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  • comc100 - Monday, December 31, 2007 - link

    hi i have q6600 g0 and geforce 6600 gt. do i have to upgrade my psu because mine is 305 watts
  • Drew Martell - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - link

    I have a Q6600 and a 300 watt PSU. I overclocked to 3GHz and still running fine with stock cooling and the 300 watts :D
  • k8fox - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link

    Are you still using your Q6600? I would like to overclock mine but have no idea where to start as I have never done this. Suggestions?
  • sheeple - Monday, October 19, 2015 - link

    The Q6600 stands as Intel's greatest CPU EVER, due to it being FIRST, it's the Garagov of Cpu's!
  • tjaisv - Thursday, August 23, 2007 - link

    So what are the temp differences? Thx
  • lemonadesoda - Sunday, August 19, 2007 - link

    The system power draw is a very interesting statistic.

    But for CPU power comparisons I suggest some other analysis. Since so much of the system power is drawn by all anciliary components, the % improvement calculations show overall system improvement BUT NOT the CPU improvement. The CPU improvement is really the more interesting figure.

    Can you isolate the system power draw excl. the CPU? Perhaps the best way to do this would be to put a ULV low clock CPU into the socket and use that as the "base line" for the system draw. Alternatively, write a utility to put the CPU into "deep sleep HALT" and check the power in this condition. Use this as the baseline.

    You will probably see the baseline around 100W, so the difference betweem say 150W and 160W would be calculated as (160-100)/(150-100)-100%=20% and not the very small figures as article currently shows.
  • iamezza - Tuesday, August 21, 2007 - link

    I agree.

    Considering this article was all about a core stepping the claimed better power consumption, I think they totally underplayed the power improvements. A reduction in total system power of 5-7% soley from a CPU stepping is very impressive. This works out to around 20% for the CPU alone. And it only gets better when it's overclocked.

    Also its wrong to write off an entire stepping for overclocking potential when you have only tested 1 CPU and only used stock cooling at that.
  • cdrsft - Sunday, August 19, 2007 - link

    In the article, the author asks,
    quote:

    For $266 you now have a tough decision to make: do you buy two 3.0GHz cores or four 2.40GHz cores? In our last review we found that if you're doing any amount of 3D rendering or media encoding, the Core 2 Quad Q6600 at $266 ends up being the better value. Of course, if you want the best of both worlds you could always overclock the 2.40GHz Q6600, giving you four, much faster cores.


    I'm not sure I fully understand the answer. IF you are doing some media encoding, the Q6600 is a better value. What about regular desktop usage? For the average person, which of these is the better value?
  • VapoChill - Saturday, August 18, 2007 - link

    Why you not use the lastest Intel driver ?

    *********************************************
    * Product: Intel(R) Chipset Device Software
    * Release: Production Version
    * Version: 8.3.0.1013
    * Target Chipset#: Q33/G33/G31/P35
    * Date: March 05 2007
    *********************************************
  • Blacklash - Friday, August 17, 2007 - link

    go back and try working from an 8x multi. A lot of overclockers seem to be doing well with that approach.
  • strikeback03 - Friday, August 17, 2007 - link

    ...that Newegg shipped me a pair of the B3 stepping ones in the box I opened this morning.

    Does anyone actually sell these for $266? Cheapest I found seemed to be around $285.
  • Roy2001 - Friday, August 17, 2007 - link

    $266 is price for 1000 units. Since demand is high and there is no competition, retailers would price it higher. Remember how much egg wanted when they restock it? From $299 to $379.
  • ruusnak - Friday, August 17, 2007 - link

    Did you measure temperature differences under load? Even when the new stepping draws more power, the Intel spec sheet's temp curves are quite different... does G0 run hotter or cooler in practice?
  • ruusnak - Friday, August 17, 2007 - link

    I meant "even if the new stepping draws less power" of course...
  • jay401 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    What's this Intel Resource Center that's now a link at the bottom of the conclusion page next to "Home"? I don't see an AMD Resource Center at the bottom of the concluding page of AMD articles.
  • vijay333 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    Intel ponied up the cash : "This site is presented by Intel" (right on top), while AMD chose not to for some reason...
  • mostlyprudent - Friday, August 17, 2007 - link

    Or, it could have something to do with the fact that it's an article about a new stepping of an INTEL chip. This site is so pro Intel that they spent a year or more recommending Athlon X2s as the chips to buy. Must have been a conspiracy so that when the Core 2 was released they could show their true colors.
  • vijay333 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    probably deprecated due to lack of activity...
  • jto168 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    Anand,

    Is it possible for you to state which Batch # the B3 stepping came from?

    I have found that many users with earlier Batches of B3 have found it difficult to overclock it successfully as the thermal throttling usually backs the multiplier down.
  • brentpresley - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    For the record - C2D never shipped on the B1 stepping (it was only available in ES chips). The first OEM and Retail silicon was the B2 stepping.
  • gigahertz20 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    Anand,


    Your overclocking results mean nothing if you don't list what type of cooling you used? Stock Intel cooler? Tuniq Tower 120? Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme? Typhoon VX? Zalamn? Scythe? Noctua? The only thing you said was "our max was 3.51GHz (390 x 9.0) without resorting to improved cooling" so by that statement I'm assuming you must have been using air but which HSF?

    How can you miss this? Indians aren't supposed to make mistakes, just kidding :) We're all human.....at least I think :)


  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    Sorry, I thought I mentioned that I was using the stock Intel HSF. :)

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Roy2001 - Friday, August 17, 2007 - link

    Could you try a better HSF? ATers whwant to OC this beast would avoid stock HSF I believe.
  • Omega215D - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    He was just being a SLACR...


    :ducks:
  • vijay333 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    Could you also comment on whether there were any noticeable differences between the CPUs with regards to temps? Kinda related to the wattage of course, but actual idle/load temperature values would help too. Thanks.
  • aka1nas - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    I didn't see listed which board was used to test overclockability of the two chips. Lots of boards still have issues with clocking G0s to high FSB speeds, especially at a 9x multi as the previous poster mentioned.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    Sorry, I updated the article with the test table. I used the Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • ChronoReverse - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    I have two G0's and it seems there's a great deal of variation even for two CPUs in the same batch.

    You should check the VID (using Core Temp) of the CPU. A lower VID means Intel rated the CPU to run at stock with a lower voltage, generally meaning more overclocking headroom. Of my two G0 Q6600's, one was 1.3125V while the other was 1.2750V.

    Also, the 9X multiplier is harder to overclock on than lower multipliers (for reasons unknown to me but I've encountered it myself as well as read other people commenting thus). My 1.3125V Q6600 can boot and run at 3.6GHz (450x8) almost stably (it can Prime95 all four cores for at least 20 minutes) but trying to do the same at 400x9 will always fail. I know that 400MHz FSB works since I can boot at 400x8, so I'm assuming the other factor would be the multiplier.
  • Dainas - Saturday, August 18, 2007 - link

    Would it be possible to get a VID of 0.8250v? As that it what Core Temp reads for my G0 Q6600, but I have doubts as the the accuracy as I'm x64 Vista and Core temp cannot find the temps (the rest of the read stats check out though).

    Also CPU-z reads its default Voltage as being around 1.18v.
  • Darkmatterx76 - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    Since OC potential varies so much with these CPU's are there any companies that test the CPU's they buy from Intel/AMD and sort them based on the OC potential they have? Memory companies often test and sort their memory and package them according to their quality. It would be nice to get a CPU that's been tested for better then average OC potential without having to pay $1000 for an Extreme brand CPU. I wouldn't mind paying a little bit more for a Q6600 that I knew had some good OC room.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    Both chips used the same VID surprisingly enough, that's part of what made this test so easy. I have seen differing results at 8x vs. 9x multipliers, but it didn't seem to make a huge difference when I tried it with these chips. I'll keep playing around with them though.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Kougar - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    Hi Anand!

    Could you please mention what the VID was, if it was identical between chips then it sounds like it was over 1.3v?

    You probably had already seen http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...">http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid... but I thought it was interesting that some of the VIDs are so low. My own sample is also 1.200v and seems to OC well enough, a partially corrupted OS notwithstanding anyway.

    My Pentium M barely operates stable at 2.13GHz using 1.18v and it's obviously single core, so it just sounds odd that a 2.4Ghz Quadcore could have an even lower VID than 1.18v even with the 90nm -> 65nm difference. Maybe that is just me though!
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    It was 1.20V on both chips I believe.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Grit - Thursday, August 16, 2007 - link

    Woot!

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