Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale CPU

4.3 is nice especially on air. BTW I digged this article earlier under my dig name JuicyBrain.

Damn...It can even outdo the encoding aspect of the q6600...SSE4 ftw?..=P 

Kamrooz:

Damn...It can even outdo the encoding aspect of the q6600...SSE4 ftw?..=P 

Downside of sse4 is that , ithas been only incorporated into Divx till now . Once u compare x264 which is multithreaded , u'll find q6600 beats e8400 by long way .

Impressive performance, and it will run on my Johannesburg backup machine just fine, so excited for these to come out.

I cant wait to see the quad core version of this chip. I know the Extreme is the same chip but I mean none extreme editions. Now I am thinking what would be better for highly multi-threaded games upcoming like alan wake, whatever new thing valve is working on is already promised to be multi-threaded, the Extreme overclocks of the e8500 or a quad chip. I know right now the E8500 would be faster since most games dont use all the cores yet, but I also heard that crossfire benefits from having more cores. But I havent seen a study on this yet.

With so many great hardware options out now and news of much more to come, it sure is nice to be an enthusiast these days!!!

To be an enthusiast? Sure is. But it looks very expensive hobby :)

 All the new processors and boards out are an addicts dream.

You know it.

 The yorkfields are going to be monsters. I just wish they had a 9x mutliplier like the q6600 >_<...But regardless of that, if I was to pick one up. The q9450 would be it for the SSE4 instruciton set. I work with video after all ^_^.

 Yes I was very disappointed in their Multi. A 9x would have made this chip a killer.

Imagine taking those sexy quads above 4 ghz..>_<..GOD!..That would honestly rock. But that 8/8.5 multi is a slap in the face. But you have to give a hand to intel, this will still drive people towards the q6600 considering the price is going to drop to 200, as well as have a 9x multi for great overclocking. =P 

 Yes when the prices drop I will replace my e6600 with a q6600 in one of my servers and buy a board for the q6600. I have been wanting to try a different board on a q6600 just to see what the possibilities are. Currently my e6600 sits on a P35-DS3R which is a great Cruncher board.

Hi All,

The Wolfdale CPU's are very impressive. That's why I'm going with the E8400 paired with a Maximus Formula Motherboard. 

I have been tempted to buy that MB when I get my second quad. 

jtm55:

That's why I'm going with the E8400

I'm leaning towards that myself.

If I was to get a new rig, the maximus formula would definitely be the choice if I went x38. That black/blue finish is beautiful =D...Love the features, and pci-e 2.0 is nice to have for future drop in video card upgrades. The only downside is the factor of nehalem =P....So I think it'd be best to nab a p35 board and save some cash ^.^

Kamrooz:

If I was to get a new rig, the maximus formula would definitely be the choice if I went x38. That black/blue finish is beautiful =D...Love the features, and pci-e 2.0 is nice to have for future drop in video card upgrades. The only downside is the factor of nehalem =P....So I think it'd be best to nab a p35 board and save some cash ^.^

Hi All

Nehalem, if it lives up to expectations will be a Monster. However, do we know when it's to be released? Do we know how much it's going to cost? Intel, if they follow their normal routine releases their Flagship Top of the line processors first. Suppose there's a delay in Intels release schedule? Point being I see no reason to wait for a Processor that isn't even out yet & are not sure when it is to be released.

I agree and don't like waiting. If you can afford to upgrade and want something now... go for it. Don't get me wrong, I feel it is important for the buyer to know at least a bit about upcoming tech so they can estimate a window of viability. I say this because it would suck if the buyer were completely out of the loop and jumped on something that was actually "on it's way out" only to see the next big thing come out very shortly after their purchase. Granted most of the forum goers here are very up on the bleeding edge, but I think you guys see my point. 

If I spend 2 or 3 c notes on a processor and another 2 on a board that supports wolf/york and DDR2 for a total of $500, I wouldn't mind if in the worst case scenario I was only able to ride it for 12 mos. because I game ALOT so I'd get plenty of use out of it in that time. Not to mention that after only 12 mos. I can probably get at least $300 for the set on e-bay(or craigslist)and more if I throw in the DDR2. So essentially I'd be paying $200 for a solid year of use of a nice cpu and board... not to shabby at all IMO.

 Nehalem will be very expensive at first so anice Maximus Formula and a 45nm chip could stave off the addict's hunger for a while at least.

I do agree that if you need a upgrade, best just go for it...Heck. If I could get a new rig now, I would in a heartbeat. My rig is way too dated to even considering waiting for Nehalem.

But if you do have the cash, best not to go too crazy. Nehalem will indeed be a monster....On some of the forums I visit, there are a few users who work at intel, and they assure me that my jaw will drop. So We'll have to wait and see how this sucker performs ^_^. In terms of pricing, always extreme edition first at around 1000 or so. Than Q1 2009, we'll have our 150-600 dollar range. =P....I'm just praying Nehalem is a overclocking god just like Core =P. 

That is some crazy overclocking. If Nehalem is as good as is believed then I cant imagine whats in store.

Couple of quick questions.

 I am very curious, what is the cause of the very high memory latency in the Phenom systems in Sandra's bench?

 Also, I am wondering exactly what air cooler you used in the overclocking tests?

 Thanks! Great parts coming down the line, hard to resist an upgrade with these results!

.

Lolthotech: Unfortunately, AMD took a backwards plunge when it came to memory performance on K10...Mostly due to the architecture and route they took with their l2/l3 cache. I'm not 100% sure on this one though, so if someone more informed on the barcelona architecture could drop their thoughts, I'd appreciate it. But the x2's have a much higher memory bandwidth then Barcelona when you compare them via synthetic benchmarks. I really do need to read more into barcelona...To get a bigger picture of why it's so flawed 

I just know that Phenom's L3 cache runs at a fixed speed (1800Mhz iirc), unlike L2s which run at the CPUs speed.  This is why scaling isn't so good with Phenom's as other CPUs; less performance is gained per MHz.  I don't know why the synthetic benchmarks are weird thoug.  Just felt like pointing that out.

Crisis Causer:

I just know that Phenom's L3 cache runs at a fixed speed (1800Mhz iirc), unlike L2s which run at the CPUs speed.  This is why scaling isn't so good with Phenom's as other CPUs; less performance is gained per MHz.  I don't know why the synthetic benchmarks are weird thoug.  Just felt like pointing that out.

Yeah, I thought I understood what was going on with the Phenom, it's HT link and L3 cache... but some numbers I saw in a recent magazine (Maximum or CPU Mag -- dunno which) were not nearly that far off, they were getting 88-98ns for latency. I remember now that this is with gangmode off, latency went up. With gangmode on the numbers were only a 10ns or so up from what the same ram would get in an Intel system. So there is still a couple hundred ns that's not accounted for here!

I'll dig around for the issue and if I find it will report back to clarify.

 .