Ok, previously to purchasing this cpu I had a E4300 which I had clocked at 3.51ghz. It was a great cpu, I was just hungry for the power that these new Wolfdale cores offer.
The Intel E5200 is a stripped down Wolfdale cpu with just 2Mb of level two cache, compared to the 3Mb of the E7x00 series and 6Mb of the E8x00 series.
The E5200 is marketed as a budget cpu under the Pentium branding. Though the cpu has exactly the same architecture as its bigger brother in the Core 2 Duo range such as the E8600.
The E5200 has a stock clock of 2.5ghz and the VID of my chip is 1.225v.
Overclocking:
Overclocking the cpu was very simple, many beginners are afraid of breaking there computers, but with some common sense not much can go wrong.
Keeping the cpu in Intels safe voltage range of 1.375v this cpu generally achieves 3.6ghz-4ghz.
I took the chip up past 3.5ghz with little effort. Cooler of the chip is through the means of Water, with a D-Tek FuZion at the heart of the system.
I put 1.55v into the chip to see how far I could go. For a 24/7 voltage this is quite a lot, but heat is the main factor that kills cpus, so I was happy putting that amount of voltage into the chip as the temperature never goes above about 60c.
Maximum overclock achieved is 4.35ghz.
24/7 clock is 4.175ghz @ 1.55v in bios.
Below shows the benefits of overclocking the cpu in a gaming situation. Gaming is the most cpu intensive task I use my computer for, so the truth in the pudding is how well it games
In particular my favourite game COD4.
Test setup:
E5200 @ stock 2.5ghz
E5200 @ 4.175ghz
8800gts @ stock
8800gts @ 684, 1036
4gb Ballistix ram
Asus commando mobo.
17" monitor @1280x1024
Test game: COD4 @ 1280x1024 @ max settings.
Results:
FPS recorded using fraps, for 7mins, on crossfire map multiplayer.
E5200@2.5ghz 8800gts stock
Frames: 24238 - Time: 207846ms - Avg: 116.615 - Min: 41 - Max: 236
E5200@2.5ghz 8800gts oc
Frames: 57159 - Time: 420000ms - Avg: 136.093 - Min: 67 - Max: 251
E5200@4.175ghz 8800gts oc
Frames: 80153 - Time: 420000ms - Avg: 190.840 - Min: 69 - Max: 253
Ok, the results speak a thousand words.
Overclocking the graphics card increased the min fps dramatically 63% improvement. The average and the max fps also improved considerably.
With the cpu overclocking, the minimum fps only improved by 2 fps, showing that the cpu doesn't bottleneck the min fps. As well, the max fps is also only 2fps better; this shows that the gfx card is at its maximum potential.
Edit: Max fps was set to 249 in game to prevent being kicked from servers. When i set it to 999 the fps spikes up to about 370fps.
What’s really impressive is that the average fps has improved from the stock clocked results with oc card by 55%. This is VERY noticeable in game play, as the motion feels much more fluid.
Here is the Wprime 32m calc:
Super Pi calc:
All in all the E5200 is an excellent cpu for a general pc user, and has plenty of power for gaming.
If anybody wants to build a gaming pc, I’d suggest buying this cpu and spending the majority of your money on a fast graphics card.
Here is a massively impressive gaming pc for under £500. Note windows also needed.
I can't stress enough how good this chip really is. It offers fantastic value for money, and after some light or heavy
overclocking unleashes a mighty powerful processor, which is capable of the most demanding tasks.I'm sure you'll all be amazed at the power the little budget chip can punch, and I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as i have writing it.
Ed
