old e6300 better than new e4300

[mgutz]

i bought an e4300 and it doesn't overclock nearly as well as my e6300. i have a DS3 which i've been able to get to 3.0Ghz (actually i can do about 3.3 if i only use 2x1GB but i have 4x1GB on air) so i figure by an e4300, lower my FSB and leave everything the same i can have a cooler/quieter system. basically, all I'm doing is swapping out the CPU in the same system.

i have to increase voltages everywhere just to get close to e6300. i was basically at stock everything with the e6300. i only had to pump up the Vcore to 1.33125 and set FSB 429. am I right in my thinking? If everything worked at 429 FSB with the e6300, and i lower to 333 FSB with the e4300 I shouldn't have to change the voltages except perhaps the VCore for the e4300? that's not what I'm seeing. the e4300 is just not stable once I get past 2.7Ghz at the same settings as the e6300. i'm at 2.9 GHZ now. it sucks that i'm having to overvolt mch, fsb, and CPU so much. Severely disappointed. Maybe I just got a bad batch. Still, a good performer but not near as good as my e6300.

e4300 batch# Q702A476


--
Antec P182B
GA-965P-DS3 rev 3.3 F11
Corsair HX-520W
4x1GB OCZ Platinum
Gigabyte 7600 GT Silent Pipe

 

[mgutz]

I've given up on overclocking the e4300 chip any further. The most I can squeeze out of it is 2.7Ghz. Not bad considering I got it for $99 with a motherboard. It will be my HTPC CPU. I had it booting at 2.9Ghz but Orthos failed about 40 mins in and that was ridiculous voltage (+0.2 mch, 1.4 VCore). I say ridiculous because 2.7Ghz is at stock voltage and its ridiculous to bump the voltages up so much for 0.2Ghz. Still happy with the chip since it will not be my main rig. I expected a lot more after reading many reviews from trade forums. I'm finding out some of the original e4300 were actually Conroes and might explain why they overclocked better.

If you're expecting e6xxx like overclocking from the current batch of e4xxx chips I think you'll be disappointed. But for the $ you save, you'll be smiling all the way to the bank for what you do get.

 

[mgutz]

I finally got the e4300 @ 3.0Ghz stable (5 passes of Memtest test #5, 6 hours Orthos blend):

DDR2: +0.3 (OCZ Platinum, depends on your RAM)
PCI-E: +0.1
FSB: +0.1
G(mCH): +0.1
CPU: 1.45625

FSB = 333

What's strange is Vista shows a calculation index of 5.6 for an e4300@3.0Ghz but 5.8 for e6300@3.0Ghz. 3D index also dropped by 0.2. RAM increased by 0.1 with e4300 which makes sense since I didn't have to loosen RAM timings.

So I paid $190 for my OEM e6300 5 months ago. Roughly the same performance cost me $99 for the retail e4300 today.

 

[UF Matt]

I'll find out this week how well mine O/Cs. The minimum should be 2.7ghz, but I'll probably just try to bump it up to ~3ghz. I hear the 3ghz barrier is where most people have to increase the voltage. FYI my MB will be a Gigabyte 965 D3.

 

[cmdrdredd]

FWIW: i don't really look at vista performance score. It's no indication of actual performance. I get a 5.2 because I'm using an older generation WD SE16 SATA HDD and not a raptor or something more high performance. Other areas seem on par. HDD performance is the last area I care about because of the way Vista works with superfetch. Not to mention that having my game take 2 sec longer to load won't impact the quality or performance of the game after it loads.

 

[mgutz]

Originally posted by: UF Matt
I'll find out this week how well mine O/Cs. The minimum should be 2.7ghz, but I'll probably just try to bump it up to ~3ghz. I hear the 3ghz barrier is where most people have to increase the voltage. FYI my MB will be a Gigabyte 965 D3.

cool, fyi, i'm using the DS3 version 3.3 w/ F11 bios

 

[UF Matt]

I'll post again once I get it up and running (probably Wednesday evening). I'll have to decide to be either conservative (2.7ghz) or a bit more amibitious (upping voltage to get over 3ghz). Guess it'll depend on what performance increases I see with the O/C.

 

[brencat]

You have to remember that the E4300 is an 800mhz FSB processor and will hit a FSB wall much sooner than a Conroe on the 1066 strap. If your mobo doesn't have a strap select feature in Bios, you could always BSEL mod the E4300 to force it to the 1066 strap. That might buy you the extra 300 mhz you're looking for.

Just google for the mod. Lots of illustrations everywhere.

 

[kmmatney]

The E4400 doesn't overclock a whole lot better, either. Mine is currently maxed out at 2.9 Ghz with stock settings. I might try the BSEL mod...

 

[DaHan]

It's quite easy for my new e4300 to reach 3G. I got from amazon.com. DS3 @1.4V.

 

[mgutz]

i think i figured it out. it seems to be related to having more than 2GB of memory. if i use 2x2GB or 4x1GB with either the e6300 or e4300 it gets stuck at 3.0ghz. i was able to boot at 3.4 ghz with e6300 with only 1.36 VCore. i didn't test for stability though; making it work with more memory is my goal since i need it for vista x64 and VMWare. 3.0ghz isn't bad for how much this cost.

 

[lopri]

Why aren't these E4300s/E4400s clocking higher? Does anyone have a theory? Because for E6600 et al., there is a rumour that higher-binned chips are going into quad SKUs, which sort of makes sense on its own. (although I don't quite believe it) But these E4x00 series can't even be used for quad-cores. Are they using cheaper silicon?

 

[brencat]

Yes they are lower binned, but also they are on the 800 strap as opposed to the 1066 strap for the Conroes. It's the NB that's holding you back. If you have good cooling and an Abit or DFI mobo that allows you to select the 1066 strap, you should be able to clock a little higher. Alternatively, you could do the BSEL mod to force the 1066 strap. All you need is a rear-defroster repair kit. Appears simple to do.

 

[mgutz]

Originally posted by: brencat
...
Alternatively, you could do the BSEL mod to force the 1066 strap. All you need is a rear-defroster repair kit. Appears simple to do.

will be trying this in the next few days, ill post results

 

[ar38070]

I do not not spend a lot of time playing with settings but my e4300 went to 3.15Ghz with no voltage changes. From Cpu-z

Name Intel Core 2 Duo E4300
Code Name Conroe (maybe this is why or maybe cpu-z is not reporting correctly)
Voltage 1.424

Family 6 Model F Stepping 2
Ext. Family 6 Ext. Model F Revision L2

Core Speed 3150 MHz
Multiplier 9
Bus Speed 350 MHz
Rated FSB 1400 MHz

Asus P5N-E SLI motherboard
2GB kingston pc2-5300

I do not know how to see if this is an Allendale or Conroe core other than what cpu-z v1.40 reports.

The bios voltages are all set to AUTO. The voltage on the box says 1.35 so I do not know why it appears to be set to 1.424. Maybe ASUS decided that was a better voltage for their motherboard.

I just checked and after resetting the speed back to 1.8GHz the voltage drops down to 1.312 volts so it looks like the ASUS bios is auto adjusting voltages.

I am just happy that without too much fuss I have a 3+GHz system and did not spend a whole lot of money.

ed

 

[TheJQ]

When using Asus boards, don't set the vcore to auto, because Asus BIOS raises the vcore significantly if you OC. In stead, set it manually to 1.35v and see how high you can go. 1.4v is what I consider the max safe vcore.

 

[morkman100]

Originally posted by: brencat
Yes they are lower binned, but also they are on the 800 strap as opposed to the 1066 strap for the Conroes. It's the NB that's holding you back. If you have good cooling and an Abit or DFI mobo that allows you to select the 1066 strap, you should be able to clock a little higher. Alternatively, you could do the BSEL mod to force the 1066 strap. All you need is a rear-defroster repair kit. Appears simple to do.

Very simple to do. Took about 15 minutes to do (not including drying time): 10 minutes to mask the area and 5 to apply the repair kit mix and remove the mask. Let it dry for an hour or so and you're good to go.

 

[ar38070]

So I manually set Vcore to 1.35. System was not quite stable at 3150. Failed Orthos. Ran prime and memtest okay. Lowered to 3100. Everything is okay now. This is with a Coolermaster Hyper tx cooler. Happy for now!



Forgot to mention that the load temp is 45 degrees according to PC-probe. This is after one hour running Orthos. Seems kind of low but low is okay with me.

 

[UF Matt]

Wow, this motherboard really tries to take over with the voltage. 2.4 is the limit before it tries to up the voltage considerably. At 2.7 it was putting the voltage over 1.45. I'll need to set the voltage manually and see if it runs stably. FYI at 2.4 with stock cooling, temp is 42 idle, low-mid 50s on load. I hear some of the new batch of e4300s are running a bit warm (relatively speaking) like this.

edit: I thought my motherboard info was in my sig. My bad. I'm running a Gigabyte P965 D3 rev1.3