Why You Should AVOID Core 2 Duo Engineering Samples

It was 24 hour Orthos stable on air at 3.5ghz with a Scythe Ninja. I couldn't go higher until I got 1067MHz RAM, but at that point I already was using watercooling... 3.6ghz was with water + new RAM, I never tried air on it to check. The Rev 1 DS3 wasn't designed for the electrical load to stay stable though at 3.73ghz and I don't want to do mods to it, so I'm fairly sure the voltage dips are the only reason it's not fully stable beyond 3.6ghz. I am dieing to play with the much better P35 based DS3 boards which can handle the electrical load and absurd FSB levels.

This E6300 was bought at the start of August of last year and those early chips weren't as good OCers as the later editions, hence partly why mine has a high default Vcore at a mere 1.86ghz. Any non ES should be 3.5ghz capable at or below 1.475v if the rest of the system and air cooling is capable of supporting it.

Indeed, a 6300 @ 3.6 stable is very good indeed

if thats 3.6 on air, then it isn't a bad chip at all

I'll grant there are plenty of exceptions yes, but I have only seen the majority of ES chips to overclock poorly, or require higher voltages to reach the same levels. This is also true for those people I somewhat know that acquired one themselves.

I'll grant I never bothered to distinguish between which kind of ES chip, so I do hold that view of them in general. I consider my E6300 to have be of somewhat middle to poor stock but it runs at 3.6ghz stable, almost but not quite 3.73ghz stable at 1.5v. Considering most X6800's and lower chips tend to use a 1.25vcore and the lower bins tend to ship with 1.325vcore despite the much lower speeds, which mine falls under, I know my own chip should fall only within the middle-range as far as overclocking goes.

Honestly, I do deny that.

it's a bit of hit and miss of course, the same as with retail/OEM cpu's. For example, I'm still holding on to my step 5 Conroe ES which is far superior to most of the step 6 retail CPU's (exceptions notwithstanding). The only valid point concerns some of the B0 offerings : they are indeed early samples, and can run rather hot (Kentsfield B0 was a hot MF indeed )

I agree

You cannot deny his points regarding poorer overclocking and usually higher heat generation due to higher voltages. Not to mention the lack of any warranty I presume.

You're right Thorgal ... I guess Intel just doesn't like so many ES samples on the market

What a load of BS

I've owned so many ES samples by now and haven't had a single problem with them. This article is pure Intel companyspeak

lol, are there even ES for normal people and not people who are hot on the unlocked multi?