Best SpeedStepping Intel Desktop Processor?

[interested]

Hello.

I need to find out what is the best speed stepping Intel Desktop Processor.

I have tried finding this out on the intel website, with no luck.
All I can seem to find is a yes/no as to wether a processor has enhanced speed step.
I cant find anything on the degree of speed stepping supported.

Ok so here is some background on why im asking this
aside from the fact that there are smart people who hang around here who might know this answer

I need to test some scientific hardware and software we have here at work, on a PC which cycles its processor speed and voltage as drastically as possible, and see if there is any effect on our hardware and software.

So far the only setup I have here in our lab that actually has speed stepping is a Pentium4 630, which has a pathetic speed step capability of going from idle 2800Mhz to max 3000Mhz. I need somthing more then that.. At home my AMD X2 4200 goes from 1000 to 2200 with the ocasional step in between, but I need to test this only on Intel chips so I cant try it on this one.

So what (if any) Intel Desktop CPU's actually have more drastic speed steps akin to what their mobile cousins do?

Some notes to consider:

I assume the degree of speed step probably has somthing to do with the Motherboard manufactures implementation, so feel free to state on which motherboard your info comes from.

I am not interested in Laptop processors (I am aware that they are the best). It must be a desktop processor, for a desktop machine, and it is supposed to be what a typical average user might have.

I am aware that there are adaptors to allow you to use a Laptop processor on a desktop, but lets for the sake of this question ignore those.

Thanks for any help you guys can provide.

 

[Donar]

It would most likely be one of the conroes. Not sure how much of a drop the speedstep gives as I have mine disabled, however I do know that some have gotten it to work nicely with their overclocks of 3ghz+, but it will most likely be trial and error when it comes to stability. Stock though, it works fine.

I'm sure someone has speedstep turned on and can you the exact jump, if not, maybe I'll turn it on and take some screens for ya

 

[Calefaction]

On my notebook system with a Core 2 Duo T7600 (Merom), it SpeedSteps from 998mhz (min) to the full 2.33 (under load).

I would imagine the desktop Conroe's would SpeedStep in that range. Any of the Conroe chips should do it.

 

[unclewebb]

All Core 2 Duo desktop processors drop the multiplier down to 6 when lightly loaded and SpeedStep is enabled.
6 X 266.66 MHz = 1600 MHz

E6300 = 7 X 266.66 MHz = 1867 MHz
E6400 = 8 X 266.66 MHz = 2133 MHz
E6600 = 9 X 266.66 MHz = 2400 MHz
E6700 = 10 X 266.66 MHz = 2667 MHz
E6800 = 11 X 266.66 MHz = 2933 MHz

Tell your boss to give you lots of money so your testing will be scientifically valid.
Just trying to help.


Edit: Notebooks use a FSB of 166.66 MHz so it looks like they also drop down to a 6 X multiplier when using SpeedStep:

6 X 166.67 MHz = 1000 MHz which is confirmed by in the previous example.

 

[Calefaction]

I suggest you tell your boss the only way to scientifically test this is to get an X6800 with an unlocked multi so you can really check some drastic speed drops *whistles*.

 

[chrisf6969]

I suggest you tell your boss the only way to scientifically test this is to get an X6800 with an unlocked multi so you can really check some drastic speed drops *whistles*.

Yep, with an X6800 you could jack it up to a 13x multiplier easily 3.466Ghz and when idle it would drop down to 1.6Ghz.

My e6600 (overclocked) runs at 3Ghz, and when I enable speed step it drops down to 2Ghz at 1.05v.

9x333 FSB = 3Ghz
6x333 FSB = 2Ghz

 

[SILVR 6]

I know you said you can't use or don't want to use mobile cpu's but take a look at the Asus N4L-VM. I'm using it in my main system with a T-2500. Since its based on the mobile 945gm chip set I use Notebook hardware control to set the cpu speed. You can lock it on any multiplier you like, fully taking advantage of speedstep. The board is relatively cheap (150$ CDN$) and the cpu's go for quite cheap on ebay.

 

[InorganicMatter]

My E6300 goes from 700MHz to 1.86GHz.

 

[unclewebb]

My E6300 goes from 700MHz to 1.86GHz.

Does it do that using Intel SpeedStep alone? Didn't think so.

 

[StealthyFish]

If you want some smarter people's thoughts on this, i'd go to www.xtremesystems.org . They've got the best community filled with tech savvy people and extreme overclockers.

 

[interested]

Thanks for everyones comments.

I am probably going to order that top of the line Core2Duo.

This gives me a good reason to order one

 

[interested]

Well i ended up buying and putting together a system with the following components to test our scientific software at work with speed stepping enabled:

MB: Asus P5B Deluxe with intel P965 Chipset
Processor: Intel Core2Duo E6700
RAM: 1GB Corsair 667Mhz dual Chan
RAID: 2x320GB Seagate Baracudas stripping mode.
VID: Asus Ati Radeon1300
DVD:LG 18X Dual Layer Burner.

I did not get the Extreeme edition, as we figured not many of our clients would be using such a chip, and the 6700 gave us a good range of speed steps.

The speed stepping went from lowest multiplier of 6X=1600Mhz to maximum 10X=2667Mhz, a difference of 1067Mhz, which was more then adequate for our tests which worked perfectly.

I used some apps to cycle through the speedstepping by aplying various loads on the cpu while our test software was running, and watched the cpu frequency bounce around the various multipliers and frequencies, with no effect on our software

These intel Core2Duos are quite nice, and use very little power.
With everything runing and fully stressed (CPU,RAM,RAID,Network,DVDburner,VidCard)
Max power usage was only 170W, and temp 50Deg using stock cooler.
Idle power usage was only 100W, and temp 30Deg using stock cooler.

 

[abcdelight]

Yeah they are a beautiful thing as far as watts go. Now if only vid cards could get the power down. I was reading today about the new ATI 600 using 250 watts.