Intel Core2Duo E4500 Retail Box CPU + ECS GF7050VT-M Motherboard $100 @ Frys B&M

[yeba]

This is a sweet deal. Picked a combo from my local frys, the clerk gave me the $199 combo at first but told him I wanted the 'cheaper' combo.

Anyway, I was able to overclock this baby to 3.4GHz on a refurb p5e-vm @ 1.37V vcore . It matches my existing E2200 running at 3.4Ghz on my gigabyte GA33M-DS2R.

Havent confirmed if I have M0 stepping yet.

 

[jiffer]

Originally posted by: DamnRena
so that means the ram that i have would run great on this motherboard and i will be able to overclock right?

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. You cannot overclock your memory. If you don't overclock the E4500, your memory will actually be underclocked at 667 MHz. If you overclock the E4500, your memory can run at 800 Mhz (its rated speed).

You can probably overclock the E4500. All of the Conroe/Allendale CPUs I have tested can reach 2.8 GHz at stock voltage with stock cooling. A few really good samples can go past 3.2 GHz at stock voltage with stock cooling. Most are somewhere in between. I don't think the ECS GF7050VT-M has CPU voltage adjustments, but you can raise the bus speed from 800 Mhz to 1066 MHz with the BSEL option in the BIOS. If you do that, the E4500 will run at 2.933 GHz, which is 33% faster than the stock speed of 2.2 GHz. The GF7050VT-M supports processors that normally run at a bus speed of 1066MHz, so the motherboard shouldn't cause any problems. As long as your E4500 can run fine at 2.933 GHz at stock voltage (and there's a good chance that it will), you should be in good shape.

Originally posted by: yeba
This is a sweet deal. Picked a combo from my local frys...

Havent confirmed if I have M0 stepping yet.

As far as I know, all E4500 processors are stepping M0. They're all sSpec number SLA95. I don't know if that has any effect on overclockability.

However, the color of the retail box has changed. If you buy an E4500 that was made in 2007, the box is sort of a solid slate grey color. I've only seen batch numbers beginning with Q for 2007, but I haven't seen very many, so there might be batch numbers beginning with L. If you buy an E4500 that was made in 2008, the box is a medium blue color with stylized images of IC chips all over the box. This applies to batch numbers beginning with Q as well as batch numbers beginning with L. The color of the box probably doesn't mean anything--Intel probably just wanted to spice up the retail boxes--but I guess it gives us something else to worry about.

Here are two articles that show the different versions:

http://translate.google.com/tr...522%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

http://translate.google.com/tr...151-003%2522%26hl%3Den

The reason I chose those webpages is because they're the only ones I could find on Google that mention the version number on the box. The older box is version D99151-002, and the newer box is version D99151-003. That's the only difference I can see.

 

[Trey22]

Just picked up this combo (San Jose, Ca. location) and saw that there was a 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800 RAM for $22.99 after rebate. Can't remember if it was Corsair or Crucial (just remember it starting w/ a "C"). Almost bit on it... actually might go back and pick up the memory.

I have a 80GB hd and Antec PSU lying around. When that $110AR 9600GT @ ZZF comes back into stock, I might have one the cheapest gaming rigs ever.

 

[808matt]

DamnRena: PM'd you.

 

[qliveur]

Originally posted by: RamIt
Yes it runs at 400 mhz "DDR2-800" by default when i set the bsel option in the bios to 1066 instead of 800. Cpuz reports that it does not run in dual channel though. :/
I haven't changed the spd settings but cpuz reports that the epp settings are something like 5-5-5-12 @ddr2-1066 - 2.2v

I never even ran this thing at default speed. Just changed the bsel to 1066 and loaded windows. Ran 2 instances of prime for an hour and called it a day.

Is this board not able to run memory in dual channel mode?

 

[Spike]

I have this board running a stock e6550 (built, posts, but nothing installed on it yet) as my HTPC and I'm not sure if you guys are right on the FSB numbers.

If you set the board to 1066, isn't that quad-pumped 266? The stock FSB of the e4500 is 800 which means 200x4 as the 2.2ghz stock speed is reached by 11x200. If you up the FSB to 1066 then you are running 266 which is 11x266 = 2926. If thats the case your DDR2 ram is running at 266x2 = 532 mhz, correct? If you then increase the FSB to 1333 (which is what I have mine running at) your ram is then running at 333x2 or 667 Mhz. So there is no way to actually hit DDR2-800 speeds with this board unless it has a FSB option of 1600, right?

Or are there ratios that the board can do without user input? I could not find a change ratio option in the bios.

Originally posted by: qliveur

Is this board not able to run memory in dual channel mode?

From the manual:
"DDR2 800 (overclocking)/667/533 DDR SDRAM with Dual Channel supported"

 

[RamIt]

CPUZ shows it running a 2:3 memory ratio and it does run at 400 mhz.
Bios and cpuz both report that the board is running in single channel mode though.
Link to cpuz screenshot

 

[jiffer]

Originally posted by: Spike

Originally posted by: qliveur

Is this board not able to run memory in dual channel mode?

From the manual:
"DDR2 800 (overclocking)/667/533 DDR SDRAM with Dual Channel supported"

That must be a typo. The GeForce 7050, 7100, and 7150 chipsets for Intel-based motherboards only support single-channel memory. That's the way NVidia makes them, and this limitation applies to all motherboads that use those chipsets. NVidia says their Intel chipsets are so good, they don't need to support dual-channel memory.

 

[QuixoticOne]

Thanks, nice deal, OP.

This is probably a much better deal than the 6100 series chipset motherboards and the X2 4200+ CPUs in the recent past if you're trying to play back H.264 encoded full 1080p HDTV since I think the lower end CPU / motherboard would stutter with that decoding load.
I don't know if there are other issues with this one, though.

Dual channel can make a big difference in many cases, and lacking it you'll never really get that level of streaming RAM READ/WRITE performance any other way e.g. via overclocking etc. Not all applications are very RAM READ/WRITE intensive, but I'd say more applications will max. out your RAM I/O performance than will max. out your CPU performance, so it is a relevant concern.

NVIDIA seems to like sleazy and downright deceptive advertising on some of its motherboard (and for that matter GPU) products.

The ECS 6100 MB deal a while ago had a motherboard with TWO DIMM slots that prominently said it supported up to 16GB RAM on the package as a "feature" of that motherboard. The same claim is found on the NVIDIA website talking about its motherboard chipset which the motherboard is essentially completely composed of.

There is no way anyone will ever really be able to install 16GB memory on that motherboard, 8GB compatible DIMMs just don't exist and will effectively never exist since by the time they do, the memory voltage will be lower and it'll be DDR3 or DDR4 or whatever. I'd even be shocked if the BIOS actually booted/supported it even if you could find an 8GB DIMM to stick into the thing.

It is about the same as the "HDCP CAPABLE" lie that is prominently plastered over many NVIDIA GPUs even those cards are completely and permanently unable to actually usefully support HDCP due to intentionally lacking BIOS / chipset configurations for those specific product models.

Yes, if you engineered a totally different motherboard or GPU based around something similar but not identical to that design you might be able to support HDCP or 16GB RAM, but to advertise it prominently in a deceptive / confusing way on the outside of the box is just a big shameful lie.

Seagate lost a successful class action suit over their "GB" sizes being calculated slightly smaller than some people would believe a gigabyte meant. I'm pretty sure NVIDIA and their hardware producers deserve a couple of the same over this far worse kind of advertising deception.

People don't want to know what the architecture of the chipset inside the motherboard is in some theoretical way capable of if you were to reengineer the chip and the motherboard, they want to know the features the ACTUAL motherboard they BUY really HAS. NVIDIA and its board producers seem to fail to distinguish this kind of fairly bald faced lie as being unethical.

That said, short of the occasionally atrociously deceptive marketing and often atrociously bad driver / utility issues, they can make some nice / useful hardware. It is just deplorable to see they market it and sometimes fail to support it as they do.

Originally posted by: jiffer
From the manual:
"DDR2 800 (overclocking)/667/533 DDR SDRAM with Dual Channel supported"
That must be a typo. The GeForce 7050, 7100, and 7150 chipsets for Intel-based motherboards only support single-channel memory. That's the way NVidia makes them, and this limitation applies to all motherboads that use those chipsets. NVidia says their Intel chipsets are so good, they don't need to support dual-channel memory.

 

[spdfreak]

I had my sister go over and pick this combo up at the fry's by her house. Good deal... Can someone who has this up and running post some sandra memory scores. that will show just how bad the dual channel thing is. Might not be a big problem at all. Or maybe it will and I'll just ebay the board and get something better. Newegg has a lot of good boards seling as open box that are really cheap. My experience with open box stuff has been good. I think it is usually a way for them to blow out overstock stuff.

 

[cubeless]

it seems to be $120 in dallas, at least that's what todays paper sez...

 

[jiffer]

Originally posted by: cubeless
it seems to be $120 in dallas, at least that's what todays paper sez...

Yep. Prices for all of their combos this weekend are $5-20 higher than they were last week. Such fluctuations at Fry's are perfectly normal. The price will probably go back down again in a week or two. If you wait until a special holiday, you might get a really good deal during one of their "one day" sales.


By the way, I bought one of the E4500 combos on Wednesday, and I was able to overclock the CPU to 3.47GHz on a Gigabyte motherboard (11 x 316MHz). I'll probably put it in an overclocked system running at 3.33Ghz (10 x 333MHz). In my opinion, this CPU is too good to put on an ECS GF7050VT-M motherboard. I probably won't even test the motherboard since the drivers were made for Windows XP and Vista and I'm running Windows 2000; I'll just sell it on eBay. I think that motherboard is better suited for an E2200 running at stock speed. I build a lot of cheap systems like that for people who use them for email, web surfing, and office applications, and they're perfect for uses like that.

Incidentally, the E4500 consumes about 19 extra Watts when it's overclocked like that. Ouch.

 

[808matt]

I have an extra E4500 and mobo combo that I picked up at the San Jose Fry's for another member that ended up changing their mind. I'll trade it for the $108.24 (What I paid with tax), plus whatever it costs to ship it to you, in exchange for a random tech (or interesting non-tech) goodie. My first choice would be a PCI-E video card with a DVI output, but I'm not very picky. Seeing as how it would probably be less than the $120 that it costs now once you figure in local taxes, that's pretty good. People in the bay area are welcome to pick it up locally and forgo shipping altogether. Transaction must be done soon though, or else it's going back to Fry's for a refund.
P.S. Both the processor and mobo are in their brand new and unopened packaging. The E4500 is the retail version that comes with the heatsink and 3 year warranty- I can send pics and a receipt scan upon request.

 

[spdfreak]

2 of these boards sold on ebay today for about 20.00 + shipping. So they are not worth much. Better to keep it and get a cheap 2160 to put in it for an email machine and use the 4500 in a decent board.

 

[qliveur]

Or sell the board for $20.00 and effectively get a retail E4500 for $80.00.

Not a bad deal at all.

 

[RamIt]

Originally posted by: qliveur
Or sell the board for $20.00 and effectively get a retail E4500 for $80.00.

Not a bad deal at all.

Thats what im gonna do. Just picked up a P5E-vm-hdmi and running at a hot 3.2ghz right now. ac freezer pro on its way

 

[Trey22]

Anyone try the BSEL 1333 setting? Or is that too high for the RAM/cpu?

 

[RamIt]

Originally posted by: Trey22
Anyone try the BSEL 1333 setting? Or is that too high for the RAM/cpu?

Are you joking? 11x333?

 

[Trey22]

Originally posted by: RamIt

Originally posted by: Trey22
Anyone try the BSEL 1333 setting? Or is that too high for the RAM/cpu?

Are you joking? 11x333?

Oops, did my math wrong... I multi'd 300x11=3300, which I thought was feasible w/ a voltage bump and good cooling.

 

[TrueBlueLS]

I'm itching to put mine together. I just picked up a Sonata III to put it in today. Come to find out... the Ballistix memory I bought is from a shitty lot.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
Dual channel can make a big difference in many cases

Originally posted by: jiffer
The GeForce 7050, 7100, and 7150 chipsets for Intel-based motherboards only support single-channel memory.

I'm not sure how much performance difference (outside Sandra and other memory intensive benchmarks) dual versus single channel makes. I think the bigger performance hit on single channel is when using the IGP. If using a discrete video card, the real-world performance hit probably wouldn't be as bad as we think. Of course someone feel free to post "real-world" benchmarks to prove me wrong. Would be interesting to see.

Here's one review I found: http://www.pcstats.com/article...?articleid=2211&page=5
It compares versus various P35, x38 and 680i motherboards, and does quite well. Win some, lose some, midpack some. BTW the review board uses the GF7150 chipset. The 7050, 7100 and 7150 differ mostly in their IGP and RAID features.

SiSoft Sandra XII
Memory Bandwidth:
Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 (X38 333/1066) 6679 6729
Asus BLITZ Formula (P35 333/1066) 6770 6807
Foxconn MARS (P35 333/1066) 6573 6450
MSI P6N Diamond (NF 680i 333/1066) 6672 6655
Biostar TF7150U-M7 (GF 7150 333/1066) 5126 5127

So, not quite half the bandwidth as feared. Latencies were a hair higher than other boards as well.

Another test was SuperPi, where 1 million digits was the same across all boards probably because it fit within cache. 8 million digits was the slowest on the Geforce7150 board. Interestingly the second slowest was the Nforce 680i, so the GF7000 series might be hampered to begin with for this test seeing as it is a possibility (though small sample size) that Nvidia chipsets are slow on this test.

PCMark Vantage severely docks the chipset for memory scores, even more than Sandra! It also loses HUGE in gaming and overall, though it was competitive in everything else. Hmmm, maybe "overall" means 40% gaming, 40% memory, 20% everything else?

In 3DMark the GF7150 is tested with both IGP and discrete. It does quite well, near par with the other boards regardless that PCMark Vantage docked it severely in gaming.

It also does quite well in Quake 4 and FEAR. Only hit was in Quake 4 "ultra quality" setting, but still wasn't too bad at around 170fps versus 191fps for a 680i with the same video card.

All in all, not too terrible a showing for a single channel memory board.

 

[bigpow]

Zap, thanks for dropping in.
It's good to hear that it's not as bad as it looks.

I also bit on this deal. Didn't really need it, but bought it simple because it was ridiculously cheap.
I thought about replacing the mobo with an IP35-E, but I realized it doesn't make any sense.
It's already running at 2.93GHz (stock voltage, HSF) - as stable as it gets.

My only problem with it is with my Pioneer DVD-ROM drive.
Everytime I insert a disc, the system would crash (hard crash: not BSOD, not Not-responding)
This is only in Windows (was able to install Windows from the same drive), so I don't think it's a HW problem.

 

[spdfreak]

I will end up using this board with a 2160 or something cheaper. I ended up getting a MSI P6N SLI board from Newegg for about 60.00 since it has some more features I needed like 2 IDE channels, firewire, GB LAN, etc. I also got one of the 109.00 MSI 9600 GT's, and the 25.00 Corsair RAM so it will be a nice system for less than 300.00.
Good to know that the single channel thing doesn't cripple it. It will still make a nice HTPC board although I don't think the 7050 will output 1080p smoothly so it will still need a cheap vid card for that.

 

[bigpow]

Believe it or not, mine does 1080p just fine.
MPEG2 (.TS) and x.264 (.MKV) 1080p sample clips play smoothly.
Not sure about using it to play BD movies.

I'm actually using a slower 6200LE PCIe to get DVI output to my Westy 42".
I think the high CPU speed more than make up for the lame GPU.

I do notice a lot more tearing (compared to 7800GT), but that doesn't really bother me.

 

[DamnRena]

i just got this mb and cpu and was wondering before i put it together....should i put on the hsf that came with the e4500 or should i put on the one from a e2180?

my brother gave it to me since he dont need it and the e2180 heatsink is twice the size of the e4500. the bigger the better? :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh: