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Overclocking

As you saw from the charts, we were able to reach a maximum stable overclock of 3.204GHz - which is not bad, but frankly, I was a bit dissapointed.

The E4400 was able to reach 3.4GHz cooled by the same Noctua 12 cooler, and it is based on the same Allendale core as the E2160, so I had hoped to reach 3.4GHz with the E2160 as well. Looking around the net, I noticed that a few people were able to surpass 3.2GHz, so I suspect that we simply have a case of the "luck of the draw" where we drew a not so great sample of the E2160. The fact that our E2160 has a default Vcore of 1.345V supports this hypothesis.

What I found especially surprising is that the E2160 had significant problems in trying to reach FSB speeds much in excess of 350MHz - as the E4400 had no problems with a 400MHz FSB - which begs the question - is the E2160 deliberately FSB limited? Or could it be that the E21xx series really is made with parts rejected from E4x00 series production?

In order to reach 3.204GHz, the system was configured as follows:

• Vcore at 1.45V
• Vram at 2.3V
• FSB got a +0.1V boost
• MCH got a +0.1V boost
• PCI frequency was locked at 100MHz
• a 3x memory multiplier was used for a 1068MHz memory speed with 4-4-4-12 timing

Now why did I give the FSB/MCH voltages as "+0.1V"?

I had to do that due to the BIOS not displaying actual voltages :-(

Power Consumption

We had to find out how the E2160 fared as far as power consumption went, so we measured the power draw using our "KILL A WATT P3" watt meter to measure the power consumed by the computer (not including the monitor) while idling on the Windows desktop and while 100% loading both cores.

Frankly, the results surprised me.

The E2160 used significantly less power than the energy efficient AMD X2 4200+ ... and even more suprising, the loaded very overclocked E6750 also used less power than the AMD chip. Well done Intel!

Conclusion

We'd like to thank NCIX.com for helping us get a E4300 for this review.

Even though the maximum overclock was a bit dissapointing, in reality, how hard can we complain about reaching a 78% overclock with a <$100 chip?

I think I've been spoiled by playing with some incredibly overclockable chips. My recent review of the E6750 just blew me away with how overclockable that chip was - reaching 3.8GHz air cooled is no mean feat - however I must keep in mind people's budgets.

At <$100, getting a dual processor that will clock to over 3GHz - 3.2GHz with our sample - is nothing to sneeze at. Sure, AMD has even cheaper parts - the AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ comes to mind - however there is no question that this chip will outperform it for number crunching and gaming. The X2 4200+ which is at the same price point at stock does outperform the E2160 for business applications; however once we overclock the E2160, again, its no contest.

I simulated the E2140 to see how that chip would perform, but frankly, the loss of the 9x multiplier would stop me from buying a E2140 for any system I would overclock as the E2160 I was reviewing did not like high FSB speeds, so that extra multiplier is very important in obtaining good overclocks.

Regardless of the less than expected overclocking potential, I have decided to give the E2160 the "Value" award - it is still a great performer for a great price.