Overclocking Results:

stock max. oc processor speed: 2.4 ghz 3.4 ghz if you're new to Overclocking and not sure what to do, check out these two excellent Guides for some pointers: Overclocking the CPU and Memory Overclocking the Videocard

The Intel Core 2 Duo has an excellent reputation for overclocking as you know and we have heard some fantastic stories even on stock cooling. By default the Core 2 Duo E6600 processor operates at 2.4 GHz with a 9x multiplier running on a 1066 MHz FSB. We've teamed this processor up with the Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard and a nice 2GB set of Corsair's Twin2X2048-6400C4 DDR2-800 memory.

By default the Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard is clocked at 266 MHz FSB, and its speed will be increased in 5 MHz at a time. From the start the E6600 CPU was definitely up to our overclocking challenge! The system cracked through the 300 MHz FSB barrier (2.7 GHz CPU speed) without even breaking a sweat, with one FPU tied behind its back.

At 2.84 GHz (315 MHz FSB) the Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 started to display some stability problems, increasing the CPU voltage to 1.25V solved this. The Core 2 Duo E6600 went past 3 GHz or 334 MHz FSB. Shortly there after, the voltage had to be increased again, this time to 1.3 V, to hit 3.2 GHz (356 MHz FSB).

At this point the motherboard started to give us issues, increasing the Intel P965 Express voltage was then necessary. The E6600 was able to make it up to a whopping 3.4 GHz (378 MHz FSB) in the end! Both the chipset and CPU were running quite hot, additional cooling is definitely advised.

The overclocking tests were done with the stock retail heatsink. I would say 3.4 GHz from a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 is pretty good. It's like overclocking with a Pentium 4 2.4C all over again. ;-) In the near future we're going to put the Core 2 Duo E6600 under the Prometeia Mach II GT's cold touch, and I know the processor will really fly. However that's a story for another time... Yes I know I'm a tease. ;-)

Over the following page we'll be running the socket 775 Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 processor though PCSTATS standard set of gaming, productivity, and 64-bit processor benchmarks. There are a wide variety of gaming and synthetic benchmarks here to illustrate what kind of performance boost users can expect from these latest, dual core 64-bit processor.

The specific details of how the Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 processor test systems were configured for benchmarking - including the hardware, software drivers, operating system and benchmark versions - are indicated below. In the third and fourth columns are the general specs for the AMD and Intel reference platforms that the dual core Core 2 Duo E6600 is being compared against.

Please take a moment to look over PCSTATS test system configurations before moving on to the individual benchmark results on the next several pages.

PCSTATS Test System Configurations

test system #1 amd reference system intel reference system processor: intel core 2 duo e6600 amd Athlon64 FX-62 AMD Athlon64 X2 5000+ AMD Sempron 3600+ Intel Pentium D 840 Intel Pentium D 940 Socket: Socket 775 Socket AM2 Socket 775 Clock Speed: 9 x 266 MHz = 2.4 GHz 14 x 200 MHz = 2.8 GHz 13 x 200 MHz = 2.6 GHz 16 x 200 MHz = 3.2 GHz 16 x 200 MHz = 3.2 GHz Chipset: Intel P965 Express nForce 590 SLI Intel 975X Motherboards: Asus P5B Deluxe Asus M2N32SLI-DLX Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H Videocard: MSI NX7800GTX-VT2D256E Memory: 2x 1024MB Corsair XMS2-8500 DDR-2 Memory Latency: 4-4-4-12 4-4-4-12 5-5-5-15 Hard Drive: 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740 CDROM: AOpen DVD writer AOpen Combo 52x PowerSupply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 510 SLI Heatsink: Intel Reference Athlon64 FX-62 Reference Heatsink Thermaltake Jungle 512 Software Setup: Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 Intel INF 7.2.2 nVIDIA Forceware 91.27 Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 nVIDIA Forceware NF4 9.34 nVIDIA Forceware 91.27 Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 Intel INF 7.2.2 nVIDIA Forceware 91.27 Benchmarks: 32-Bit Benchmarks: SYSmark 2004 Business Winstone 2004 Content Creation 2004 SiSoft Sandra 2005 Maya Render Test Super Pi 1.1 PCMark05 3DMark05 3DMark06 Doom 3 Quake 4 FarCry FEAR 64-Bit Benchmarks: PCMark04 PCMark05 Cinebench 2003 ScienceMark 2.0 Mini-GZIP DiVX Encoding CPU Load 3D Tests: Prime95 + 3DMark05 Prime95 + Doom 3 Prime95 + FEAR