bit-tech Shopping: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Dual Core Processor

Rating: 10

Time with product: 1 Month

Strengths: 45nm, 9.5x multiplier, 6mB L2 cache, one of best overclockers, low power consumption

Weaknesses: Wish it was an E0

Summary: This e8500 and the e8400 are a blast to overclock. There is a lot of room to push this over 4GHZ with the right motherboard. The 9.5 multiplier helps. The overclocking potential and 6mB cache makes it one of the best chips out there. It keeps pace with the quads and it not near as hard to overclock.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 3 Months

Strengths: Fast, runs cool

Weaknesses: None

Summary: Upgraded from an E6400, 2.13GHz 65nm, 1066 FSB, 2MB shared L2 cache cpu that worked well with most games and apps. But then I installed this 3.16GHz, 45nm cpu with an after market cooler and wow what a difference in game play and app loading times without upgrading the graphics card. It runs cooler and faster. The cpu fan runs slower and quieter.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 2 Weeks

Strengths: Extra clockability

Weaknesses: none

Summary: Other than the Quad Core Extreme, this is pretty much THE CPU to put into your system as far as highest speed goes. Rated at 3.16, this CPU overclocks to 4.0 with ease. I have an E8400 that won?t pass 3.6 GHz on Water and the systems specs are the same. No need to go into technical data on this or binning here, but if one were to make a decision based on cost, then the E8400 is the best bang for the buck. Me being the performance fiend, I chose so spend an additional $50 for E8500?s performance increase. I was able to increase my multiplier and FSB over the E8400 such that my 3DMark 2006 scores went from roughly 16000 to 18000.Setup: water cooled EVGA 790i Ultra, E8500 Core 2 Duo, Asus 8800GT SLI, 300 GB VelociRaptor HDD, 4x1GB OCZ Platinum DDR3 OCZ3P18002GK 2GB PC3-14400 (DDR3-1800).

Rating: 10

Time with product: 1 Weeks

Strengths: Runs cool, 9.5 multi, will oc well into 4GHz teritory..on air!!

Weaknesses: Are you kidding...there is none.

Summary: My setup: MSI Neo 2 P35 FR, E8500, True w/2 120mm fans, Ballistix PC2-6400 2x1gb, XFX 8800GT 512 Alpha Dog w/HR03 GT and 120mm fan, Corsair 520HX PSU, Seagate 250gb, al in a Lian Li V1200 Plus case. I use to run a E4300 1.8 GHz at a 3.2 GHz oc with my above setup except my ram then was Mushkin Redline PC2-8000 2x1gb (now dead, I'm very hard on my hardware..sigh). With the Ballistix I could only oc the E4300 to 2.7GHz stable. I am running my E8500 at 3.525.2 @ 1.176v (CPU-Z) atm with my Ballistix's. This is a very modest oc and I can oc further but right now I'm taking it easy on my current Ballistix's as I think they are getting ready to die. I have some Ballistix PC2-8500 on the way and when I get them installed I should then be able to oc this cpu over 4GHz stable easily. I will update after I recive my new ram and have time to tune my rig. I expect to achive a 4.3 to 4.5 oc stable.BTW my current temps are 30c at idle and 43c load in Orthos small FFT's stress testing. At stock speeds my idle temps are 26c, I'didn't test at load.