Wolfdale – Friend or Foe? 

Introduction

The much hyped release of Intels flagship processor the QX9650 late last year has wet the lips of many an enthusiast waiting for the more affordable CPU's in Intels new range to arrive. Will the recent Wolfdale CPU range leave AMD hiding in thier burrows? Or is Intel marketing crying wolf?

With the recent release of Intel’s new "Wolfdale" core CPU’s and the unsurprising initial supply problems most people have probably been finding it difficult to get their hands on one ... unless they are prepared to pay for pre-order and subject themselves to certain etailer price gouging.

Current Wolfdale range, specifications & approximate prices:

 - E8200 (2.66 GHz – 1333 MHz FSB – 8x Multi) - £115
 - E8400 (3.0 GHz – 1333 MHz FSB – 9x Multi) - £140
 - E8500 (3.16 GHz – 1333 MHz FSB – 9.5x Multi) - £190

Those lucky enough to get their hands on one have been reporting some mixed results. It seems that some Wolfdale CPU’s have been shipped with faulty temperature sensors, so if you see core temp reporting 48deg idle temperatures don’t be surprised!

Voltages

VID has also been in question relating directly to the potential clocking ability of all Intel CPU’s and the lowest I have seen with the Wolfdale generation is 0.0875v. More common will be around 1.05 – 1.15v and although these are an indication of clocking ability they can also be misleading. Just because the VID is lower doesn’t mean it will clock better, the VID of my 8400 is far higher but is a far better clocker and much more stable than the E8500.

Having tested and benchmarked both the E8400 & E8500, I have very mixed feelings about them, while being reasonably overclockable and far superior to the Conroe generation for benchmarking they have shown signs of instability. Even with my Asus P5K-Premium motherboard flashed to the latest bios I have seen numerous worrying stability issues with general everyday usage.

Stability Issues

The E8500 has a faulty temp sensor and reports 48 degree idle temps (at stock speeds & volts) in core temp. It passed 12hours Prime 95 stability test @ 4.2 GHz only to crash randomly while playing games, running 3dMark, surfing the internet or even boot into Vista! The 8E400 temp sensor was fine and core temp reported 31 degree idle temps (at stock speeds & volts), although I also experienced similar stability issues, booting at a certain speed one minute then refusing to the next. One point others may find useful is that I managed to get the E8400 completely stable @ 4.5 GHz by setting both the voltage (GTL) reference settings within bios to x61. This setting seemed to iron out all the instability issues and it then ran every benchmark and even passed a short 2 hour Prime 95 run.

Other issues I made a note of while playing around with bios settings to enhance stability were voltages, it is worthwhile taking into account that both of these CPU’s seemed to want 1.5vcore before they really started to clock well but at the same time neither of them liked being given 1.65vcore or more. The E8500 was also tested under cascade but unfortunately would not boot due t o a cold bug.

Test Setup:
 - E8400 & E8500
 - Asus P5K-Premium “Black Pearl” (bios Rev.0504)
 - 4gb Crucial PC5300 Ballistix
 - Silverstone OP 750W

Cooling:
 - D-Tek Fuzion CPU Block – mounted with MX-2
 - Thermochill PA120.2 Radiator
 - Laing DDC2 Pump – with Alphacool top

Screenshots

{imggallery 397}
Final Words

One thing to note is that both of these CPU’s have a packing date on the box of January 2008. The E8400 for example has a pack date of 25th January 2008, but unfortunately the week/batch codes are quite old in comparison. The E8400 has a week code of 48A, which to me indicates the last week in November 2007. If this is really the case then what we are seeing as stock at the moment is from the initial batches that Intel made last year, while still potentially in testing and this could go some way to explaining the stability issues and faulty temp sensors.

My advice to anyone looking to buy one, would be to wait a month or so for the new technology to mature and new batches to arrive. I would also recommend contacting your supplier in advance and confirming the week codes are not from older batches.

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