Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 & E6400: Tremendous Value Through Overclocking
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 26, 2006 8:17 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
If it weren't for AMD, we wouldn't have Core 2, and if it weren't for Core 2 then we wouldn't have affordable Athlon 64 X2s. Right now is one of the best times to purchase a new processor that we've seen in a long time -- assuming current prices hold and that availability of Core 2 Duo chips is reasonable in the next week or so. If you've been running a single core processor and are finally looking to make the jump to dual core computing, there's little reason not to at this point.
The processor landscape has been changed once more thanks to AMD's extremely aggressive price cuts. The Core 2 Duo E6300 is a better performer than the X2 3800+ but is also more expensive, thankfully for the E6300's sake it is also faster than the 4200+ and the 4600+ in some benchmarks. Overall the E6300 is a better buy, but at stock speeds the advantage isn't nearly as great as the faster Core 2 parts. In many benchmarks the X2 4200+ isn't that far off the E6300's performance, sometimes even outperforming it at virtually the same price. Overclocking changes everything though, as our 2.592GHz E6300 ended up faster than AMD's FX-62 in almost every single benchmark. If you're not an overclocker, then the Athlon 64 X2 4200+ looks to be a competitive alternative to the Core 2 E6300.
The E6400 finds itself in between the X2 4200+ and X2 4600+ in price, but in performance the E6400 generally lands in between the 4600+ and 5000+. Once again, with these 2MB parts the performance advantage isn't nearly as impressive as with the 4MB parts (partly due to the fact that their native clock speed is lower, in addition to the smaller L2 cache), but even with AMD's new price cuts the Core 2 is still very competitive at worst. If you're not opposed to overclocking, then the E6400 can offer you more than you can get from any currently shipping AMD CPU - our chip managed an effortless 2.88GHz overclock which gave us $1000 CPU performance for $224.
There are two potential concerns with building a budget Core 2 Duo system. The first is availability, and hopefully we will have a clear answer on that subject in the near future. The other is motherboard cost. The ASUS P5W-DH we used in this article is currently the best overclocking motherboard we've seen for the socket 775 platform, but at $250 it is anything but cheap. We have seen quite a few of the P965 motherboards that can also overclock the budget Core 2 chips to reasonable levels, with prices hovering much closer to $140. Unfortunately, none of those boards can support SLI or CrossFire at present.
If you are simply interested in maximum processor performance, P965 with any of the Core 2 Duo parts is going to be very fast. Gamers on the other hand are probably going to at least want to think about SLI/CrossFire, as typical gaming settings will be GPU limited with just about any current single GPU. That means they might need to pay more for an appropriate motherboard, especially if overclocking is a primary concern. We're also waiting to find out how nForce 500 for Intel does in the overclocking arena; at present, there's definitely concerns about whether or not the NVIDIA motherboards can reach the high FSB speeds that are required for overclocking everything but the X6800.
The E6300 and E6400 can easily overclock to E6700 and Core 2 Extreme X6800 levels, though the smaller cache does limit performance a bit. That being said, our overclocked E6300 was able to equal and in all cases but one outperform AMD's Athlon 64 FX-62. In fact, in quite a few benchmarks, the overclocked E6300 is essentially out of reach of anything AMD can offer with their current K8 designs. At $183, the value here is tremendous, and if you're willing to overclock the benefits don't get any clearer than that.
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bob661 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link
I wonder if motherboard prices fore the Conroe's will go down once Nvidia and ATI start making chipsets for those CPU's.Sunrise089 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link
I'm sure they will, and I will myself switch to Conroe when prices drop enough.For now though, there seem to be many questions left unanswered: how much these chips actually overclock (seems both that low-end parts do not overclock nearly as well as high-end, which is very different from X2s, and it also seems that not everyone is matching AT's overclock results), how expensive of a motherboard you need to get a good overclock (seems like a very expensive one, very different from X2s once again, where a cheap DFI Infinity or ePox motherboard overclocks basically as well as an expensive ASUS), and my above point of whether or not Conroe is actually faster dollar for dollar at the X2 5000+ level and below (I suspect it isn't). These articles need to be adressing these above points, rather than pointing out what we already understand - yes Conroe is faster clock for clock.
Anandtech is doing something very dangerous by putting certain chips together in people's minds. The X2 3800+ and E6300 are NOT competitors, the AMD part is probably $150 cheaper after motherboard purchase. But since AT is placing ideas in people's heads about the Intel part being so much faster, when Conroe is available for purchase and the very possible price-gouging takes place, people are still going to buy them thanks to sloppy reporting, since they are now convinced that Conroe destroys AMD's equivilent chips by such a large degree, and therefore paying $250 for a E6300 must still be a good choice. If AT were instead comparing the E6300 to a X2 5000+, buyers would see the true performance difference, and then be able to figure out that if the Intel part is at all above MSRP it isn't a good deal with these motherboard prices.
dev0lution - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link
Again, where are you getting that? It's an AM2 AMD vs Conroe comparison, so again, you're point about motherboard cost isn't as relevant as you make it out to be. Granted, you'll pay more this week for a Conroe-capable motherboard and the E6300 is still approximately $31 more but it's not the dramatic price gap that would elevate the 5000+ parts to be equivalent.
It would have been nice to see a 939 vs. Conroe comparison, but even that's not apples to apples since the 4800+ is rated at 110w on AMD's site vs. 65w for the Conroes. Personally, sitting in a heatwave I'm beginning to appreciate how much a s939 4000+ throws off.
dev0lution - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link
And check the article again Mr. Attention-to-detail. An E6300 isn't $250, it's $183. Guess you skipped that part once you started foaming at the mouth....Sunrise089 - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link
Please read more carefully. I was talking about buying a post price-gouging E6300, and therefore making up a higher price it might go for. I think it was quite clear.theteamaqua - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link
meh no where near extremeES5 stepping B1 (retail is stepping6 , B2) can go much higher
E6400 : 8x480
E6300: 7x500
this is weak OCing
johnsonx - Wednesday, July 26, 2006 - link
Everyone knows AMD processors have always been, and will always be, far superior to the crap from Intel. Any article suggesting otherwise is clear evidence of pro-Intel bias, that indeed you all get weekly checks from Intel for the favorable press. The reality is that most Intel processors really don't even work at all; all the supposed PC's sold with Intel processors secretly use AMD processors instead, but again Intel pays off the companies to say they're Intel Inside. Intel has an endless supply of money because of their unfair business practices and the Magic Money Fairy.johnsonx - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link
hey, also, why did y'all mod me down to zero on that? come on, it was funny! at least a little funny? worth a chuckle for everyone but coldpower?johnsonx - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link
I daresay I got quite a laugh out of coldpower's response(s) to my little attempt at satire.johnsonx - Friday, July 28, 2006 - link
by the way, coldpower, I didn't include the silly /sarcasm tag because I thought it would be far less funny (just plain stupid even) if I did. The idea was to start off sounding rather fanboy-ish but potentially serious, head towards the deep-end, and then go completely into tin-foil-hat territory. I was actually going to make it far longer and more complicated, probably tie in to the Masons somehow, but I had other things to do so I just wound it up quick with the 'Magic Money Fairy' bit.Surely I thought anyone I got on the hook would have wiggled off around the time I claimed that most 'Intel-Inside' PC's actually had AMD chips in them...