I tested out two brand new E4500 processors today. One born in the 1st week of Nov, and one born in the 4th week of Nov. Both are of the latest Stepping D and Revision M0. The 1st week Nov unit has standard factory default core voltage of 1.30v, while the 4th week Nov unit has a default core voltage of 1.325v.
This probably is the result of Intel factory QC testing and setting the default voltage for the core. I was also able to confirm that the 1.30v E4500 does overclock better than the 1.325v E4500, in terms of reaching 3.33Ghz at a lower Core voltage.
I'm curious to find out what are the default voltage of E4xxx are out there. I'd imagine there's probably a 1.275 default VID. If you're really lucky, you may even get a 1.25v. On the other hand you may have 1.325v. The max E4500 VID is 1.35v so if you have that one, it's the bottom of the barrel in terms of E4500 performance. If you have a lower one, chances are your processor will overclock better, or at the very least be able to run same overclock at lower vCore and temperature. This info probably applicable to E2xxx too since it uses the similar Allendale core. I'm not sure if that's the case with Conroes E6xxx and Q6xxx, but chances are that the lower your default core voltage, the better processor you have.
There are several ways you can find out the default core voltage. Easiest is if you let the motherboard run everything at default or auto, at the original processor speed. The BIOS may actually show you what default it is. My ABIT IP35-E shows the default Vcore when you set everything at default, and it's also the lowest vCore you can manually set at. You can also use CoreTemp should also show the VID value. Or if you have RightMark, you can read off the start up VID. Everest will also show the default core voltage values. Lastly, if you can't the precise VID value, you can read it using CPUz. Note CPUz will probably report vDroop values, not true core voltage set by the motherboard, so you can add about 0.035v onto CPUz value to calculate the approximate VID. I think VID goes up in 0.025v increments.
This probably is the result of Intel factory QC testing and setting the default voltage for the core. I was also able to confirm that the 1.30v E4500 does overclock better than the 1.325v E4500, in terms of reaching 3.33Ghz at a lower Core voltage.
I'm curious to find out what are the default voltage of E4xxx are out there. I'd imagine there's probably a 1.275 default VID. If you're really lucky, you may even get a 1.25v. On the other hand you may have 1.325v. The max E4500 VID is 1.35v so if you have that one, it's the bottom of the barrel in terms of E4500 performance. If you have a lower one, chances are your processor will overclock better, or at the very least be able to run same overclock at lower vCore and temperature. This info probably applicable to E2xxx too since it uses the similar Allendale core. I'm not sure if that's the case with Conroes E6xxx and Q6xxx, but chances are that the lower your default core voltage, the better processor you have.
There are several ways you can find out the default core voltage. Easiest is if you let the motherboard run everything at default or auto, at the original processor speed. The BIOS may actually show you what default it is. My ABIT IP35-E shows the default Vcore when you set everything at default, and it's also the lowest vCore you can manually set at. You can also use CoreTemp should also show the VID value. Or if you have RightMark, you can read off the start up VID. Everest will also show the default core voltage values. Lastly, if you can't the precise VID value, you can read it using CPUz. Note CPUz will probably report vDroop values, not true core voltage set by the motherboard, so you can add about 0.035v onto CPUz value to calculate the approximate VID. I think VID goes up in 0.025v increments.