Closer Look at New Processors

Shortly before the upcoming launch we managed to get our hands on all three new Core 2 Duo models supporting 1333MHz bus. We summed up their major characteristics in the following table:

As we see, there is nothing really new except higher bus frequency. Our eye catches the new G0 core stepping that will be used for all Core 2 Duo CPUs with 1333MHz bus. This core stepping cannot boast any new technological innovations compared with the traditional B2 core stepping. However, according to Intel, it features slightly better frequency potential and lower power consumption and heat dissipation.

CPU-Z diagnostic utility doesn’t report any innovations in the new CPUs, as well:

Core 2 Duo E6850:

Core 2 Duo E6750:

Core 2 Duo E6550:

There are two things each mainboard needs to support the new processors: FSB 333MHz and G0 core revision support in the BIOS. All mainboards based on Intel chipsets from the “third” series as well as mainboards on Nvidia nForce 600i officially support the new CPUs. Besides, a lot of mainboards for computer enthusiasts built on earlier Intel chipsets can also work with the new processors. You can find the corresponding compatibility data on the mainboard manufacturers’ websites.

Now that the bus frequency has increased, the new processors drop their frequency only down to 2.0GHz when Demand Based Switching (namely, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep and Enhanced Halt State) technologies are active. As a result, when switching to power-saving mode their power consumption and heat dissipation will drop less significantly than in case of CPUs with 1067MHz bus that get their frequency down to 1.6GHz. We performed the corresponding tests and measured the power consumption of similar systems with Core 2 Duo E6750 and Core 2 Duo E6700 processors working at the same frequency of 2.66GHz but supporting different bus frequency.

True, in idle mode with enabled Enhanced SpeedStep technology the system with Core 2 Duo E6700 processors and 1067MHz bus reduces its power consumption more than the same system with Core 2 Duo E6750 CPU. However, as our practical experiments revealed, the new processors are still more economical thanks to the new G0 core stepping.