CPU/Mobo Some thoughts about C2Ds.....

[KiD0M4N]

Hey guys,

I was just looking at this AMD 65nm power consumption study and saw this benchmark:



See anything weird?

Just concentrate on the power consumption of the C2Ds.

The E6400 an E6300 are consuming as much power as the higher clocked and better performing E6600. Why is that? Since the E6300 and E6400 are clocked so much lower, shouldnt they be getting lower speeds?

Answer: Intel is doing SERIOUS speed binning now that the C2D manufacturing pipeline is foremost for them. A processor which doenst cut the 65W power envolope @ stock speeds gets the BOOT!

So gone are the days when you got lucky with lower end chips. Atleast for the time being. So if you buy a E6400 hoping to get a smart OCing chip, you might be out of luck.

So it is actually very worthwhile to invest that bit more and get higher binned chips simply cuz Intel thought the lower chips were not good enuf to be graded higher. Not like before when you got lower end chips made out of higher bins just to feel stock. I guess this is the after effect of Intel having a huge OEM demand for the C2D.

Regards,

Karan

 

[Switch]

I don't understand how is that wrong... They are giving you inside what is mentioned on the box... Simple... Seriously... What do you want them to with the chips which just don't cut it... Scrap them ???

 

[KiD0M4N]

I don't understand how is that wrong... They are giving you inside what is mentioned on the box... Simple... Seriously... What do you want them to with the chips which just don't cut it... Scrap them ???

All i am saying is dont just go buy a E6300 and expect it to OC to 3.6Ghz+ now. Atleast for newer chips. The old stock was being created of higher binned chips. Now that is not the case anymore.

 

[cranky]

Couldn't really follow that train Karan.

You mean that the 6300/6400 are essentially multi locked 6600s and above which couldn't make the power grade of 65W, and therefore are downclocked to bring down performance AND consumption?

If that surmise is correct, then OCing a 6300 should require increased voltage and a much better cooling, but a lot of ppl are getting some crazy stuff out of these chips @stock volts and with a stock cooler (or so I hear, never really checked).

How many of us have E6300s (or have experience of them) that can confirm or debunk this statement of mine? I have an E6600 which is on an Intel 965 board (no OC, sorry) so can't say anything either way.

I do have another theory. The graph is for a measure of Windows Media Encoder, Average Power in Watts. Which would probably mean the total power (W/H) divided by the time (H). So slower CPUs which take longer to finish a task, would be consuming power for longer - so it's more about power efficiency for that particular task - not power draw. I just think we're looking at the wrong graph - we should be looking at power draw at load and idle to see what the real issue is.

As usual, IMO, YMMV etc.

 

[Darklord]

You mean that the 6300/6400 are essentially multi locked 6600s and above which couldn't make the power grade of 65W, and therefore are downclocked to bring down performance AND consumption?

Somewhat, they are actually Conroe only with half of the Cache disabled.

If that surmise is correct, then OCing a 6300 should require increased voltage and a much better cooling, but a lot of ppl are getting some crazy stuff out of these chips @stock volts and with a stock cooler (or so I hear, never really checked).

That is mostly cos of lesser amount of cache. Chips with lesser cache tend to generally clock better than the ones with more.