Quote Originally Posted by drewhemm View Post
I will quote myself



Just did some searching on this topic and on Google and it seems like people struggle to get stable with the E5420 past 2.8-3.0Ghz so it does appear as though the L5420 has more headroom - rock solid stable at 3.3GHz...

It wouldn't surprise me if the L5420s are machined to a higher quality than the E5420s, that would explain their better thermal efficiency, better overclocking potential and of course the 25% higher price point!


Lol dude.. the L is exactly the same as the E or X, they just have different VIDs and are binned differently. How good a given set of chips are depends solely on luck of the draw and their stepping.

For example, my 5420 C0 could do 430x7,5 even back when the Z7S was released, no Vcore nothing. Z7S gave them 1,14V Vcore under load, VID is 1,2V.
I couldn't go higher than 430 stable even with 6x mult, because they would need more VTT to go higher, which the Z7S still doesn't provide.
Any E0 step CPU will do FSB 440-450 on the Z7S regardless of what they are binned for.
The B1 step E5440 I had wouldn't go past FSB 370, go figure.

My X5450 which are also E0 can do a max of FSB 452 primestable (at any multiplier). Above that either the CPUs or mobo have reached their limit.