Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200

[Rob Williams]

Need to upgrade or build a brand-new PC, but are on a very limited budget? If you don't mind making some small sacrifices, Intel's Wolfdale-based Pentium Dual-Core E5200 is worthy of serious consideration. Despite retailing for only $80, it offers solid performance and some incredible overclocking headroom.

You can read our full review here and discuss it here!

awesome article rob. this is some great work well done.
it really shows well where the i7's are good in and where they are not really can trump.
the E5200 you discussed seems to be a really good chip and now not a secret anymore.

if there is any chance, i know it's a lot of work, but i saw all the chips comparisons for all benches but i saw a few missing in the power consumption comparison. this is an area of interest and concern to me.
if at all possible if you could add those, thank you.

[Rob Williams]

Hi there:

Thanks for the nice comments. The reason we didn't include more results in our power consumption test is because a lot of the CPUs there are "simulated", meaning that we don't have the real CPU, but rather take the next step up that we do have, and down-clock it. So for example with the E8500, which is a 3.16GHz chip, we took the E8600 (3.33GHz) and simply down-clocked it. This gives us the exact specifications that the real chip would have, which is why we're able to include the results.

We don't include power consumption results with simulated chips because that's one set of results that could prove inaccurate between a simulated chip and a real one. Intel bins each CPU differently, depending on how well it clocks, so by using a higher-clocked processor, chances are our under-clocks would draw a little bit more wattage than a real chip.

Essentially though, power draw scales pretty well with frequency. You can see in our chart that our E8400 was 9W lighter than the E8600, so chances are the E8500 would be right in the middle. Basically, if you want to calculate power consumption, you might be able to judge by what we do have there. I do wish we were able to include more real results, but it's difficult to acquire every-single processor out there for that purpose alone.

[PopcornMachine]

Thanks very much for the article. Based on other information I've read, I purchased the parts to complete a new system including the E5200. (I have been building this computer during my holiday vacation. I lead such an exciting life.) And this article was in agreement with most of the good stuff I had read about this chip, and also that the I7 is not the boon to gaming that some expected.

I should also say that my intent with the new system was in part to build a budget gaming system, and that this would be my first attempt at overclocking. I cannot stress how much of a novice, newbie, greenhorn, etc., that I am in this area. I attempted to just up the bus to 266Mhz, but no dice.

My new motherboard is a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P. I have one HIS HD 4830, and a second one that needs to be replaced. Was going to crossfire (I'm getting adventurous in my old age), but that will have to wait. Which is probably just as well. I also have 2x2GB GSkill 800 ram.

Anyway, I used the EasyTune6 software that came with the MB and selected Option 3 to easily get to 3.15GHz. Among other things, that set the bus to 350MHZ and the multiplier down to 9.0. I decided to try incrementing this and see how high can go. It seems to be fine with at 10.5 resulting in 3.675GHz and a 1400MHz FSB. I am testing with Prime95 torture test and SuperPI.

At 11.0, Prime95 worker #1 dies with "FATAL ERROR: Rounding was..." and "Hardware failure detected". I'm assuming that this is just a sign that I've gone to far, and not an indication of a true hardware error. Back at 10.5, no errors. When testing, the CPU System Temp is around 34C and the CPU temp 46-49C. The temps for both cores hover round 57-60C in the two testers I mentioned. The IntelBurnTest sent the core temps to 70C and I decided that software is a bit too harsh.

So please, anyone, let me know if I'm doing something completely idiotic. And any hints on how to get this chip to 4GHz on this motherboard would be great.

Happy New Year and Happy Holidays to everyone.

[haste]

Nice article. I picked up a GIGABYTE GA-E7AUM-DS2H along with an E5200 and 2x2gb DDR2 1066 ram today. Reading this review has me even more excited. This will be a cheap upgrade and I'm hoping to see a world of difference.

[Rob Williams]

Welcome to the forums, both of you :-)

PopcornMachine:

The thing I found out about this chip in the review was that it does NOT like a high FSB frequency. Our top clock was 300MHz FSB, and even that might be too high on certain motherboards. The Rampage Extreme is built a little more to handle the pain, so it's really hard to say. That motherboard shouldn't be a real issue though... I'd first try 250MHz * 12.5 and see where that gets you.

I highly recommend using the BIOS for the sake of overclocking. I have never liked using Windows' apps for the task, although my opinion may vary from the masses. When dealing with such a fussy chip, though, I'd recommend the BIOS highly. Also, when overclocking, you need to make sure that the RAM isn't being overclocked too much as well... although I'm really not sure if that's such an issue here. Like I said though, I'd try 250*12.5 and get that stable, then move the FSB upward, slowly, to see where you can get.

As for 4GHz, that might be a tad difficult. Our max was 3.75GHz, but I still consider that to be an incredible clock.

Haste:

Congrats on the purchase... hope you plan on overclocking that thing ;-)

[haste]

Originally Posted by Rob Williams

Welcome to the forums, both of you :-)


Haste:

Congrats on the purchase... hope you plan on overclocking that thing ;-)

Thanks!

And of course, I will be overclocking. It will be under water for most of its lifetime. I plan on moving the parts I puchased to a watercooled HTPC in a few months when I hopefully upgrade my main rig to i7. I'll be happy with just a 3.5ghz overclock, because it will more than likely just go back to stock clocks when I put it in the HTPC(going for extreme silence).
I'm getting the parts now to make sure I don't have any weird issues, before I integrate them into my home theater.

If I remember, I'll post my results here later next week after I do some tinkering around. It may take me a little while since I've been running socket 939 for the past 3 years, so this Intel stuff is foreign to me.

[PopcornMachine]

Originally Posted by Rob Williams

I highly recommend using the BIOS for the sake of overclocking. I have never liked using Windows' apps for the task, although my opinion may vary from the masses. When dealing with such a fussy chip, though, I'd recommend the BIOS highly. Also, when overclocking, you need to make sure that the RAM isn't being overclocked too much as well... although I'm really not sure if that's such an issue here. Like I said though, I'd try 250*12.5 and get that stable, then move the FSB upward, slowly, to see where you can get.

Thanks very much for your thoughs. I see what you mean about using the software. It is rather inconsistent or even flakey. So I disabled it, booted into the BIOS and reset to defaults. But I could not get past 250MHz at 12.5. Tried several things but it just wouldn't budge. Maybe some simple voltage tweak is needed, but I have no clue on that so far.

And I was getting disturbing results when I tried. At around 2AM yesterday it was telling me the boot disk was corrupted or unbootable, and would hang any time I tried to set the BIOS back to defaults. Later that moring, I turned it back on and was then able to reset, and found that my disk was OK. I guess it just needed a timeout.

I know you said this chip doesn't like high FSB, but that was the only way I had any success. So I used my notes on the settings previous success and put them in manually this time.

FSB 200 -> 350 MHz
Ratio 12.5 -> 10.5
Memory 800 -> 840 MHz (by selecting SPD of 2.40B)

CPU PLL 1.50 -> 1.85
CPU Term 1.20 -> 1.50
CPU VCore 1.2125 -> 1.14125
DRAM Volt. 1.90 -> 2.00
MCH Core 1.10 -> 1.40

Again, this is based on what the flakey software gave me earlier. The only change I made was raising the multiplier from 9.0 to 10.5. But it seems quite stable here. Just not sure if some of these settings could damage or shorten the life of the system. The image below shows the resulting voltage and temperature readings during a Prime95 test. For now I'm easing back from this until I'm more sure I know what I'm doing.

Please let me know if these temps are too high. Also, what is important here? Not sure which readings are out of whack. I know speedfan thinks the cpu is on fire, but I've see these temps on attempts by others and nothing said about them. So if there are general guidelines, I haven't found them yet. Thanks again.

[Merlin]

I would say it's too hot at 60 and 61* C, marked by the little flames

[PopcornMachine]

Yeah, the flames are what is bothering me. But it may be that I need to configure SpeedFan.

What is really interesting is that CoreTemp always reports the two temps to be 4-5C less that SpeedFan shows. Not sure which is more accurate, thus adding to my confusion.

[Merlin]

Try Raltemp and see if any differences occure

[PopcornMachine]

Merlin, RealTemp shows the core as 5C less than CoreTemp and thus 10C less than SpeedFan.

I'm hoping these really are the real temps. Going to actually have to look at the documentation and see if I need to configure something for each of these programs.

Thanks for the tip.

[Merlin]

Originally Posted by PopcornMachine

Merlin, RealTemp shows the core as 5C less than CoreTemp and thus 10C less than SpeedFan.

I'm hoping these really are the real temps. Going to actually have to look at the documentation and see if I need to configure something for each of these programs.

Thanks for the tip.

Most motherboard BIOS will also tell you the temps, but realtemp is the closest to the actual temp that I have seen.
Stay cool,
Merlin

Lots of help. I was thinking of a more expensive cpu but I just cant afford it.

Anyhow. Do you think a overclock to 3GHz would be possible on the stock fan? I'm new at this and worried ima break somthing. Do you have a budget motherboard (less then 100 bucks) that you would recommend to overclock this cpu?

Finally, my current cpu is an intel Pentium D 805 @ 2.66ghz, would the E5200 be faster even at stock clocks.

thanks

ps... love the avatar rob, cant wait for that album.

[Greg King]

Even at stock clocks, that chip will be faster. It's a completely different CPU architecture and even as a "budget" chip, your going to be significantly upgrading your machine.

As for a budget board, I know ASUS has a few that would allow you to easily get to 3 GHz.