can be overclocked to nearly the same speeds.

Is there any word when the next stepping will be out for the E8400? Perhaps that will allow people to push it up to the 60-70%+ level that people are getting from the E4500 type chips.

 

[harpoon84]

The E21x0 and E4x00 chips are clocked low for marketing purposes. It is natural that they will have more headroom than chips clocked 50% higher, since it is basically the same process. The same argument can be used against the E6750 or E6850, which won't get anywhere near 100% overclocks because it is already clocked quite high to begin with.

Once the budget E5x00 series (45nm process with 3MB L2) arrives, with clockspeeds starting at 2.53GHz, perhaps we can start looking at ~60% overclocks to 4GHz.

At this moment, compared to 65nm, the 45nm process ups the upper clockspeed ceiling by about 500MHz, give or take. Keep in mind that the 65nm process is very mature and has basically reached it's clocking potential, whereas 45nm is brand new and is perhaps still a few steppings away from reaching its full potential.

 

[The-Noid]

E8400 starts out at much higher mhz, meaning that you can't overclock them as far. Look however at AMD chips which have for a very long time hardly clocked at all.

 

[Cheex]

Yeah, the E8400's stock speed is much higher than the other chips you mentioned therefore...

Lets just say, for argument's sake, that all C2D chip max out at 4GHz...

The E4400 (2.0GHz) would see a 100% overclock while the E8400 (3.0GHz) would only see a 33.33% overclock...
Both are at 4.0GHz but because of the starting point, achieve a different percentage overclock...:thumbsup:

Hope that helps...:beer:

 

[bunnyfubbles]

A 100% overclock is impressive, but a final result of ~3.2GHz on 65nm Core 2 tech is not that impressive, especially when the Core 2 based Pentiums have so little L2 cache (relatively speaking)

And considering you lumped the E8400 in with the old 65nm chips in terms of maximum performance is just wrong -

Originally posted by: Capitalizt
cost less than half as much and can be overclocked to nearly the same speeds.

Sorry, but there's a HUGE difference between 3.2GHz and 4.2~4.5GHz - especially when we consider that the E8400 has 6 times the L2 cache and the other improvements made to the Core 2 design.


There's no doubt that there is some extremely awesome value - arguably the best price/performance on the market - with chips like the E2140, but even at 3.2GHz they're still nowhere near the same class as an overclocked E8400. No, the E8400 isn't over twice as fast, but that doesn't mean its hard to justify spending over twice as much if you really want the extra performance it can provide.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles

Sorry, but there's a HUGE difference between 3.2GHz and 4.2~4.5GHz - especially when we consider that the E8400 has 6 times the L2 cache and the other improvements made to the Core 2 design.

 

[SpeedEng66]

I also thought it had to do with the high fsb?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: SpeedEng66
I also thought it had to do with the high fsb?

Sheer clock speed is going to win out over fsb almost every time, especially when you can willingly lower your multiplier in order to get a higher fsb if that's really what you want to do should you incorrectly assume it is automatically better.

Higher fsb is pretty insignificant past 266MHz anyways (especially for dual vs quad), and when we consider that the E2160 and E8400 have the same multiplier, if you want them to run the same clock speed you're going to have to run them at the same fsb. Only problem is that the E2160 simply can't reach anywhere near 4GHz like the E8400 can despite have the same upper multiplier limit of 9.

 

[lopri]

I have an E2160 that does 3.6GHz (stable) and 3.8GHz (suicide). Maybe I should compare the two.