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Athlon II "e" series vs faster regular chip underclocked

airmark

airmark

airmark

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Posts
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London, UK
Subject says it all. Is it worth getting the 235e for example vs getting the 250 and underclocking it? I have yet to see a comprehensive test with accurate measures of performance, power consumption and reliability. Any thoughts?

Edit: I hope it's ok to mention under-clocking in an overclockers' forum! :cool:
 
Do you mean Undervolting it? . . . or UnderClocking & Undervolting it? :)

I've only tested one AMD® Athlon™ II X3 and that Undervolted quite well, CPU VID is 1.425v @ 2.7GHz but still ran flawlessly when Undervolted to 1.2vCore (1.168vCore Actual) . . .

I'm not sure if a technician really gets good value from a *e* chip if he has the know-how and a suitable mobo that allows for voltage adjustments! :cool:

[edit] then of course we have Cool n Quiet!

coolnquiet.jpg
 
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Yeah you can get a standard chip and undervolt it, but you can also get the 'e' chip and undervolt it further. The 'e's tend to hold their price more for resale, so you'll get the extra money back when you decide to upgrade.
 
I just bought the 235e this week to go into my new HTPC, its gone into a shuttle SN78SH7 and its superb, it runs very cool which means the CPU fan runs very quiet (only around 900rpm needed). Can't give you any advice about under-clocking it but I wouldn't say it was necessary, it plays full 1080p with only 50% CPU load.
 
Daveangle said:
I just bought the 235e this week to go into my new HTPC, its gone into a shuttle SN78SH7 and its superb, it runs very cool which means the CPU fan runs very quiet (only around 900rpm needed). Can't give you any advice about under-clocking it but I wouldn't say it was necessary, it plays full 1080p with only 50% CPU load.
Click to expand...

50% seems a lot. Which decoder are you using and what settings? I have about 15% (max 20%) with coreAVC on a Athlon 64 X2 4200+ that should be slower than the 235e.
 
a lot of the 'e' branded chips are lower clocked processors to keep within a lower power range. When it comes to performance per watt theyre not always the most efficient. Tom's hardware do quite a lot of articles looking at efficency, underclocking etc. might be worht checking out there
 
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