Tell me about "steppings" with my new E6600

[Jerry944T]

I have been reading about this processor and the various overclocking results people have been getting with different "steppings" I just got mine from Newegg this morning. Pretty fast considering I ordered on Saturday. It is going into a BadAxe2.

Anyway it is an E6600 and the batch number is L629F117. Is this information of any importance or is each processor a law unto intself? Is this number what determines the "stepping" or do I find that somewhere else?

TIA for the education!

Jerry

 

[Jerry944T]

I know someone knows the answers. Help please!

 

[defiantsf]

L = Made in Malaysia. 6 = 2006. 29 = manufactured in week 29. F = F stepping. 117 no clue.

 

[yuppiejr]

So I'm looking over at HardOCP to understand Conroe stepping better and noted this in their "Conroe Overclocks" results thread:

CPU name (Example: E6600)
OC: (Example: 3403MHz)
Stepping: (Example: 6 B2)
Week: (Example: L623)
Code: (Example: A790)

Now, the week/code above (L6/23/A790) does not seem to indicate the stepping code which it sounds like is normally a numeric value:

A-1 = stepping 1
B-0 = stepping 4
B-1 = stepping 5
B-2 = stepping 6

... so, I'm curious if the letter in the 4th from last value (A/B/L/G) actually indicates stepping or is another value? Is CPU-Z more or less reliable than indicating the actual stepping/model versus the printed code?

 

[yuppiejr]

Regarding steppings and Conroes, this Wiki page seems to have a good indicator of what steppings are out there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors

It seems to indicate that the 6320/6420/6600/6700 plus early 6300/6400's with half of the cache disabled are all "B2" stepping (aside from pre-release/review sample versions of the chips) while the 4300/4400 and newer 6300/6400's are all "L2" stepping on the Allendale core. The importance of the 5th digit in the CPU identifier is still a mystery to me, I need to check my processor again when I get home to see if the espec ID is either SL9S8 or SL9ZL which would match the info in the Wiki article.

The Intel Processor Finder appears to support all (again, excluding early review/sample versions) e6600's being of the "B2" stepping variety as well and references only the same two espec ID's for the e6600's as identified in the Wiki article:

http://processorfinder.intel.com/List.aspx?ProcFam=2558&sSpec=&OrdCode=

The only difference between the two seems to be the two eSpec models is the C1E (extended halt) power usage, newer SL9ZL models use 12w while the older SL9ZL uses 22w but also has the "Tdiode" enabled? (not sure what the Tdiode bit means)