Intel processors overclocking head to head

Intel’s Core Duo processor may have originally been designed for performance laptops, but it has many compelling benefits for specialist desktop systems.

So, we’ll see how Core Duo measures up to earlier Pentium M results.

Test setup

To test Core Duo’s overclocking and gaming potential we used the following configuration: a 2.16GHz Core Duo T2600 in an Asus N4L-VM DH motherboard, fitted with 2GB of Crucial Ballistix DDR2 PC2-6400 memory and a 400GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 hard disk loaded with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

The Crucial PC2-6400 memory was chosen because it has headroom for overclocking.

This configuration was compared with results from an earlier Pentium M rig, consisting of a 2.13GHz Model 770, fitted in an Aopen i915GMm-HFS motherboard with 1GB of Crucial DDR2 PC2-5300 memory.

Overclocking

As with most processors, the only way to overclock the Core Duo is to increase its front-side bus (FSB) speed.

The Core Duo T2600 runs on a 667MHz FSB, which is achieved by applying quadruple-data-rate technology to a 166MHz external bus. This is the figure that needs to be increased for overclocking.

As Asus is happy to admit, its N4L motherboard was never designed for overclocking. In fact, quite the opposite, to ensure the stability of entertainment PCs that house it.

As such, there are only basic options to increase the external bus speed, and none to adjust the core voltage. That said, we took a gamble and increased the bus speed from 166 to 175MHz, overclocking the Core Duo to 2.28GHz.

The system booted and ran our benchmarks without a hitch, scoring 268 in Sysmark 2004 (compared to 255 previously) and taking 14 minutes and 27 seconds to encode our test Vob file into DivX – 22 seconds faster than before.

Unfortunately this was as far as our Core Duo, or at least our Core Duo in the Asus motherboard, wanted to go. Attempts to overclock further failed to boot.

Since we’ve had our 2.13GHz Pentium M 770 overclocked to 2.4GHz, we have higher hopes for the Core Duo in a more enthusiast-friendly motherboard. Its Sysmark score of 268 with a modest overclock outperforms the Pentium M overclocked to 2.4GHz which scored just 201.

Gaming

Motherboards with Core Duo sockets are generally designed for entertainment PC use, and feature integrated graphics which are adequate for driving basic monitors or TVs.

These chipsets are, however, poor performers when it comes to gaming. The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 on our motherboard delivered a paltry 3Dmark05 score of 713 with the T2600 Core Duo clocked normally, or 751 when overclocked.

To be fair, the situation was no better with the integrated graphics of Pentium M motherboards, but the big surprise was how well the mobile processor performed when paired with a proper 3D graphics card.

To see whether Core Duo could also perform as a gaming system we fitted the same Gigabyte NX66256DP Nvidia Geforce 6600 PCI Express graphics card used in previous Pentium M tests.

With the latest Forceware 91.31 drivers installed and the Core Duo clocked normally, 3Dmark05 scored 2,612; when overclocked to 2.28GHz this increased to 2,668.

Previously with the same card, albeit also with slightly older drivers, our Pentium M system scored 2,539 and 2,553 when clocked normally and overclocked, respectively.

This also compares favourably with previous 3Dmark05 results for a 3.6GHz Pentium 4 660 and Athlon 64 4000+ which scored 2,560 and 2,471, respectively with the same graphics card.

Worth further investigation

The first motherboard we’ve used for our Core Duo tests may not be designed for tweaking, but it has proven the mobile processor can make a great gaming platform and there’s certainly promise for overclocking. Check future Performance articles for more tests with Core Duo and its successor the Core 2 Duo.

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