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Overclocking

What can I say?

New lab record.

4.37GHz with a Core 2 Duo E8500 (45nm Penryn dual core) - with just air cooling!

And the system was stable!

How did I get this high?

• Noctua 12H cooler
• two 63CFM 12cm fans in a push-pull configuration
• OCZ DDR3-1800 Platinum dual channel kit
• Vcore at 1.475V
• Vnb at 1.45V
• Vfsb at 1.46V
• Vram at 1.96V
• FSB set to 460MHz
• CPU multiplier at 9.5
• 400MHz FSB strap
• DDR3-1840MHz speed selected
• 8-8-8-24 timings
• 2T command rate
• Spread Spectrum disabled

Power Consumption

As you can see from the chart, at 333MHz the X38 and X48 consume basically the same amount of power, however at 400MHz, the X48 consumes a bit more when idle, and a bit less when loaded. When highly overclocked, allowing for the 95MHz processor advantage for the X48, the power consumption is basically the same as well.

Conclusion

I just recently finished the E8500 review on the X38 version of the board - and I was amazed there at the 4.27GHz I obtained. The X38 was usable up to 500MHz FSB, but I found that the X48 could be stabilized as high as 525MHz - albeit with a lower multiplier for the CPU, resulting in lower performance than the 9.5x460 speed I found to be the best performer. Therefore for the "best performance overclock" I backed down to a "mere" 460x9.5 setting.

I must admit that I don't like some of the cost cutting measures (leaving off a PCIe 1x slot and two USB ports) compared to the earlier X38 based board - however I do very much like the extra overclocking elbow room the board gave me. You may well say that an extra 95MHz is not a big deal - and you would largely be right - however it sure does feel nicer to achieve a higher overclock, and at a lower Vcore to boot.

This board gave me the highest memory speeds I've yet obtained!

Basically I think the P5E3 Premium rocks, and it definitely deserves an Overclocker's Award.