C2Q Q6600 "GO Stepping" now available at OcUK!

helmutcheese · 22 Jul 2007 at 16:00

oggmonster said:
Remember this a complete new build...ie new case, new monitor etc. Plus theres always new stuff comming out! If you had waited untill sep/oct you would be wishing you waited untill Jan/Feb...and it goes on and on and on

Not really, sure you can always be waiting, but you can get new tech from AMD and Intel then, the AMD obv means newer mobos to use the new CPU fully, but lots of current Intel mobos are suited for next gen CPU's.

oggmonster · 22 Jul 2007 at 16:04

helmutcheese said:
but lots of current Intel mobos are suited for next gen CPU's.

Exactly! Which is why I fail to see your point? :confused:

plus I only upgrade cpu/mobo every 6 or so years. Maybe 1 or 2 graphics cards during that time?

Journey · 22 Jul 2007 at 16:06

G0 stuff has be confirmed to be in stock at least one UK retailer, and they are shipping from tomorrow, no price premium. I really can't see there being a lot of B3's left with the bigger channel suppliers as they will have be continually moving stock and not replenishing it as quickly due to the imminent price drops.

You can pretty much gurantee that there will be only G0 at most big e-tailors in 2-3 weeks maximum, also prices will have settled to there proper prices by then. So waiting a little longer is a win, win situation in my book.

deadsquirrel · 23 Jul 2007 at 12:13

Journey said:
G0 stuff has be confirmed to be in stock at least one UK retailer, and they are shipping from tomorrow, no price premium.

I think this has now been confirmed to not being a G0 afterall. Unless we are talking about different etailers.

IT Troll · 23 Jul 2007 at 12:38

Guess we are going to have to wait a few weeks for them to filter through the channels.

Teal · 23 Jul 2007 at 15:27

deadsquirrel said:
I think this has now been confirmed to not being a G0 afterall. Unless we are talking about different etailers.

Yep, the story there is the same as here, new stock is still arriving as B3, no sign of G0 in the UK channel yet.

Noto · 23 Jul 2007 at 15:34

well i have a month off in august so i wanna order end of July!! gogo filterbots get those GO chips

drunkenmaster · 23 Jul 2007 at 16:00

why do people not get the TDP's, they are basically, maximum's, the worst chips in the worst batches that get binned as that chip, will have that TDP. the reason lots of chips can perform/overclock differently. some are better, simple as that. theres nothing to stop a non G0 stepping being great silicon and running at 90W, and a G0 to run at 95W. likewise a good GO MIGHT run lower than 90W. but you can't know.

i mean, do you think ever chip runs perfectly to these numbers, even though a 2.4Ghz and a 2.8Ghz chip can be rated at the same TDP, with the same stepping. basically they give the worst case scenario because if a chip uses more than they state, they can be accused of lying and what not. chips have to perform up to minimum spec, not much in the law to state they can't perform better than minimum spec and few people who would complain about that.

drunkenmaster · 23 Jul 2007 at 16:27

mdjmcnally said:
If you want a gauranteed G0 stepping then overclockers have to check them manually. £10 for that isn't unreasonable.

A lot of other retailers will get you a "whats a CPU stepping" response.

You makes your choice and pays your money, of course you can wait a couple of months to ensure the old stock sold out and that the regular shipments are G0 anyway

why isn't it unreasonable. i've worked for a computer e-tailor before, i've checked, much harder, to weed out good chips for people for free, but thats more a favour and no garentee. we would have charged a premium if we actually sold them for more, actually we didn't for the ath xp-m's, we just checked they were all the same code and listed the code's on the site no premium. that was also harder because they were OEM, and checking the tiny code on a smallish cpu. retail intels have the codes printed in big on the sides and it takes 10 seconds to check a cpu. if you can check 6 cpu's a minute, 360cpu's in an hour and someone warehouse staff is making probo £10 an hour. £10 extra per chip does to me, seem excessive.

the post about the two quad cores, running two diff voltages, both have the same TDP, but one, at least at stock with the default voltage, runs 22W cooler. the rating on the chip doesn't really mean anything.

say the G0's all manage to run stock at the lower voltage, but at 3.3Ghz needs the same vcore as any B3 stepping, you have the same power output.

fornowagain · 23 Jul 2007 at 16:53

drunkenmaster said:
why do people not get the TDP's, they are basically, maximum's, the worst chips in the worst batches that get binned as that chip, will have that TDP. the reason lots of chips can perform/overclock differently. some are better, simple as that. theres nothing to stop a non G0 stepping being great silicon and running at 90W, and a G0 to run at 95W. likewise a good GO MIGHT run lower than 90W. but you can't know.

i mean, do you think ever chip runs perfectly to these numbers, even though a 2.4Ghz and a 2.8Ghz chip can be rated at the same TDP, with the same stepping. basically they give the worst case scenario because if a chip uses more than they state, they can be accused of lying and what not. chips have to perform up to minimum spec, not much in the law to state they can't perform better than minimum spec and few people who would complain about that.

Intels TDP is short of the maximum and little to do overclockability. The TDP is there for system Engineers to design cooling solutions under normal applications. Its an IC Industry term and more to do with the IC's 'package' type than much else. There's always golden chips that don't get binned as higher spec SKUs. Same goes for Tcasemax, its a generic value for a package. The actual throttling point TCC is factory set per chip and you can see what its set to either.

drunkenmaster said:
say the G0's all manage to run stock at the lower voltage, but at 3.3Ghz needs the same vcore as any B3 stepping, you have the same power output.

No, if the basic chip uses less power (lower TDP) and less voltage at stock. Then for the same vcore its probably worse.

A commonly used expression is for power P, P=kLV²F

Where:
L = Load (from software)
V = Core voltage
F = Chip frequency
k = Empirical constant for the chip.
Pd = Total cpu power
TDP = Thermal Design Power

Therefore delta P, i.e. change in power. The constants cancel.

Pd = TDP x (F2/F1) x (V2/V1)²

1. Q6600 B3 @ 3.6GHz 1.275v stock, 1.50V oced.

Pd = 105*(3600/2400)*(1.5/1.275)² = 217W

Suppose for a G0 a lower stock vcore and TDP, frequencies the same, so its the change in voltage that counts. Its using more!!

2. Q6600 G0 @ 3.6GHz 1.20v stock, 1.5V oced.

Pd = 95*(3600/2400)*(1.5/1.20)² = 222W

Now if it uses less voltage, but the same overvoltage delta. Which is fair if its the same 60nm basic design.

3. Q6600 G0 @ 3.6GHz 1.20v stock, 1.425V oced.

Pd = 95*(3600/2400)*(1.425/1.20)² = 200W

Vcore makes a lot of difference to power as its a squared factor.

drunkenmaster · 23 Jul 2007 at 17:27

the problem with the maths there is again taking the numbers as gospel. the tdp is just a percentage of the "real" max wattage the chip can use. they use the average use crap but its still a percetage of the fixed number. fact is the chips tdp isn't 100% known, theres a theoretical maximum, the worst case number, and yes, thats used so a dell designer can say, some of these chips might hit 105W average, so we need heatsink X for this box. but plenty of those chips won't actually use that much power.

the numbers aren't hugely relevant as more than anything they are a guideline/worst case scenario. so in likelyhood the G0 stepping is slightly better and on average should be a little better. to be completely honest though the Q6600 numbers are kind of older, and an older stepping. the yields go up, its likely that most of the Q6600's made near to the G0 were around the 95W envelope aswell, they knew this, so simply do a check, put out a new stepping so they can use a new number.

you think as they tweak the process over the last 6 months that every chip through every tweak used 105W, then the day before when they printed B3 stepping on chips they all used 105W and the day after they changed what they printed on the cores and suddenly use less wattage. not likely.

fornowagain · 23 Jul 2007 at 18:56

You said.

say the G0's all manage to run stock at the lower voltage, but at 3.3Ghz needs the same vcore as any B3 stepping, you have the same power output.

Your statement, if all G0's run lower stock voltages yet have the same power consumptions as the B3's at the same clocks, is just plain wrong. That's what the calcs look like, just pointing out what governs power usage. Regardless of what you believe, the TDP is a quite straight forward design criteria for an entire industry and mainly for 'package' heat dissipation. Its purpose is to keep the design within a thermal envelop in conjunction with the package case temp Tc.

The TDP (goes by a few names) is what's used in the semiconductor world all the way down to a simple power transistor, pretty much any IC that needs a heatsink, its not optional. The formula used in the real world are slightly more complex due to static wattage. But its the number of transistors, process, design and leakage that determines the overall wattage the chips uses. It'll vary sure, a few %, but at stock the kind of variation you're suggesting makes it difficult to design around. And its no real bearing on the individual chips overclocking ability. Without some inside knowledge of the silicon revisions theres no way of knowing if a G0 is really a later B3, but hey I'm sure you'll keep speculating.

fornowagain · 23 Jul 2007 at 19:38

mdjmcnally said:
If you want a gauranteed G0 stepping then overclockers have to check them manually. £10 for that isn't unreasonable.

I think if they're are holding two different steps without some sort of defining SKU, then ten quid is fair. As soon as all the B3 are gone I'd hope they'd put the price back to normal.

Tom|Nbk · 23 Jul 2007 at 19:41

Im wondering if iI can run one of these quads with my PSU. Forn if you take a look at that power consumption thread you said i may be pushing it with a quad but what about this "Power Saving" G0 edition?

fornowagain · 23 Jul 2007 at 19:46

Tom|Nbk said:
Im wondering if iI can run one of these quads with my PSU. Forn if you take a look at that power consumption thread you said i may be pushing it with a quad but what about this "Power Saving" G0 edition?

You can catch me later on MSN, 10 ish.

Bob_geldof · 23 Jul 2007 at 21:44

any news on the stock arriving for this cpu?? i need two asap!!!! (well only as iam impatient)

C64 · 23 Jul 2007 at 23:53

Personally im letting you guys be the guinea pigs for these GO stepping
quads before i take the plunge i do appreciate your hard work though.
Maybe i'll stick with my 6420 until i actually need a quad for a game though
starting to get addicted to upgrading and it worries me a bit.

IT Troll · 24 Jul 2007 at 00:09

I have read elsewhere that these aren't expected to hit the shelves until mid-August or September.

Cupra · 24 Jul 2007 at 00:50

IT Troll said:
I have read elsewhere that these aren't expected to hit the shelves until mid-August or September.

i read the same thing but that also said the same about the e6850's anmd a few ppl ahve them already (not the es ones either)

Bob_geldof · 24 Jul 2007 at 10:14

IT Troll said:
I have read elsewhere that these aren't expected to hit the shelves until mid-August or September.

how accurate do you think that is?

need to place an order on Friday, so should i be looking at the "normal" one as my only option for that date.