Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Review

ccokeman - September 3, 2008
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Testing:

The Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor will be put through our benchmarking suite to see what kind of performance the motherboard delivers. The OverclockersClub series of benchmarks include both system tests and gaming benchmarks to verify the performance of this product. Testing will include a direct comparison of several processors, including stock speed benchmarking. CPU clockspeed will be kept at the manufacturer specified clock speed and multiplier for the baseline testing. All motherboard and video card settings were left at setup defaults, again to eliminate any variables. The overclocking phase of the testing will be accomplished by using all of the available settings on the motherboard to gain the maximum performance from the little E8400. It may seem strange to test the E8400 against a slew of Quad core processors, but this will end some of the debate as to which CPU is better for what type of application. Not to mention the the E8400 runs at the same clock speed as the QX9650, just with two fewer cores and half the L2 cache.

Testing Setup:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 333 x 9
Motherboard: Gigabyte X48-DQ6
Memory: Mushkin Redline XP2 8000 2 x 2 GB 5-5-5-12
Video Card(s): Asus EN8800GT TOP
Power Supply: Mushkin 800watt Modular Power supply
Hard Drive: 1 x Seagate 1TB SATA
Opticals: LG DVD-RW
O/S: Windows Vista Ultimate Edition

Testing Setup AMD:

Processor: AMD Phenom 9600 "Black Box Edition" (200x11.5)
Motherboard: ASUS M3A32-MVP DeLuxe/WiFi-AP Motherboard
Memory: Mushkin Redline XP2 8000 2 x 2 GB 5-5-5-12
Video Card(s): Asus EN8800GT TOP
Power Supply: Mushkin 800watt Modular Power supply
Hard Drive: 1 x Seagate 1TB SATA
Opticals: LG DVD-RW
O/S: Windows Vista Ultimate Edition

Comparison CPUs:

Overclocking:

Overclocked settings:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 525x8 4.2GHz (Maximum Overclock 500x9 4.5GHz)
Sytem Memory: Mushkin Redline XP2 8000 2 x 2 GB 5-5-5-12

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, most people know that the Core 2 Duo 45nm dual core processors from Intel are high FSB screamers. Normally, this setup runs Quad core processors and overclocks them quite well. I knew slapping in the E8400 would bring out the higher clock speeds. I was not disappointed. After seeing the high VID this chip had I was a little skeptical about just how high I could get it to run. 500x8, no problem. It just took a little more CPU core voltage - 1.343v - than I had hoped. Things are looking up at this point. Getting above 500 was not too much of a big deal either. Just bump the vcore and move to the next level 5MHz at a time till it fails to POST. Above 500MHz I needed to adjust the MCH voltage, VFSB and the skew settings to get to 525MHz. Hoping to get higher, I was stymied by the the board or chip. Not sure which yet. To get that 525 x 8 level stable it took 1.45 volts to be Prime 95 stable. The maximum I could pull from this E8400 CPU on air cooling was a cool 4.5GHz. Unfortunately, it required 1.55 volts to the CPU core, but at this speed it was able to run Super Pi, which is good enough for the benchmarking crowd. Next stop, some P45 action. All in all, 525x8 or 4.2GHz, is a 1.2GHz overclock. 1.2GHz worth of performance increase ON AIR.