Wolfdale Ramblings. . .

Kirth Gersen · 22 Jan 2008 at 20:19

Big.Wayne said:
I expect INTEL will make certain CPU's EOL soon and tweak their products range down to a dozen different processors.

You would hope so. If I was Mr Intel, I would have a budget/home PC line and an enthusiast/business line, each of 3 processors... ultimately for both dual and quad sectors. That makes 12. But on top of that you will always get the new technology being introduced slowly, much in the same way as the E6000s are being taken over by the Wolfs.

I see no need or market for small step changes of .2ghz as with the E2000s, or mid range processors such as the E4000s. Just look at OC - they only stock the E4500 now.

mame · 22 Jan 2008 at 21:33

Kirth Gersen said:
Yep, the E8200 needs to go sub £100 to tempt people, and I still reckon most will go E8400/8500.

the thing with the e8200 is that with it having an 8 multiplier, you will need good ram to be able to overclock it to high speeds. 450x8 = 3.6ghz, 475x8 = 3.8ghz etc. You can't go lower than 1:1. Not sure my ram would run 475mhz

Topitoff · 22 Jan 2008 at 22:01

mame said:
the thing with the e8200 is that with it having an 8 multiplier, you will need good ram to be able to overclock it to high speeds. 450x8 = 3.6ghz, 475x8 = 3.8ghz etc. You can't go lower than 1:1. Not sure my ram would run 475mhz

Even with the E8400 my RAM gave out before the cpu, it would not reliability work above 470 and it's the OCZ XTC rev 2 PC6400. With the E8200 reputed to do 4Ghz I think some Ballistix is required

toucam · 23 Jan 2008 at 00:09

You should learn to content with what you have rather than wasting money for nothing. What an E8500 would bring you that a Q6600 @ 4Ghz can't?
The only thing an E8500 under water will bring you is more time wasted on endless testing, rebooting, money and a stupid sense of pride and joy that you are o/cing the heck out of the latest CPU on earth.
Whether it's worth it, it's your call. But I think it is and I'm going to throw away my Q6600 out of the window the minute my Q9450 arrives

Hesky82 said:
I want them to go away! I should be happy with my 4Ghz Q6600, well I am, but I can’t help thinking what an E8500 under water cooling would do!

mame · 23 Jan 2008 at 00:18

toucam said:
You should learn to content with what you have rather than wasting money for nothing. What an E8500 would bring you that a Q6600 @ 4Ghz can't?
The only thing an E8500 under water will bring you is more time wasted on endless testing, rebooting, money and a stupid sense of pround and joy that you are o/cing the heck out of the latest CPU on earth.
Whether it's worth it, it's your call. But I think it is and I'm going to throw away my Q6600 out of the window the minute my Q9450 arrives

i like the idea of the wolfdales but gaming is the only cpu intensive thing i do. I bet if i got the e8400 and got it to 4Ghz i could barely tell the difference. thats not to say i won't buy one! Need to be sensible......

tsinc80697 · 23 Jan 2008 at 00:52

Tempted to buy one just to see what it clocks to, need to see how much 2nd hand market is for them already!

C64 · 23 Jan 2008 at 03:26

Well I need to see what difference in games a 4+ghz cpu has over a 3.2-3.6 ghz duo has before i make my mind up here.
Am thinking now that my 6420 is only worth £50 resale now and it's not worth the bother.

Big.Wayne · 23 Jan 2008 at 06:55

Lightnix said:
Intel will NOT be selling the older Conroe chips cheaper. That isn't how they work. They introduce a new product line which performs better at a lower price point to cannibalize their older products; completely replace the lineup

I don't understand why they do this?

nVidia have effectively done a similar thing with the 8800GT being a faster and cheaper card than the older 8800GTS 640MB?

What is the logic in all this? Not that I'm complaining but I don't understand why INTEL have a superior product selling for less than an older and less powerful product?

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail

£144.51 inc VAT

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 "LGA775 Conroe" 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail

£178.59 inc VAT

wolvers · 23 Jan 2008 at 07:12

If they made the old stuff cheaper then no-one would buy the new stuff that they've spent millions on development and manufacturing processes. I think it's called progress!

Big.Wayne · 23 Jan 2008 at 07:25

wolvers69 said:
If they made the old stuff cheaper then no-one would buy the new stuff that they've spent millions on development and manufacturing processes.

They may have spent millions on R&D but that normally pushes the product price *Up* not *Down* as the higher price is warranted by the superior bleeding edge tech and the older product line should be discontinued or have a price drop (or both).

Since the G0 Dual-Cores have been selling longer you would have thought the E6550, E6750 and E6850 products have recovered their R&D costs so INTEL could afford to let the price down a bit?

Something about the pricing of these new Wolfdales isn't making sense to me?

Anyways for the same money a year ago you could have bought a E6400 (2.13GHz - 2MB Cache - 1066FSB) so an E8400 (3.0GHz - 6MB Cache - 1333FSB) for the same money is what I call progress! :cool:

Kirth Gersen · 23 Jan 2008 at 07:35

Big.Wayne said:
I don't understand why they do this?

nVidia have effectively done a similar thing with the 8800GT being a faster and cheaper card than the older 8800GTS 640MB?

What is the logic in all this? Not that I'm complaining but I don't understand why INTEL have a superior product selling for less than an older and less powerful product?
£178.59 inc VAT

Precisely the point of my 2nd ramble BW

Kirth Gersen · 23 Jan 2008 at 07:39

mame said:
i like the idea of the wolfdales but gaming is the only cpu intensive thing i do. I bet if i got the e8400 and got it to 4Ghz i could barely tell the difference. thats not to say i won't buy one! Need to be sensible......

In my case, my main game is FSX which is CPU intensive, and my current rig stumbles along in the 20 FPS at medium/high settings, and becomes a slideshow at high settings, I yearn for every extra 100Mhz!!

Stelly · 23 Jan 2008 at 07:40

going to resist for now I think

Stelly

wolvers · 23 Jan 2008 at 07:42

It's not about R&D, it's about manufacturing processes.

More 45nm chips can be produced on one piece of silicone so they inevitably cost less to produce.

Big.Wayne · 23 Jan 2008 at 07:42

Kirth Gersen said:
Precisely the point of my 2nd ramble

You may wanna edit that *mahoosive* quote lol

I dunno as I already said I'm not complaining about the price but I just wanted to get my head around how the business of it all works, I mean its like going to Mc Donalds and having the choice between regular sized french fries for £2.00 or a large portion for £1.00?

Big.Wayne · 23 Jan 2008 at 07:57

Stelly said:
going to resist for now I think

What chip are you running at the moment then Stelly?

I'm still using an E6300 and an E2140 and got offered an E8400 last week for about £120, reached for the wallet and then thought "Nah"

TBH I am really busy with work and stuff at the moment but if I had more spare time I think I would have probably snapped one up. I'm also just getting my new P35 platform sorted so that will give me something to do for a few weeks, I'm really hoping I can get my old E6300 up to 3500MHz or the E2140 higher than 3300MHz.

Apart from the overclocking potential of the Wolfdales I am impressed by their low power consumption, I wonder what the annual saving in the leccy bill would be over a Conroe? I have no idea could be £10 could be £100 or more?

Hesky82 · 23 Jan 2008 at 08:16

toucam said:
The only thing an E8500 under water will bring you is more time wasted on endless testing, rebooting, money and a stupid sense of pride and joy that you are o/cing the heck out of the latest CPU on earth.
Whether it's worth it, it's your call. But I think it is and I'm going to throw away my Q6600 out of the window the minute my Q9450 arrives

And possibly 5Ghz! I’m an OC enthusiast, I like testing cpu's and pushing them to the limit! Just the geeky side of me getting out!

Current quads that clock to 4ghz with low vcore are in high demand at the moment, also the fact they have gone up in price considerably since I bought mine it seems like a good idea to sell it on and grab the cheapest E8500 I can find.

The Q9450 doesn’t interest me, realistically probably could only get 4ghz max out of it due to the low multi.

mattyrigby00 · 23 Jan 2008 at 08:36

Big.Wayne said:
I don't understand why they do this?

nVidia have effectively done a similar thing with the 8800GT being a faster and cheaper card than the older 8800GTS 640MB?

What is the logic in all this? Not that I'm complaining but I don't understand why INTEL have a superior product selling for less than an older and less powerful product?

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail

£144.51 inc VAT

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 "LGA775 Conroe" 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail

£178.59 inc VAT

they did the exact same thing to the e6x00 series when the e6x50 series came out

simonnance · 23 Jan 2008 at 09:04

wolvers69 said:
It's not about R&D, it's about manufacturing processes.

More 45nm chips can be produced on one piece of silicone so they inevitably cost less to produce.

Exactly, so the quicker they can EOL the 65nm lines the faster then can move them to the more efficient and cost effective 45nm proccess.

At this price, i really wouldnt be supprised if the E6s are EOLed sooner rather than later..... or Intel will have a bunch of chips no one will actually buy. You cant complain at the pricing though..... Wolfdale beating Conroe by ~10% clock for clock in places, with more cache and at a cheaper price!

TBH though, not worth the effort upgrading with a 3.6Ghz C2D E6400 in currently running. Nelhaem looks to be my next upgrade, short of a massive come-back by the greens.

melbourne720 · 23 Jan 2008 at 09:17

mame said:
the thing with the e8200 is that with it having an 8 multiplier, you will need good ram to be able to overclock it to high speeds. 450x8 = 3.6ghz, 475x8 = 3.8ghz etc. You can't go lower than 1:1. Not sure my ram would run 475mhz

Just get 8500 RAM. It's all so cheap now, you don't need OCing RAM, just stuff that's high at stock. The OCuk 8500 RAM may not look much, but it's £38 for 2GB! As long as it does it stock speeds of 533MHz then thats fine.

Some of that and a P35 motherboard and you have 500FSB goodness