intel conroe/allendale arguement

harris1986 · 19 Mar 2007 at 14:04

hi guys now i have a very silly friend that is still set in the ways of the only conroes are the 6600 and above models! where as you and i know better that all 6xxx models are conroe and the lesser 4xxx modells are allendale, he still doesn't believe me which is why i need your help! i remember when this arguement came about intel released a press statement confirming what i have just said, does anyone know where this is or can link me to it? or other such information that confirms this?

thanks

killer_uk · 19 Mar 2007 at 14:32

I've always though that before the conroes came out, the E6600 and above models were called Conroe whereas the other models were allendale. Now since they've come out, everyones calling them conroe cores.

E.g. this site says the same http://www.digital-daily.com/cpu/intel-conroe/

A quote from bit-tech on conroe review day:

"Interestingly, Intel has kept some details of its 2MB Core 2 Duo chips under wraps, because all of the talk has been about Conroe. However, as I'm sure you know, Conroe has a 4MB L2 cache. We're not quite sure what the situation is here, and whether Intel has used a separate core revision with only 2MB of L2 cache or just disabled half of the L2 cache on a Conroe core. However, according to CPU-Z readouts (which can be found later in the review), the 2MB L2 cache chips are codenamed as Allendale. The Core 2 Duo E6400 and E6300 are clocked at a lowly 2.13GHz and 1.86GHz accordingly."

I can't say for sure, so I guess we need someone in here who knows for sure

EDIT: They're even called Allendales on the OcUK site.

Phunky · 19 Mar 2007 at 14:33

Intel Core 2 DUO E4300 "LGA775 Allendale"
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale"
Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 "LGA775 Allendale"
Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe"

Defcon5 · 19 Mar 2007 at 14:43

If it has a different amount of cache its a different core imo, regardless of how the cache was changed

RaiderX · 19 Mar 2007 at 16:21

ive been looking around about which CPU to go for next and from what ive seen, the E6300 and E6400 are conroe's with half the cache disabled whereas the E4300 is an authentic Allendale

p4radox · 19 Mar 2007 at 16:22

The entire 6xxx series are Conroes, even the 2MB cache ones. They just have 2mb of the 4Mb cache disabled.

The 4300 is an Allendale as it only has 2Mb of cache.

devablue · 19 Mar 2007 at 16:35

p4radox said:
The entire 6xxx series are Conroes, even the 2MB cache ones. They just have 2mb of the 4Mb cache disabled.

The 4300 is an Allendale as it only has 2Mb of cache.

The new E6300 are true allendales revision L2 same E4300 and maybe E6400.

w3bbo · 19 Mar 2007 at 18:39

6300/6400 are defective conroes

but conroes none the less

cobxx · 20 Mar 2007 at 02:11

w3bbo said:
6300/6400 are defective conroes but conroes none the less

The "conroe" cores all had 4mb cache onboard, even if it was disabled like in the case of the 6300/6400. I remember someone saying the new 6300/6400 allendale cores only contained 2mb cache anyway, the cache wasn't even being disabled; it was a whole different chip. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though.

This would make sense considering intel's roadmap. By now, the manufacturing process must be quite efficient, so the 4mb cache is working in most of the chips. These can be labelled as E6700's, E6600's, as well as the new E6420's and E6320's (new version's of E6300 and E6400, just with 4mb cache which are due to be released during april). The allendale core must be a lot cheaper to produce to only having 2mb cache, so they can make the E4300, E4400, E6300 and E6400 using the same process.

Justintime · 20 Mar 2007 at 10:21

cobxx said:
The "conroe" cores all had 4mb cache onboard, even if it was disabled like in the case of the 6300/6400. I remember someone saying the new 6300/6400 allendale cores only contained 2mb cache anyway, the cache wasn't even being disabled; it was a whole different chip. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though.

Correct

Jabbs · 20 Mar 2007 at 14:05

I recall a big thread on this sometime back and it was shown on there the 6300/6400 were conroes with 2 meg L2c laser cut, no matter how good prodcution is they always going to get dodgy batches that don't pass the tests so makes more sense to put them out as something else rather than bin them.

In cpu'z etc my 6300 shows up as a conroe so don't know tbh, but i did buy this when the c2d range just come out.

silversurfer · 20 Mar 2007 at 14:16

Unless its changed recently, the 6 series are conroe and the 4 series is allen

I dont think the allen clocks quite as well, still very good but not quite the same.
whereas the only difference between e6400 and e6600 seems to be the cache and multipler

cpu-z now reports correctly?

Corasik · 20 Mar 2007 at 14:50

I bet that 99% of Conroe E6300/6400 are lasercut 'perfect' chips. Very often especially with intel, yields are so good, that the fabs churn out tons and tons of 'top bin' chips, and the boys in sales and marketting sell tons and tons of entry level chips.

So the fabs simply lasercut, and speed bin the parts according to sales requirements. Thats one of the reason intel chips overclock so well. Virtually every chip is a potential X6800, but speedbinned and lasercut to be lowerspec processors.

My bet is they only disabled half the cache on the lower end chip because they intended the E6600/E6700/X6800's to be the best performers, and wanted to artifically reduce the performance of the lower chips.

Its not like Nvidia where their yields are still relatively poor, and they can pick and mix which shaders/vertex units to enable.

Cuchulain · 20 Mar 2007 at 14:54

Intel have already stated that the 63 & 6400 are Conroes, not Allendales, I think I'll go with their opinion over a shop who had nothing to do with the production or naming scheme.

cobxx · 20 Mar 2007 at 15:00

All the 6300's and 6400's from last year to about february I think all have the conroe core. After this date, there have been people with allendale cores, although some people have still been getting conroe's. The B2 stepping is conroe, while the L2 is the allendale. Overclocking wise, aparantly the allendale's have been getting pretty high indeed, but whether that's due to the core, or just a good/lucky batch I'm not sure.

silversurfer · 20 Mar 2007 at 15:06

Yep agree with corasik, price placement I think its called. Especially applicable to mass production of cpu as its cheaper for them to hobble a chip then produce
a lesser alternative through convential means though they have done this now after all

Big.Wayne · 20 Mar 2007 at 16:06

cobxx said:
I remember someone saying the new 6300/6400 allendale cores only contained 2mb cache anyway, the cache wasn't even being disabled; it was a whole different chip. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though

Yup that was me!

The only Allendale out at the moment is the e4300, all the others are 2MB/4MB Conroes. The cache on-die is very expensive to manufacture so the Allendales are very cost effective chips for INTEL to produce, I expect to see them at crazy low prices by the end of the year.

I do believe that some Allendales are made which are imperfect so it seems like INTEL will disable half the cache and release them for sale as 1MB chips, not sure what there name is though?

Corasik · 20 Mar 2007 at 18:37

Big.Wayne said:
Yup that was me!

The only Allendale out at the moment is the e4300, all the others are 2MB/4MB Conroes. The cache on-die is very expensive to manufacture so the Allendales are very cost effective chips for INTEL to produce, I expect to see them at crazy low prices by the end of the year.

I do believe that some Allendales are made which are imperfect so it seems like INTEL will disable half the cache and release them for sale as 1MB chips, not sure what there name is though?

Again... its not because its imperfect. Its because intel want to rule all price brackets, and dont want overclockers to have 'full on Conroes' for $40. The 1meg chips will be released as the Pentium E2100 series. These pentiums should fill the market space for 'entry level' system, where Celerons currently live.

Snapshot · 21 Mar 2007 at 08:53

I think there may be a simple test to prove this. It seems CoreTemp won't run on my E4300 as it doesn't support DTS readings (Direct Temperature Sensor?). If a 6300 or 6400 will run CoreTemp then it's Conroe, if it doesn't it's Allendale. Does this seem reasonable?

Corasik · 21 Mar 2007 at 10:42

Snapshot said:
I think there may be a simple test to prove this. It seems CoreTemp won't run on my E4300 as it doesn't support DTS readings (Direct Temperature Sensor?). If a 6300 or 6400 will run CoreTemp then it's Conroe, if it doesn't it's Allendale. Does this seem reasonable?

Most E4300's run Coretemp, and TAT just fine, although some people on non intel boards seem to have difficulty with TAT, some run it just fine. Something wrong with your chip mebee?