Home > Consumer Reviews > Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 3 GHz 1333MHz 6 MB LGA775 CPU BX80570E8400

I was undecided between the e8400 and the Q6600 until after doing some research, I learned that almost no programs take advantage of a quad core right now, and are unlikely to in the near future. With the rate processor technology changes these days, getting a quad core now doesn't make a lot of sense. By the time quad cores are the norm, there will be something way better than what's on the market now. Dual core is sufficient for 99.9 of all programs on the market!

I was able to overclock this processor to 3.8ghz using a Zalman CPU cooler at 48C idle and 56C under load. I have a Asus p5k-e motherboard, which overclocks really, really well.

Pros:

Tremendous speed for the price

Extreme overclocking potential

Intel reliability

Cons:

Pretty poor stock cooler. Get yourself an aftermarket cooler if you plan to do any overclocking.

I have had this processor for a month and it works well. I have not overclocked it yet. It is an excellent value for the price.

My main problem is that the heat sink/fan is *extremely* hard to install. I could only get three of the pins into the motherboard. I pressed and pressed and bent the board and I think I got the fourth pin in, but it was unsettling to push that hard. Both of my thumbs hurt afterward. I have an XFX 780i motherboard.

Normally it wouldn't matter, because you wouldn't use the stock cooling. However, this chip is popular partially because it can reach 3.6 GHz or more with the included fan.

Also, when I installed it the processor was set at a 7x multiplier. I easily increased this to 9x in BIOS to get the full 3GHz, but it was odd that it started at 7x.

This is the best sub 200 chip right now bar none. As the others have mentioned , it does 4 GHZ overclocked easy. Runs very cool . Its an excellent value !!

The only problem i have come across with this chip was with the cooler that came with it (i should have known better anyway). The cooler is spring loaded, and one of the screws popped up during normal use, causing the cpu to get really hot and almost burnt it out. I closely monitor my systems heat so i was ontop of it within moments, but if it happened when i wasnt home my whole system would have been finished.

Once i traded out coolers i havent had a hiccup. And like i said before, i should have known better once i saw the spring loaded screws for the cooler.

I've been using this processor for a few months now in my gaming computer. I've got it paired with 2 GBs of RAM and a Nvidea Geforce 9600 GT running Widows Vista Home Premium 32 bit. For gaming, usually the Graphics Card is the bottleneck, but I had been using the exact same setup with an older Pentium D 2.8 Ghz Dual Core. After switching it everything runs at a higher frame-rate. I would imagine most people who are building a gaming system would do fine with this processor.