The magic of Intel Core 2, and when Dell actually made good desktops

[Aniallation]

(Not sure where to categorize, CPUs or air cooling or where ever, if it belongs somewhere other then here mods feel free to move)

 

It's hard to believe that AMD was once a significant amount superior to Intel in pretty much every way including IPC, power consumption, and heat output. AMD created the rather successful Athlon 64 X2 and Intel tried to compete by releasing the Pentium D which was basically two Pentium 4's (which already had compatibly poor IPC and ran quite hot) crammed together under one die. AMD held the hands down lead until the Core series came out when they caught up. Nowadays we take Intel for granted and AMD is left in the dust.

 

I recently got another Dell Dimension E520, the only difference was the CPU. My (dad's) E520 has a Pentium D 830, while the one I just got has the infamous Core 2 Duo E8400. Besides that, specs were the same, and inside they looked relatively the same as well, until I saw the cooler.

 

 

I always noticed that this PC ran really quiet, and now I know why. To keep the massive 130W TDP (yes, higher then today's FX-8350 that everyone whines about regarding heat output) of the Pentium D cooled adequately, they put a massive tower heatsink with dense fins, 3 copper heatpipes, and a 120mm fan. It's roughly the same height and depth as the Hyper 212, but is not as wide.

 

The cooler itself:

 

 

And this is to adequately cool a chip that comparably, actually get's beaten in performance by the Celeron N2840 found in the HP Stream 13, which has a mere 7.5W TDP and can be cooled passively in a laptop. The Dell managed to keep the Pentium D at around 69c under P95 load.

 

By comparison, the cooler on the Core 2 Duo version:

 

 

Much smaller, less dense fins, and no heatpipes. Since the TDP is only 65W. Although it does keep the same fan (it's mounted to the case not the heatsink, air is routed through a shroud).

 

The Core 2 Duo also vastly outperforms the Pentium D as well. At the same ~3GHz clock speed it wasn't surprising to see double the performance if not more on the C2D, just a show of how much Intel worked on their IPC. 

 

All this while actually keeping lower temps, the C2D system maxes out around 62-63c under P95 load.

 

It was definitely a day of learning and surprise for me, and it makes me question why everyone at the time hated Dell (even people who didn't know much about computers). The fact that they actually considered cooling at the time and thought of a way to keep the PC quiet and the hot CPU cool at the same time. I had many other Pentium D systems from other OEMs like HP and eMachines, all of which used this ugly stock cooler which was super loud under load and by looks alone you can tell it wasn't enough for a 130W chip

 

 

And hey, isn't that what people are saying about AMD stock coolers nowadays? Interesting how the tables turn. 

 

If you really want to see how badly AMD needs to catch up on their IPC, the Core 2 Duo E8500 and FX-8320E, both at 3.2GHz stock, get pretty much the same single-threaded synthetic benchmark scores. Yeah, if you're buying an FX for single-threaded workloads, you might as well buy a Core 2 Duo/Quad. Will we see this kind of turnaround in Zen? Who knows

 

/boredthread

[Tagiau]

I still love my 630i. Just because the case is wonderful looking and it actually worked.

[SteveGrabowski0]

If you really want to see how badly AMD needs to catch up on their IPC, the Core 2 Duo E8500 and FX-8320E, both at 3.2GHz stock, get pretty much the same single-threaded synthetic benchmark scores.

 

Oh my God, that's pathetic that a CPU from 2014 just barely inches past one from 2008 in IPC.

[Aniallation]

Oh my God, that's pathetic that a CPU from 2014 just barely inches past one from 2008 in IPC.

Yep, if you're buying an FX for single-threaded workloads, you might as well buy a Core 2 Duo.

[QueenDemetria]

Oh my God, that's pathetic that a CPU from 2014 just barely inches past one from 2008 in IPC.

If there was 6 and 8 core variants of the "Core 2's" you might have a point, but I'm pretty sure those 2014 CPUs wreck those CPU's from 2008 with multi core loads.

[Aniallation]

If there was 6 and 8 core variants of the "Core 2's" you might have a point, but I'm pretty sure those 2014 CPUs wreck those CPU's from 2008 with multi core loads.

Yeah, there's a running gag between me and a group of friends, one of which has a non-overclocked FX-8320 yet plays nothing but single-threaded games like League and Osu, and every time we see him we'd ask "how's your Core 2 Octa?"

[QueenDemetria]

Yeah, there's a running gag between me and a group of friends, one of which has a non-overclocked FX-8320 yet plays nothing but single-threaded games like League and Osu, and every time we see him we'd ask "how's your Core 2 Octa?"

lol, but the real sad part is the no OC

[Aniallation]

lol, but the real sad part is the no OC

GA-78LMT-USB3, you wouldn't want to OC an FX8 on that lol

[BOT Edward]

I bought a C2Q E8200 to replace a E7500 on my scrapyard build for $30 AUD, havn't tested it yet as im still pondering what case mod to do first but for the majority of things it will run everything I need it to (even some gaming). The core lines of CPUs are awesome for nostalgia but they do get pretty darn toasty

[QueenDemetria]

GA-78LMT-USB3, you wouldn't want to OC an FX8 on that lol

I did , 4.2GHz Stable and F@H tested(24/7 for 1 month, been torturing it since). Its actually a very good board, just not user friendly and has lower limits than full ATX boards. Many people think that 4+1 power phases means that it cant deliver the power, but 4+1 is just marketing, AMPs is the real definition of power(and unkown in this case since nobody advertises this).

[Aniallation]

I did , 4.2GHz Stable and F@H tested(24/7 for 1 month, been torturing it since). Its actually a very good board, just not user friendly and has lower limits than full ATX boards. Many people think that 4+1 power phases means that it cant deliver the power, but 4+1 is just marketing, AMPs is the real definition of power(and unkown in this case since nobody advertises this).

Really? I tried and at 3.7 it was unstable. I thought it was the motherboard, but then again he could have just bombed the silicon lottery. 

[QueenDemetria]

Really? I tried and at 3.7 it was unstable. I thought it was the motherboard, but then again he could have just bombed the silicon lottery.

Yeah, either silicon lottery or just the board being a PITA (because it is, so much). It was hard getting my chip to 4.2, I had to mess with about everything lol.

[terrytek]

The reason i never got rid of my Q6600. The Core 2 series is still worthy of being used today. Everybody says its dead and nobody should use it, but it's still got loads of potential.

[MasterP48]

If there was 6 and 8 core variants of the "Core 2's" you might have a point, but I'm pretty sure those 2014 CPUs wreck those CPU's from 2008 with multi core loads.

More cores doesn't mean more power, i rather have a 4core i7 than a 6 core amd cpu, it's about real performance, not abput the ghz or the number of cores

[Aniallation]

More cores doesn't mean more power, i rather have a 4core i7 than a 6 core amd cpu, it's about real performance, not abput the ghz or the number of cores

We know, but that wasn't the point. It's just that if that a theoretical Core 2 Hex or Octa existed, it would basically have the same performance and IPC as a Vishera FX.

[QueenDemetria]

More cores doesn't mean more power, i rather have a 4core i7 than a 6 core amd cpu, it's about real performance, not abput the ghz or the number of cores

I do agree, it is all about real world performance, but that's why I specifically said "multithreaded workloads", where FX chips dominate Core 2 chips despite having the same IPC.

 

Also, core clock, cores, and IPC are all attributes to the performance of a chip, not a single one of these is enough to make a "good chip", a combination of at least two(or the best case scenario of all 3) is needed. If a CPU has a low IPC, it can make up for it in core clock and in multithreaded scenarios, more cores will benefit it. Same with low core count CPU's, a higher IPC will benefit it, but in multithreaded scenarios a higher core clock helps with the lack of cores. So really, it just depends on the application.