Performance:

No, the E4400 did not reach 333 FSB and I am not disappointed at all. 4Core1333-Viiv did not disapoint me neither. On the contrary, I've found an excellent match for the processor and mainboard. ASRock has never made claim on overclocking ability of their mainboards. To be able to achieve 363 FSB without much help from the BIOS can't be disappointed.

Our previous [M] article on "Intel C2: Is highspeed memory worth its price?" stands because the table below reconfirms the little increase in performance. A better graphic card is the way to improve game performance.

I include Opteron 165 @2.8 onto the charts for reference.



3DMark06 CPU scores show the advantage of CPU speed increase; otherwise, the total picture shows much less.



SuperPI shows drastic improvement as the clock speed goes up.





Surprisingly the compression time decrease tapered down when the clock speed reaches beyond 2.6 GHz.



Realtek audio works very nicely other than my front panel Mic and Headphone. The manual did not say much indicating for use with HD front panel audio may be my problem.

Enabling SpeedStep and CPU fan control at BIOS allow quiet and energy efficient (saving) operation when CPU load is not in high demand. It provides 3 steps; multiplier 6, 8 & 10; at overclocked speed it would mean 2GHz for low. 2.66GHz at 8 multi and 3.26GHz at high: 91 Watts system load during Internet browsing and office work versus slightly more than 170 Watts on games and heavy load. When running benchmarking such as SuperPI, it is better to turn off Speedstep for best result.


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Conclusion next ->