Help with My Memory??? Other Vista Discussions Discuss Help with My Memory??? in the Windows Vista forums; Thank crabsters. Well, I am not totally sure what I want to do--overclock, different RAM, nothing? And, I have turned up a new mystery to investigate. Check out this ...

[Znod]

Thank crabsters. Well, I am not totally sure what I want to do--overclock, different RAM, nothing? And, I have turned up a new mystery to investigate. Check out this info, etc., from Wikipedia:

"Kentsfield is the code name for the first quad-core version of the Core 2 processor. The first model of Kentsfield, the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (product code 80562), was released on November 2, 2006, and became available from manufacturers such as Dell and Gateway on November 14. The processor features four cores, with a clock speed of 2.67 GHz, and two 4 MiB L2 caches.

Initial samples of the processor had substantially higher power consumption than their Core 2 Duo counterparts (approx. 130 watts); however, the retail version is expected to have a thermal envelope of 80 W.[17] The top-of-the-line Kentsfield CPU, the first Kentsfield to be released, is branded a Core 2 Extreme processor, while the mainstream version is called Core 2 Quad Q6600 and launched at 2.4 GHz in Jan 2007. Unlike AMD's 4x4 (which refers to two dual-core processors on one motherboard), Kentsfield is a one socket solution; for example, the QX6700 is actually two E6700 chips connected together by a 1066 MT/s FSB on one MCM, resulting in lower costs but less bandwidth to the northbridge. What this also means is that it will be easy for Core 2 Duo early adopters to upgrade their LGA775 platform by just dropping in a quad-core Kentsfield.

As can be expected, four cores scale very well in multi-threaded applications, such as video editing, ray-tracing, or rendering, where the performance almost doubles compared to an equally clocked Core 2 Duo, some performance is lost due to the narrow memory bandwidth and operating system overhead of handling so many cores and threads. However single or dual-threaded applications, for example most games, will not benefit from the additional cores. For single-threaded applications, initial performance reports indicate that this relatively small increase in FSB and processor speed does not dramatically increase overall performance alone; however, it does leave more room for high-speed, low latency RAM to significantly boost the numbers. Nevertheless, multitasking several processor-demanding single threads will see a dramatic overall performance boost; gamers may yet want to look at Kentsfield for the potential to run both a client and a server process of their favorite game without noticable lag in either "thread", as each instance (up to four) could be running on a different processor."

And,


..................................Clock Speed..L2 Cache...........FSB Rating
Core 2 Quad Q6600.........2.40 GHz.......2×4 MiB.......266 MHz QDR
Core 2 Quad Q6700.........2.66 GHz.......2×4 MiB.......266 MHz QDR
Core 2 Extreme QX6800...2.93 GHz.......2×4 MiB.......266 MHz QDR

According to my invoice, etc. my processor apparently is somewhere in between the 2nd and 3rd. Supposedly it is Extreme QX6700 with clock speed of 2.66 GHz--as mentioned above--the Kentsfield. However, my CPU-Z snip says it is a Core 2 Duo X6700. I wonder what I have.

Here is info on the Core 2 Duo X6700.

"The first Intel Core 2 Duo processor cores, code-named Conroe and given the Intel product code 80557, were launched on July 27, 2006 at Fragapalooza, a yearly gaming event in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. These processors are built on a 65 nm process and are intended for desktops, replacing the Pentium 4 and Pentium D. Intel has claimed that Conroe provides 40% more performance at 40% less power compared to the Pentium D. All Conroe processors are manufactured with 4 MiB L2 cache; however, for marketing purposes, the E6300 and E6400 versions have half their cache disabled, leaving them with only 2 MiB of usable L2 cache.

The lower end E6300 (1.86 GHz) and E6400 (2.13 GHz), both with a 1066 MT/s FSB, were released on July 27, 2006. Traditionally, CPUs of the same family with less cache simply have the unavailable cache disabled, since this allows parts that fail quality control to be sold at a lower rating. At launch time, Intel's prices for the Core 2 Duo E6300 and E6400 processors were US$183 and US$224 each in quantities of 1000. Conroe CPUs have an enormous value with their overclocking capabilities — the 1.86 GHz model has been shown to overclock to over 3.0 GHz with a good motherboard supporting high FSB speeds. In these reports, an overclocked Core 2 Duo 1.86 GHz was shown to eclipse the Core 2 Extreme in certain benchmarks. According to reviews, the larger 4 MiB L2 cache vs. the smaller 2 MiB L2 cache can provide a 0–9% performance gain with certain applications and 0–16% performance gain with certain games.[2][3] With the higher overclock of the two processors, end-users can make up the 3.5% percent by overclocking further than its higher end Conroe cousins. However, the low multiplier on these two lower-end chips requires a high FSB to reach high speeds, which few motherboards support.

The higher end Conroe processors are labeled as the E6600 and E6700 Core 2 Duo models, with the E6600 clocked at 2.4 GHz and the E6700 clocked at 2.67 GHz. The family has a 1066 MT/s front side bus, 4 MiB shared L2 cache, and 65 watts TDP. These processors have been tested against AMD's current top performing processors (Athlon 64 FX Series), which were, until this latest Intel release, the fastest CPUs available, and the vanilla Conroe boasts much faster performance.[4] Overclocking results show that the E6700 and E6600 are stable when overclocked to 4 GHz with air cooling and to 5.4 GHz with liquid nitrogen cooling, despite having locked multipliers.


.......................Clock Speed....L2 Cache.....FSB Rating
Core 2 Duo E6700 2.66 GHz........4 MiB......266 MHz QDR

The answer to my puzzlement may be that the latest CPU-Z may not be able to deal with the Extreme Quad Core Processors. See snips below. All thoughts appeciated.

[Snuffy]

CPU-z v 1.39 read more and better than 1.38 and it does read my memory exactly as orderd and exactly the same as set in my Bios... MAXED out..
v1.38 was not as accurate...
CPU speeds are very close. only CPU2 is slightly slower than CPU1.
DOH

[Znod]

Thanks Snuffy. You have been MIA a little lately. Are you OK?

[Snuffy]

Yes, I'm doing fine .. just seems there is a generation gap once in a while ..
on some of the communications .. mostly it is me .. getting OLD and not understanding the younger generation terms. and thanks for asking...

[Znod]

You are very welcome Snuffster.

[Seansmit17]

WHOA *BLINKS*... Znod... ill have to read your posts when i got more time!! :LOL:.. crabby was right.. now thats a post!

[Znod]

There are two long ones. I'll be calling Gateway in reference to the second one tomorrow unless I can figure something out tonight without being a computer mechanic.

[Seansmit17]

well if you want to get some extra speed.. then i highly recommend you upgrade your ram to some DDR2 800mhz stuff or faster to try and catch up with your fsb speed.. at the moment your memory is a bottleneck in your system..

[Znod]

Thanks Sean. Yes, so I have learned. I need 1066 MHz.

[Znod]

My new Gateway with the Extreme Quad Core QX6700 is on the way. Thank goodness for this thread. It'll mean a little work--swapping drives, etc. Gateway is great company. It took five minutes to check my serial number and to tell my my new machine is on the way. And, I am so dumb. I didn't even realize the processor is a 64-bit. So, maybe in a year or so, I'll be moving to 64-bit Vista. I may have a little problem if I ever have to install my OEM Vista, but I think MS will "allow" under the circumstances. I forgot to ask, but my new machine may come with Vista rather than XP Pro. I have a call in to try to ensure that this is what transpires.