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Overclocking

Just like with our E6400, we were able to reach almost 3.2GHz with just the Intel supplied heatsink – however we knew that was not the limit of this processor, so we switched coolers and used a Noctua NH-12 to try to find the real limit of the processor.

Using our Asus P5B, with the latest BIOS, the Noctua NH-12, and two 63CFM 12cm fans, we were able to reach a whopping 3.48GHz with just air cooling!

I am not talking about just posting, or getting to the Windows desktop – for those metrics, we were able to reach up to 3.7GHz – I am talking running our whole set of benchmarks, without problems - ie being stable at 3.48GHz.

With much better cooling (which would take a killer water or phase change cooler) it would likely be possible to run the E6600 (at least our sample) at even higher speeds - but it would take extreme effort for a relatively small incremental improvement, and is likely not worth it.

As always, there were a number of critical parts to the successful overclock:

1. Figuring out the fastest stable memory speed
2. Figuring out the fastest stable memory timing
3. Setting the FSB speed and multiplier
4. Getting the right Vcore

The memory speed was not an issue, as I knew how high the memory I was using can be pushed from our review of the Corsair PC8500 memory. Figuring out the maxim possible FSB speed is a function of knowing how high the motherboard can go (we knew this from earlier testing) and how high a particular processor can go; the best way to do this is to find out the maximum FSB for the processor by lowering its multiplier so that you can see how high it can reach without really overclocking it. Once you know the processors maximum FSB, then you choose a multiplier that will let you reach your target overclock while keeping the processor’s and motherboard’s maximum FSB’s in mind.

So, in order to run at 3.48GHz, I:

• Used the excellent Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi motherboard
• Set the Vcore to 1.4875V
• Set Vram to 2.3V
• Set DDR2 timing to 5-5-5-15 @ 1100MHz
• Set the processor multiplier to 8
• Set the FSB to 435MHz
• Used the outstanding Noctua 12 with two 12cm 63CFM fans

There was still some headroom left; the motherboard is capable of 465MHz FSB with complete stability; however 465x7 is only 3.255GHz, so 435x8 is our best speed for this board/processor combination.

Just like our E6400, the E6600 turned out to be an excellent overclocker!

Conclusion

So what does this tell us?

Well, for one thing, that the E6600 is a great overclocker, with unbelievable performance when overclocked, and ‘merely’ outstanding performance at stock speeds.  Which means that whether you're an enthusiast, gamer, or just some person who wants oustanding performance the Core 2 Duo delivers once again.  To break it down let's analyse the actual application to which you might put the E6600.

We'd like to thank NCIX.com for helping us get a E6600 for this review. 

For Business users:

Core 2 Duo’s, while very powerful and exciting, is overkill for the typical business user looking to run Office suites and other business apps. Currently, the best bang for the buck for office applications is a socket AM2 X2 3800+ which has more than enough performance for every day business applications.

For Multimedia production:

Core 2 Duo rocks. There is NOTHING to touch it at this time – and the only readily available desktop to beat it is the Mac Pro’s with two 5000 series Xeons (that are really just Core 2 Duo, so really the only option to a Core 2 Duo is... another Core 2 Duo part!). For MP3 and MPEG encoding, nothing comes close to the Conroe and we've shown that in reviews of pretty much the entire lineup from the budget E6300 to the E6700 (and by extension E6800 Extreme through overclocking).

For Gamers:

Core 2 Duo is a great choice; you will not be CPU limited. You will NOT see the kind of frame rate increases that we show in this article; we were deliberately running at 640x480 so we would not be GPU limited – after all, this is a processor review – however this allows us to show that the CPU power available will scale with future faster GPU’s.

For Overclockers:

Core 2 Duo’s are the best overclockers since the legendary Celeron 300’s that easily went to 450MHz. A 33% overclock is easy on air, quite doable with the stock cooler – and by going the extra mile with a really good air cooling solution, we got a 45% overclock!

Previously, with an E6400 and great cooling we went from 2.13GHz to 3.48GHz – an amazing 63% overclock!

For Everyone:

All this high performance comes at a price.

In order to get the best performance from your Conroe, you need a top notch motherboard and great cooling; not to mention that the Core 2 Duo’s are more expensive than the AM2 X2 processors – so you do pay extra for the higher speed.

For people involved in multimedia production, hard core gamers, and hard core overclockers… there is basically no other choice.  Once again, the Core 2 Duo, and E6600, are amazing processors for the price, and we heartily recommend them to anyone needing or wanting that type of horspower.

We'd like to