Intel E8600 Core 2 Duo Processor Review

[Apoptosis]

For those of you that have been in the dark for the last year, Intel's 45nm Wolfdale processors have been the best thing since sliced bread. For the average consumer these processors offer fantastic performance with incredibly low TDPs and prices. Just recently our favorite piece of Hafnium infused circuits received a makeover with the release of the new E0 stepping. Read on to see how the 3.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Processor does!

6GHz was easily attainable with the E8600 having an ungodly low 1.84vcore and I was able to bench between 6100MHz and 6200MHz depending on the benchmark. Consumers with single-stage phase change systems should be able to easily hit speeds of 5200Mhz to 5500MHz as I was booting at 5500MHz around -40 Celsius with ease. This is where the E0 stepping really shines, past 5GHz it just tears everything else to shreds and makes it look easy.

Article Title: Intel E8600 Core 2 Duo Processor Review
Article URL: http://legitreviews.com/article/769/1/
Current Pricing:$274 plus shipping

[martini161]

nice job! was thinking about making a DICE pot, but i never really got the time. i just upgraded my mobo and ram though so im not to keen on taking that many risks with it

[FeRaL]

OMG, that is just amazing...

If, I wasn't on a four year cycle for a PC I would jump on this in a heartbeat.

[Juliana]

Hello,
I plan to purchase the E8600 Box. Can you please clarify the overclocking potential when using the box heatsink ? I'm asking because in the conclusion a QX9650 heatsink is mentioned. I assume this one has better cooling capabilities.

Thanks in advance

Juliana

[martini161]

it dependes on the individual chip, your motherboard and many other factors. but if you want the better overclocking potential, why not buy a cheaper heatsink such as the artic cooling freezer 7 pro?

[Juliana]

Well, overclocking potential is no top priority, meaning that I don't buy this CPU with the intention of oc'ing it right away. However, it would be foolish to completely ignore it. In the past I always bought third party heatsinks or used my self made water cooling. Therefore I never thought about box or tray before. After reading this article I was really confused that a cheap box cooler could enable such high oc'ing. According to the test system page the box cooler has been used for the results achieved and I just wanted to make sure that I didnt misread.

Btw, do you have any suggestion for a low budget motherboard in regard to overclocking ? The one used in the review is much too expensive with an overwhelming feature list ;)

Basically what I want to do is build a regular system now and have a decent oc potential in a few months without changing the configuration again. Decent in this case means it doesnt really have to exceed 4ghz

Juliana

[martini161]

depends on your budget: ive heard nothing but good things about this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813138118

[Juliana]

Thanks for your help

[Gomeler]

I would never run the E8600 on it's box cooler for extended periods of time. It was running at ungodly(80C+) and idling above 60C, definitely not a happy place for it to reside. Do yourself a huge favor and pick up a cheap aftermarket heatsink and 4GHz is possible with ease. Even 4500MHz is possible with very little effort. These truly are fantastic chips.