The Penryn Preview - Part I: Wolfdale Performance
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 21, 2007 12:35 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Overclocking
In order to make sure that Intel wasn't having yield issues at 45nm, we wanted to see how far we could push our test chip. With the only multipliers available being 6.0x and 7.0x, we had to rely on FSB overclocking to get us to where we wanted to go. But we made things a little more difficult: we didn't increase CPU core voltage at all.
According to CPU-Z, our Wolfdale sample ran at 1.168V at 2.33GHz. We left the voltage unchanged and went in pursuit of how high of a stable overclock we could get otherwise.
400MHz x 7.0 wasn't a problem at stock voltage:
Neither was 450MHz x 7.0:
The best we could manage without adjusting the core voltage was 460MHz x 7.0, or 3.22GHz:
While this test tells us nothing of overall clock speed headroom of Wolfdale and Penryn in general, it does give us something to hope for.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
55 Comments
View All Comments
Sunrise089 - Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - link
agree w/ 1+2vailr - Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - link
How long will the socket 775 (for desktop machines) be around?Has Intel given a timeline forecast for replacing 775 with some other CPU socket? Any idea whether current P35 boards will support the 32 nm. Gesher CPU (assuming those will still be socket 775 form factor)?
zsdersw - Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - link
Socket 775 will likely disappear with the introduction of Nehalem, so no.. P35 boards will almost certainly *not* support Gesher.RamarC - Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - link
it's too bad that an upgrade now probably won't be able to handle anything beyond penryn. still a 3ghz quad core for $300 is fantastic considering that i've got 3.4ghz dual core space heater now.zsdersw - Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - link
Well, I mean, seriously.. socket 775 has been around for a long time. The same people who complain about having to buy a different motherboard are probably the same people who would complain that they aren't getting any new features if motherboards didn't have to be changed as often. It makes no sense, but then again, that's never stopped anyone from complaining.. to be sure.I'm not saying you're one of those people, though.
vailr - Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - link
Also, the TigerDirect.com price you have listed of $569.99 for the "Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Processor" is off.It's at $289.99 here:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtool...">http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications...chtools/...
kleinwl - Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - link
Why did you not post the benches for the OC of 3.22? or better yet, jack up the voltage to get a 3.33 and benchmark that? Then we could figure what the EXTREME EDITION cpu is going to do.Roy2001 - Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - link
I guess Intel does not allow him to do that.retrospooty - Wednesday, August 22, 2007 - link
Thats a good point. To release benchies at this time must have intel's OK to do so. I am sure if they let him, he would have published. And here we are all complaining LOL .gigahertz20 - Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - link
What a tease, Anand didn't even raise the CPU core voltage. I figured you would change the CPU core voltage to see how far you could overclock this beast, right after you found 3.22GHz was your max overclock at stock voltage. I want to know how far you can push this. No soup for you!