Why does Intel Clock so low @ factory?

[SmackDizzle]

This could be a really dumb question in some peoples eyes, but I want you to clear your mind for just a second and tell me why Intel is selling chips with such ridiculous HEAD-ROOM? I mean seriously, I change a few settings in bios and I'm 33% faster! This is not due to some great skills on my part, no fancy cooling, no special after-market equipment, just adjust a few settings and there it is! And for all the overclockers out there, I see nobody struggling to get 3200 Mhz on e6600, I just simply haven't tried to go any further yet. So I guess I dont understand why Intel wouldnt push the stock clocks higher, I mean after all, the percentage of people overclocking is very low in the real world, It just seems they would want the average person to realize the wonderful power of this new CPU. I'm not saying that all would go 3200 or higher, but I'm just saying this whole Conroe thing has been different to me, seems like they are just simply UNDER CLOCKED. Maybe I'm missing something. PEACE!!

 

[asmielia]

They could clock them higher, but they have no reason to. At stock speed, they have at least 3 chips (6800, 6700, 6600) that are faster than anything AMD has to offer. If AMD releases something faster, they have a lot of headroom left. But for the meantime, they can make more money with slower clocked chips.

 

[BillParrish]

Thats a pretty good question. You would think that after the first couple of test runs they would figure out that they had a winner. However the initial product specs, documentaion, design parameters and guidelines were probally done long before the first chip was made and they didnt know it all would turn out so well.

And remember Joe Sixpack buying a dell or whatever has no fraking clue about overclocking and he is 99% of the market. Intel has to have somewhere to go in raising clock speeds later down the road for people that dont know or care that a low end chip can be made to perform like a high end chip. Also business and mission critical applications are looking for rock solid reliability and so they wont touch overclocking.

 

[PureBooYah]

it was the same way with the C series P4's. The 2.4c's were almost a 100% guarantee to at least 3ghz.

 

[Marvelous]

It's quite simple... They need to sell chips... Not everyone can afford $1000 processors...

So they sell worse cores at a cheaper price and sell better cores at a higher price...

With a higher price you get more CACHE and most likely run a little bit cooler/better overclock ability... Not to mention you get higher multiplier you can manipulate to make it lower...

Not everyone overclocks and is not a 100% guarantee... It's only the minority who do it... In the business world overclock is out of the question..

 

[chrisf6969]

B/c why would they "blow their whole wad at once"
So they release 5 chips: 1.86, 2.13, 2.4, 2.67, 2.93

The bottom 2 or 3 will probably be in the bulk of PCs, Those will need to be replaced by faster chips, (either by CPU upgrade or a whole new computer) much earlier than if they had released only 4 kick ass chips at something like: 2.67, 2.93, 3.2, 3.46

 

[[LYL]Homer]

There is also the psychological, or buzz, to be had with 'underclocked' chips. Remember 3 months ago? Opterons were all the rage and anyone in the know knew that it was the sleeper chip to have.

Just look at the craze over C2D on these forums and others for all the positve PR Intel is getting off the overclockabilty. And for those not 'in the know' it still is a very competitive chip at stock speeds. Best of both worlds, or maybe better best for all markets.

 

[chrisf6969]

There is also the psychological, or buzz, to be had with 'underclocked' chips. Remember 3 months ago? Opterons were all the rage and anyone in the know knew that it was the sleeper chip to have.

Just look at the craze over C2D on these forums and others for all the positve PR Intel is getting off the overclockabilty. And for those not 'in the know' it still is a very competitive chip at stock speeds. Best of both worlds, or maybe better best for all markets.

I don't think thats why Intel does it. LOL To satisfy the overclockers buzz. I think people would be just as happy if the 2.4Ghz was the bottom $200 spot.

It has to do with stock OEM systems being able to continually turn out new system so they sell new PC's based on faster chips.

They need to be able to release new chips in a consistent manner, unlike what they did with P4 when they got stuck around the 3.4Ghz for a long time, noone wanted to upgrade from a 3.2C to a 3.6E, b/c there wasn't a big difference between the 2 models.

Releasing "slow" chips now, so they can release a steady stream of upgrades.

 

[ThirtySixBelow]

Well at least if the next round of intel chips overclock to the same ceiling but just have a higher stock speed we will know what happened.

 

[drizzt81]

Because Dell can sell the 1.83GHz system at the low end now, and in 12 months it'll look great when people get a 2.4GHz system for the same price.

 

[chrisf6969]

Because Dell can sell the 1.83GHz system at the low end now, and in 12 months it'll look great when people get a 2.4GHz system for the same price.

Yep that was my point. Continually upgrading & selling faster computers...

 

[Poncho]

I don't think thats why Intel does it. LOL To satisfy the overclockers buzz.

You know... I used to think this way, but now I'm not 100% sure. Do I think Intel caters to the overclocking community? Not at all.... the average buyer will ALWAYS be their bread and butter, that hasn't changed. But I think that AMD has shown us the incredible marketing power of the overclocking community. This is how AMD gained market share... not because of a better product, but rather by word of mouth. When a parent wants to buy a PC they ask their geeky "computer savvy" kid what would be a good buy... this is what's taken market share. Now... how do you get that market share back? By appealing to that same crowd, creating a buzz. It's been suspected that Intel has given samples to the more respected overclocking sites or at the very least turned their heads when these people advertise their illegal CPUs and post benchmarks.

I think there is a shift in the way things are being marketed with Intel.... I wouldn't be surprised if parts are more "overclocker friendly" on purpose. I think it serves a dual purpose as well. It allows them to scale a CPU easier (selling faster models without much hassle) and gives them GREAT word of mouth.

 

[aamsel]

I think some of you are missing the point:
Intel is quite aware that their CPU's can be overclocked, but the total number of people overclocking Conroe's (or other CPU's) is a tiny percentage, at most. Overclockers are a very, very small minority of total sales.

When Intel specs a CPU for use, they do it at a certain heat level, etc. that they can qualify to the Dell's, HP's and Lenovo's of the world based on performance while plugged into a sample, reference motherboard.

Dell, HP, Lenovo, SONY, etc. don't care about overclocking. They want to be able to produce a mini-tower, micro-tower, etc. that will be reliable with minimal case cooling.

Overclocking is not relevent to these companies.

Andrew

 

[TType85]

Isn't it true they really only make one or two processors (the top of the line ones) and due to variance some just don't cut it and get rebadged to a different speed? Or if the demand is high on the lower end processors they will modify the chips a little and fill the market demand?

I'm sure intel sells more 6300's than 6600's.

 

[adrift02]

If you look at how much these chips can overclock it would not make sense for profits. They all bottom out at around the same speeds, so how are they going to get people to buy the e6600 @ 3.4 for 150-200 more then a e6300 or e6400 at the the same clock speed? It helps to have extra mhz AND cache.

 

[Rix2357]

Well, for me, it doesn't matter the reason for intel building so much headroom into the lower clocked process. I think what intel did like was that that performance benefit was tempting enough for me to get an upgrade in the first place. Plus I'm a little more active in the forums again after having a stagnant system for so long.

I've been some form of an overclocked northwood P4 for the last 5 years. In the process I've made some incremental upgrades such as motherboards for extreme overclocking and the occasional processor buy when low prices have come up, but nothing on the scale of dropping over $1000 in less than a month for a complete overhaul. I toyed with prescott cpus and got on the top 10 super pi list, but went back to a northwood because the heat output was just outrageous for even the single core chips. I toyed with the X2 upgrade idea but in the end I decided that $250 for a cpu plus another $200 for a motherboard wasn't worth it even if I could use my previous ram. But the potential performance of an e6300 plus a Gigabyte GA 965p-DS3 combo was too hard to pass up. If anything else, a lot of other companies have benefitted from my upgrade because I've gotten some decent Patriot PC6400 ram and I am looking into getting something that can allow a higher overclock. Plus, I'm also dropping down another $330 for a new videocard. I'm helping the economy along.