Core 2 Duo E6750 Performance Preview June 24, 2007 Brandon Sandman Bell

Introduction

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In recent months, Intel has taken a number of steps to address this.

Intel first laid the groundwork with the release of the P35 Bearlake platform last month. P35 offers support for DDR3 memory, which may eventually scale to speeds of 1.6GHz, as well as supporting faster bus speeds; FSB speeds up to 1333MHz are officially supported. By moving from 1066MHz to 1333MHz FSB, system bandwidth improves by 20%, going from 8.5GB/sec to 10.6GB/sec, for an improvement of over 2GB/sec. With Intel’s CPUs scaling to higher clock speeds, as well as going from dual processing cores to quad core, this increase in system bandwidth is important in order to deliver optimal CPU performance.

The release of a new 1333MHz platform wouldn’t be complete without the release of corresponding 1333MHz CPUs to accompany it, that’s where today’s article comes in. Arriving later this summer will be a slew of new 1333MHz Core 2 CPUs from Intel. Today we’re giving you a sneak peek at one of them, the Core 2 Duo E6750.

Running at a clock speed of 2.66GHz, the Core 2 Duo E6750 packs a 4MB L2 cache and official 333MHz FSB support (remember, the Core 2’s system bus is quad-pumped, so 1333MHz effective). As its name implies, the Core 2 Duo E6750 corresponds most closely to today’s Core 2 Duo E6700, although obviously with its faster FSB the chip will run a little faster than an E6700; we’ll show you by exactly how much in our benchmarks later in this article.

As we mentioned earlier, Intel will be releasing a slew of new 1333MHz FSB processors that run at clock speeds similar to today’s existing Core 2 CPUs. To differentiate the 333MHz FSB CPUs from the older 266MHz models, Intel will be using the number “50” at the end of the model number. The Core 2 Duo E6850 for instance is expected to run at 3.0GHz with a 333MHz FSB. Physically, these 333MHz chips look identical to their predecessors and boast the same thermal design power (TDP), so power and cooling should be similar to previous Core 2 CPUs.

Overclocking

Intel’s Core 2 line of CPUs have historically been pretty strong performers in the overclocking department, so we had high hopes for the Core 2 Duo E6750. Thankfully, we weren’t disappointed. After only a little bit of tweaking, we were able to break 3GHz at stock voltage – the CPU was barely breaking a sweat. Ultimately we were able to overclock the CPU to 3.96GHz (8.0x495) at 1.45V.

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System Setup

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System Setup

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (3.0GHz)

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6800 (2.93GHz)
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66GHz)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.67GHz)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4GHz)

ASUS M2N32-SLI Premium
ASUS P5K3 Deluxe

2GB Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C3
2GB Kingston KHX11000D3LLK2/2G

EVGA GeForce 8800 Ultra w/ForceWare 158.22


Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2

DirectX 9.0c

Benchmarks

LAME MT MP3 Encoding (MS Compiler)
DivX Converter
Windows Media Encoder 9
3DMark06
F.E.A.R. 1.08
Pacific Fighters 4.04
Quake 4 1.2
Oblivion
Company of Heroes 1.3
Cinebench 9.5

Media encoding and rendering

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Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9

DivX Converter

LAME MT MP3 Encoding

Cinebench 9.5

Valve Particle Simulation benchmark

3DMark 06 and PCMark 05

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Futuremark 3DMark06

PCMark 05

Quake 4

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Quake 4

Company of Heroes

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Company of Heroes

FEAR	Page:: ( 7 / 9 )

FEAR

Half-Life 2 Lost Coast

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Conclusion

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That’s a pretty nice improvement in our opinion.

On top of that, all indications are these new 333MHz FSB CPUs are terrific overclockers. First-generation Core 2 CPUs were often able to hit speeds of 333MHz without breaking a sweat, and it looks like these new 333MHz FSB Core 2 processors scale just as well. Thanks to the impressive scalability of the new P35 chipset, and the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe, we were able to hit speeds of nearly 500MHz FSB in our overclocking tests with the Core 2 Duo E6750! We were actually able to boot the system even higher, but we couldn’t complete our full battery of tests with 100% stability.

Based on all this, all indications are these new Core 2 CPUs will be a huge hit among hardware enthusiasts and gamers who crave the best in performance. Now we just need to see how much they will cost, and when they’ll be available. Hopefully we’ll have those answers for you shortly, as well as performance numbers (and overclocking results!) for the rest of the 333MHz FSB lineup.

As Intel continues to improve the performance of Core 2 by boosting the CPU’s core clock speed, the proliferation of quad-core, and introducing larger L2 caches, the benefits of the faster 1333MHz FSB will be even more apparent. Even with today’s Core 2 Duo E6750 though we’re already impressed.