[XC] gomeler
01-31-2008, 06:05 AM
Original article posted at Gomeler.com (http://Gomeler.com), enjoy. I left some of the HTML in there as I didn't want to have to deal with re-working the lists. XS should support basic HTML in it's forums :(
Review: Intel E8400 Wolfdale
I've got an addiction, a Hafnium addiction to be precise. Just under two weeks ago I purchased a QX9650 and earlier today while returning an item to Fry's, I decided it'd be a good idea to pick up an E8400. For $201 with tax, I couldn't resist the temptation. The 3.0GHz E8400 is Intel's highest clocked chip amongst available processors with the 3.16GHz E8500 postponed till later this Spring. For the price the E8400 is quite the bargain considering how it has the potential to crush the old X6800 and E6850 Conroes on air and water cooling and potentially rival the X6800 under sub-ambient cooling. This will be a two part review with the first part focusing on stock performance with the stock fan and overclocked performance on a select few heatsink.
Hafnium Inside
Wolfdale, the codename for the die that forms the E8xxx and Q9xxx processors, has a whole new bag of tricks when compared to Conroe, the die from past Core 2 processors. Wolfdale features a high-k hafnium-based dielectric and metal gate electrodes which help reduce current leakages within the processor while increasing switching performance. Intel has a great article on their research for those interested. Besides these process-level changes, Wolfdale features a few important instruction-set additions. SSE4.1, the next iteration in the SSE instruction set series includes support for 47 of the 54 instructions defined in SSE4. SSE4.2, which contains the remaining 7 instructions will be implemented in Nehalem, Intel's upcoming architecture. So what does this all mean to you, the consumer? Serious speedups have been revealed within the new divx encoder and as other applications launch with SSE4 support you should see considerable speedups when compared to non-SSE4 capable chips.
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/Small/IHS.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/Small/Untitled-2.jpg
Note the differences in die size in the first images and the increase in L2 cache in the second images. The L2 cache are the huge blocks that dominate the left side of the die.
Testbed
Things have been changing a decent amount here so these results won't be comparable for the most part to any previous reviews. In an attempt to offer a complete review I will be reviewing the E8400 with the QX9650 there for a select comparison and utilizing the stock E8400 heatsink along with the QX9650 heatsink and my Scythe Ninja Rev B. I unfortunately no longer have a Q6600 or an E6850 as they would be great chips to compare the E8400 with but the QX9650 should offer a nice contrast in the multi-threaded CPU test.
<ul>
<li>Processors: Intel QX9650 3.0GHz 12MB L2, Intel E8400 3.0GHz 6MB L2</li>
<li>Motherboard: MSI P35 Neo2-FR</li>
<li>Memory: 2x1GB Buffalo PC2-8000 Firestix</li>
<li>Video Card: EVGA 640MB 8800GTS</li>
<li>Powersupply: OCZ 700w GameXStream</li>
<li>Cooling: Intel half-height and QX heatsinks and Scythe Ninja Rev B</li>
</ul>
Results: CPU Tests
In both the single-threaded and multi-threaded the E8400 offers a great bang for your buck. At the stock 3.0GHz the E8400 sips power with 140w pulled from the wall while offering superb performance with it's 6MB of L2 cache. Jumped up to 4GHz, power consumption increases moderately but the performance benefits are enormous. 4.5GHz yields also albeit with a heady 1.5vcore and slight instability due solely to a lack of voltage. I limited myself to 1.5vcore as I felt that was an appropriate upperbound for voltage but from my experience with the QX9650 it is possible to feed these chips 1.7v-1.8v for short durations with no appreciable degradation. One thing to note, the QX9650 had trouble past 465FSB which doesn't bode well for the budget Yorkfields as this would limit them to roughly 3700MHz for the Q9450 and 4GHz for the Q9550.
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/Super-Pi-1M.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/SuperPi-32M.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/wPrime-32M.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/wPrime-1024M.jpg
Results: GPU Tests
3DMark doesn't directly relate to gaming performance but it does give a ballpark indicator of the system performance. The 8800GTS used in this test is the previous generation GTS based on the G80 core, so the performance is a tad lower than the newer cards. Compared to the 7900GTO I had been using it's a huge step up and the numbers reflect that. 3D01 is a heavily CPU limited application and the scores show substantial jumps.
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/3D01.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/3D03.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/3D05.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/3D06.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/Aquamark.jpg
Results: Power Consumption
Intel's research into the high-k dielectrics has paid off big with incredibly low power-consumption figures for the clocks indicated. Had this been a 65nm chip I would look at these figures and see a sub 3.8GHz chip, but instead I see a chip hitting 4.5GHz on aircooling and it is shocking. Comparing the QX9650 to the E8400 gives you a sobering glance at what it's like to cool a quad-core processor but the E8400 is a charm to work with. With my Scythe Ninja at 4.5GHz and a single 60CFM fan the E8400 was barely pushing 60C at 4500MHz. With watercooling and 1.7v this chip could easily approach 5GHz, the only issue being that voltage requirement.
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/Volts.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/Power.jpg
Note: Overall System Power
Conclusion
Intel has a winner here with this cheap Wolfdale processor. I paid $201 with tax in Atlanta, Georgia for this chip and considering how well it performance at stock and overclocked settings I see no reason to suggest purchasing a 65nm processor. I'd say if your budget spans from $125 to $200 that it'd be worth taking the financial hit and stepping up to an E8400. Consider that a 65nm E4xxx chip may hit 3.6GHz and an E6xxx chip may hit 4GHz, the 4.5GHz+ available in the E8400 is a huge jump in performance. For gaming the E8400 is the perfect choice as we are just now getting to fully utilizing two cores and two cores at 4.5GHz will benefit you more than four cores at 3.6GHz. One last bit to consider is the ability to use cheap P35 boards for attain these monstrous overclocks. With the diminished current requirements in the 45nm chips, the weaker boards can still achieve phenomenal overclocks compared to 65nm chip.
<h3>Pros</h3>
<ul>
<li>Huge Overclock Potential</li>
<li>Runs Cool</li>
<li>Scales Well With Voltage</li>
</ul>
<h3>Cons</h3>
<ul>
<li>Availablity</li>
<li>Price Gouging From E-tailers</li>
</ul>
<h3>Final Score: 9.5/10</h3>
Review: Intel E8400 Wolfdale
I've got an addiction, a Hafnium addiction to be precise. Just under two weeks ago I purchased a QX9650 and earlier today while returning an item to Fry's, I decided it'd be a good idea to pick up an E8400. For $201 with tax, I couldn't resist the temptation. The 3.0GHz E8400 is Intel's highest clocked chip amongst available processors with the 3.16GHz E8500 postponed till later this Spring. For the price the E8400 is quite the bargain considering how it has the potential to crush the old X6800 and E6850 Conroes on air and water cooling and potentially rival the X6800 under sub-ambient cooling. This will be a two part review with the first part focusing on stock performance with the stock fan and overclocked performance on a select few heatsink.
Hafnium Inside
Wolfdale, the codename for the die that forms the E8xxx and Q9xxx processors, has a whole new bag of tricks when compared to Conroe, the die from past Core 2 processors. Wolfdale features a high-k hafnium-based dielectric and metal gate electrodes which help reduce current leakages within the processor while increasing switching performance. Intel has a great article on their research for those interested. Besides these process-level changes, Wolfdale features a few important instruction-set additions. SSE4.1, the next iteration in the SSE instruction set series includes support for 47 of the 54 instructions defined in SSE4. SSE4.2, which contains the remaining 7 instructions will be implemented in Nehalem, Intel's upcoming architecture. So what does this all mean to you, the consumer? Serious speedups have been revealed within the new divx encoder and as other applications launch with SSE4 support you should see considerable speedups when compared to non-SSE4 capable chips.
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/Small/IHS.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/Small/Untitled-2.jpg
Note the differences in die size in the first images and the increase in L2 cache in the second images. The L2 cache are the huge blocks that dominate the left side of the die.
Testbed
Things have been changing a decent amount here so these results won't be comparable for the most part to any previous reviews. In an attempt to offer a complete review I will be reviewing the E8400 with the QX9650 there for a select comparison and utilizing the stock E8400 heatsink along with the QX9650 heatsink and my Scythe Ninja Rev B. I unfortunately no longer have a Q6600 or an E6850 as they would be great chips to compare the E8400 with but the QX9650 should offer a nice contrast in the multi-threaded CPU test.
<ul>
<li>Processors: Intel QX9650 3.0GHz 12MB L2, Intel E8400 3.0GHz 6MB L2</li>
<li>Motherboard: MSI P35 Neo2-FR</li>
<li>Memory: 2x1GB Buffalo PC2-8000 Firestix</li>
<li>Video Card: EVGA 640MB 8800GTS</li>
<li>Powersupply: OCZ 700w GameXStream</li>
<li>Cooling: Intel half-height and QX heatsinks and Scythe Ninja Rev B</li>
</ul>
Results: CPU Tests
In both the single-threaded and multi-threaded the E8400 offers a great bang for your buck. At the stock 3.0GHz the E8400 sips power with 140w pulled from the wall while offering superb performance with it's 6MB of L2 cache. Jumped up to 4GHz, power consumption increases moderately but the performance benefits are enormous. 4.5GHz yields also albeit with a heady 1.5vcore and slight instability due solely to a lack of voltage. I limited myself to 1.5vcore as I felt that was an appropriate upperbound for voltage but from my experience with the QX9650 it is possible to feed these chips 1.7v-1.8v for short durations with no appreciable degradation. One thing to note, the QX9650 had trouble past 465FSB which doesn't bode well for the budget Yorkfields as this would limit them to roughly 3700MHz for the Q9450 and 4GHz for the Q9550.
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/Super-Pi-1M.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/SuperPi-32M.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/wPrime-32M.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/wPrime-1024M.jpg
Results: GPU Tests
3DMark doesn't directly relate to gaming performance but it does give a ballpark indicator of the system performance. The 8800GTS used in this test is the previous generation GTS based on the G80 core, so the performance is a tad lower than the newer cards. Compared to the 7900GTO I had been using it's a huge step up and the numbers reflect that. 3D01 is a heavily CPU limited application and the scores show substantial jumps.
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/3D01.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/3D03.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/3D05.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/3D06.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/Aquamark.jpg
Results: Power Consumption
Intel's research into the high-k dielectrics has paid off big with incredibly low power-consumption figures for the clocks indicated. Had this been a 65nm chip I would look at these figures and see a sub 3.8GHz chip, but instead I see a chip hitting 4.5GHz on aircooling and it is shocking. Comparing the QX9650 to the E8400 gives you a sobering glance at what it's like to cool a quad-core processor but the E8400 is a charm to work with. With my Scythe Ninja at 4.5GHz and a single 60CFM fan the E8400 was barely pushing 60C at 4500MHz. With watercooling and 1.7v this chip could easily approach 5GHz, the only issue being that voltage requirement.
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/Volts.jpg
http://gomeler.com/pic/Articles/Review%20Intel%20E8400%20Wolfdale/Power.jpg
Note: Overall System Power
Conclusion
Intel has a winner here with this cheap Wolfdale processor. I paid $201 with tax in Atlanta, Georgia for this chip and considering how well it performance at stock and overclocked settings I see no reason to suggest purchasing a 65nm processor. I'd say if your budget spans from $125 to $200 that it'd be worth taking the financial hit and stepping up to an E8400. Consider that a 65nm E4xxx chip may hit 3.6GHz and an E6xxx chip may hit 4GHz, the 4.5GHz+ available in the E8400 is a huge jump in performance. For gaming the E8400 is the perfect choice as we are just now getting to fully utilizing two cores and two cores at 4.5GHz will benefit you more than four cores at 3.6GHz. One last bit to consider is the ability to use cheap P35 boards for attain these monstrous overclocks. With the diminished current requirements in the 45nm chips, the weaker boards can still achieve phenomenal overclocks compared to 65nm chip.
<h3>Pros</h3>
<ul>
<li>Huge Overclock Potential</li>
<li>Runs Cool</li>
<li>Scales Well With Voltage</li>
</ul>
<h3>Cons</h3>
<ul>
<li>Availablity</li>
<li>Price Gouging From E-tailers</li>
</ul>
<h3>Final Score: 9.5/10</h3>