Intel Core 2 Duo E4300: Affordable and Highly Overclockable
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 10, 2007 2:45 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Introducing the 4000 series
With the E6420 and E6320 getting 4MB L2s, there's now room for a lower end Core 2 Duo SKU with a 2MB L2 cache again: enter the Core 2 Duo E4000 series. Due to launch this month, the Core 2 Duo E4300 will eventually be followed by the Core 2 Duo E4400 (released in Q2). Both are dual core offerings like their 6000 series siblings, but differentiate themselves by only featuring a 2MB L2 cache, lower clock speeds, 800MHz FSB and feature no support for Intel Virtualization Technology. However, given that VT isn't anywhere near being a mainstream requirement, the E4000 series ends up being a cheap way of getting Core 2 Duo performance.
The E4000 series is based on Intel's Allendale core, not Conroe, so there's physically only 2MB of cache on the die itself (not 4MB with half of the cache disabled). The end result is that these chips are cheaper to make, cooler running and should be pretty overclockable.
The E4300 will launch first at 1.80GHz (200MHz x 9.0), followed by the E4400 at 2.0GHz (200MHz x 10.0). Since the clock multiplier is fixed at 9.0, the only hope for overclocking is by increasing the FSB frequency. With such a low default clock multiplier, you can actually overclock the chip pretty easily.
Using Gigabyte's GA-965P-DS3 motherboard, our engineering sample was able to run at 3.375GHz (375MHz x 9.0) at 1.468V using a stock Intel cooler. Although the E4300 still only has a 2MB L2 cache, when overclocked to over 3.3GHz you end up with a chip that's faster than Intel's Core 2 Extreme X6800 - at only $163. The E4300 gets even better in Q2 when its price will drop from $163 to $133, making it even more of a bargain.
The Test
Today's review will focus on the overall performance of the E4300 at stock speeds as well as when overclocked. At stock speeds the E4300 is priced as a cheaper alternative to the Core 2 Duo E6300 and AMD's Athlon 64 X2 3800+, thus the comparison between those two chips is obvious. When overclocked however, the E4300 can hang with the best of the best and thus you'll see comparisons all the way up to the X6800 and Athlon 64 X2 5000+.
We wanted to showcase the performance potential of the E4300 without resorting to more expensive 1066MHz or faster memory and thus we used a 2:1 memory-to-FSB ratio at stock speeds (DDR2-800) and 1:1 ratio for overclocking, resulting in our memory running at DDR2-750. With more expensive memory the overclocked E4300 would perform even better but our focus was on best bang for your buck with the chip and how well it can overclock. As you will soon see, you don't need anything faster than DDR2-800 memory to make the E4300 a very compelling chip.
| CPU: | Intel Core 2 Duo X6800 (2.93GHz/4MB) Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.40GHz/4MB) Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.13GHz/2MB) Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (1.86GHz/2MB) Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 (1.80GHz/2MB) AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ |
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe |
| Chipset: | Intel P965 nForce 590 SLI |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 8.1.1.1010 NVIDIA 9.35 |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.9 300GB SATA |
| Memory: | Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 2) |
| Video Card: | NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA ForceWare 97.44 |
| Resolution: | 1600 x 1200 |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
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yiranhu - Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - link
9X multiplier!!! Now there's absolutely no point in buying the 6300/6400!!yyrkoon - Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - link
Unless of course, you're going the budget CPU server route, and need virtualization. For example, using Xen, in order to run Windows in a domU (VM), you need VT.yehuda - Thursday, January 11, 2007 - link
Hi,Who else should be concerned with the lack of VT support?
If I run emulators locally (my personal experience includes bochs, qemu and DOSBox), is there anything I would lose going with the E4300?
Thanks
Yoshi911 - Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - link
I think that with a 3ghz Opty144, My next upgrade will be to a Opty165 that I can run at 3ghz...2mb cache and dual core, good for gaming still.. all I'll ever need...SPEND YOUR MONEY ON VIDEO CARD UPGRADES AND RAM!!! if you don't have 2gb's ram and a nice video card... DONT EVEN THINK about upgrading platforms.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - link
And if you don't have 2GB of RAM, don't even think about spending the money on 2x1GB DDR-400! As for me, I have an Opty 165 that tops out at around 2.6GHz with a Scythe Ninja cooler, so you'll be lucky to get 3.0GHz. Even if you do get 3.0GHz, a Core 2 E4300 overclocked to 3.5GHz+ (remember we're talking stock cooler in this article) would beat it for performance. Now, if you have 2GB of DDR and a decent CPU and you are mostly worried about games, then the GPU is the bigger issue. If you don't have any of those things and need to upgrade, you'll be best getting Core 2 with DDR2 and a fast GPU, rather than X2/Opteron and DDR/DDR2 and a fast GPU.Yoshi911 - Thursday, January 11, 2007 - link
Yeah but we're talking about cost effective performance for games... 90fps vs 190fps is going to look very little difference.. the next upgrade any gamer should be thinking about should be a DX10 compatable system.Doh! - Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - link
Why hasn't yet Intel released this cpu for the consumer in the US? This cpu has been widely available since Jan. 5 in Korea. Isn't the US usuually the first place for a new cpu launch?deathwalker - Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - link
Very nice reiview and the introduction of a true bargin in CPU's. Alas though..once again us SFF builders(I have a microfly case) are out in the cold since nearly all the Matx C2D motherboards are "crap" overclockers. This is not the place for it..but I will none the less rant on the Mobo builders for not making an honest effort to give us a decent C2D product. By decent, I mean something that will run well at setting other than stock out the box defaults. Nice job AT..this article give hope to builders on a budget.tayhimself - Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - link
-sigh- i complained of this after ATs informative review on uATX cases asking if anyone knew any uATX 965 boards that would OC decently (350 FSB even). Too bad I got no respnoses then either.Goty - Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - link
I'm not sure the price difference here is quite enough to pull anyone away from the E6300 (or the E6320 when it hits the market). It's only $50 cheaper on average, but you lose the faster FSB of the E6300 and I've seen a lot of E6300s overclock a lot better than this chip.