MaximumPC 2006 09

I

ntel’s previous-gen Prescott processors ran so hot, the company

was forced to chuck the design and start over. The new design,

named Core 2 (code-named Conroe), is a low-watt processor,

similar to the cool-running Pentium M CPU that inspired the design.

As the resident cooling aficionado, I couldn’t wait to see just how

cool the new Core architecture runs, as it’s rated at a mere 65W TDP

(thermal design power, a measure of how much heat it generates). For

comparison, most dual-core Presler CPUs have a TDP rating between

95W and 130W. Most videocards these days are 110W.

The new procs undoubtedly run cooler than previous Intel offer-

ings—they’re on par with Athlon 64s. We wanted to find out how Core

2 performs using the stock Intel cooler and several top-of-the-line air-

and-water coolers. Though Core 2’s temperatures are excellent, the

truth is that with the stock cooler, the CPU runs a smidge hotter than

we usually experience with high-end AMD CPUs.

But the most surprising thing I discovered was that Core 2—unlike

any other high-end processor we’ve ever tested—maintains relatively

low temperatures without active cooling. In fact, we were able to run

both the standard E6700 and the extreme X6800 chips for hours with

the CPU fan disconnected, and apparently without the CPU throttling

down at all—truly an amazing feat and something I’m still examining.

The first test involved the Zalman 9500, and I just unplugged the

fan and watched the temperatures rise. The CPU temp rose to 75 C

and wouldn’t rise any higher, under full load. I even transcoded an

entire DVD to Divx without the CPU fan spinning. I also tested with the

Apex Ultra kit, a Scythe Mine, and the Freezone, to see which would

do the best with Conroe. The benchmarks speak for themselves—the

TEC and water-based Freezone spanked the competition, with the

Swiftech Apex Ultra running a distant second.

In the final tally, Conroe seems to have achieved something that’s

been possible with AMD systems for some time now—the ability to

run cool and quiet without giving up any performance. Folks who’ve

shied away from Intel procs because of heat concerns no longer have

anything to worry about.

Y

ou normally don’t get the scoop on the hardware that doesn’t

make the Dream Machine cut, but I’ve decided to spill the

beans on this one.

We started out with no fewer than six 750GB Seagate Barracuda

7200.10 drives—a whopping 4.5TB of storage space—which we

originally planned to configure six drives in one massive (but impractical

RAID 0) partition. Unfortunately, no matter what we tried, the large array

wouldn’t work. The culprit was nVidia’s new nForce 590 SLI chipset,

which I praised so lovingly last month. While the onboard RAID lets you

do such nifty tricks as set up two arrays on a single controller, there’s a

hard capacity limit of 2TB. We tried multiple RAID configurations across

all six SATA ports and even tried running JBOD, with no joy.

The problem? nVidia currently only supports 32-bit LBA, not 64-

bit. That support won’t appear until later this year. Drat. Even if we

could have created the partition, we likely would have run into prob-

lems with Windows XP, which is limited to a 2.2TB partitions. D’oh.

When will the fix come? Officials at nVidia told us they didn’t see

the need for 64-bit LBA at the rollout of 590, but now have it on the

roadmap as a driver update later this year. What about Microsoft?

We haven’t gotten the straight story on Vista’s support for 64-bit

LBA, but we sure hope it’s there because power users are rapidly

approaching the point where they’ll need 2TB-plus support. With

Seagate’s incredible Barracudas

offering 750GB per drive, 1TB

drives can’t be that far off.

Let’s hope that all the con-

troller manufacturers bang their

heads together on this one,

because when I’m trying to build

a three-drive 4TB array next

summer, that sucker better work.

Gordon Mah Ung

Ponders the 2TB Limit

Intel’s new Core 2 Extreme CPU runs cool and quiet,

but how cool? To find out, I tested it with every high-

end cooler in the Lab

Dream Machine takes a capacity step back-

ward—we tell you why

MA XIMUMPC SEPTEMBER 2006

in the lab REAL-WORLD TESTING: RESULTS. ANALYSIS. RECOMMENDATIONS

Our dreams of

using six 750GB

Seagate drives

for one 4.5TB

partition were

dashed by the

nVidia chipset’s

limitations.

Unfortunately, Intel is sticking with LGA775’s silly retention

mechanism, which requires motherboard removal to install nine

out of 10 aftermarket coolers.

JOSH NOREM

Asks How to

Best Cool Conroe?

70

BENCHMARKS

IDLE (C) 44 39 37 23 34

100% LOAD (C) 58 54 49 37 45

Best scores are bolded. All temperatures were measured via the onboard sensors, using the utilities provided by the motherboard manufacturer. Idle temperatures were measured after 30 minutes of inactivity and full-load

temps were achieved running CPU Burn-in for one hour.

STOCK COOLER SCYTHE ZALMAN MINE 9500 LED FREEZONE APEX ULTRACOOLIT SWIFTECH