The best penryn CPU for santa rosa chipset

Hi,

I am looking at upgrading my merom (socket p) to a penryn.
I have the santa rosa chipset.

What do I mean by best?
well I wan't one that is most likely to be tollorant to a high undervolt or a high overclock.

 

The T9500 is the top shelf CPU for the PM965 chipset.

 

T9300, the t9500 is WAY expensive, same performance negligible increase of speed, I would say the same specs.

 

so the T9300 and the T9500 both overclock and undervolt nicely?

 

CPU really isnt the limit in laptop overclocking, ram and the usual inability to change ram voltage is.

I never had a santa rosa penryn but my experience with my P7450 was drasticly different then the T9600. I could overclock my P7450 as far as the ram would go and still undervolt to the minimum .900v, the T9600 will undervolt, not as far and if i am overclocking it really needs stock voltages on the max multiplier.

 

yes my ram is limiting my current overclock, I'm going to stick some 1066mhz ram in, which will downclock to 667mhz and then my overclock should be much better.

curently I have 800mhz ram which is working quite well, I get get my FSB from 200mhz to 260mhz. anything over 260mhz FSB causes a BSOD which is because of my ram.

But I wan't to get the penryn since it should be cooler than my current merom. At 2.6ghz my merom reaches 90C very fast.

 

Not sure how the T9300/9500 are setup but the T9600 over the P7450 has a larger interface due to the larger die, due to the.... lol larger cache and idles cooler. If this is so coming from your T7xxx then it should run cooler altogether as it has a larger contact patch to conduct heat through.

 

The Core 2 Extreme X9000 is the highest-level Penryn CPU for Santa Rosa, at 2.8GHz stock. It's made for overclocking, but has a standard TDP of 45W compared to the T-series' 35W.

I've been using a T9500 for several months now, and it's great. I have it running at 1.000v at max multiplier, default was 1.250v. I could probably take it even lower.

 

I'm not really looking for an extreme edition since I don't wan't to pay for an unlocked multi when I can just overclock the FSB.
Also I really want 35W.

 

In that case, the T9500 is the top of the line.

 

There was a user on here recently talking about getting rid of his X7800, if you can get it off him cheap might be worth it, though if you cant multiplier overclock then the extra wattage is once again a waste.

User was win32asmguy i believe.

 

I guess my OP wasn't that clear.
what I really wan't is to be able to overclock my FSB a lot, undervolt a lot and have 35W.

I don't need the fastest CPU available, I need the most overclockable.
I would like to get around a 40% OC on the FSB, but I don't wan't to have a high voltage or high temp.

But really the T9300 does sound pretty good, would I be right in saying that it's just a T9500 underclocked?

 

The T9300 is essentially the same as the T9500, except the multiplier tops out at 12x instead of 13x.

 

I have just checked the following pages:
http://www.ripping.org/database.php?cpuid=682
http://www.ripping.org/database.php?cpuid=659

It looks like the T9300 is the same as a T9500 because they have been overclocked to the same max speed.

seems the T9300 is capable of a better OC, 30.3% compare to the T9500s OC of 24.61%.

I will keep looking for a while but I think it's likely I will buy the T9300.
thanks for all your help.

 

On the max end of things every single chip is different but still, there pretty close down the assembly line. Its not like the T9500's where hand picked like the extreme cores.

EDIT - HOLY CRAP, I have the T9600 World Record lol, someone really needs to try. Im tempted to get that new ram and go for gold.

 

Well, 12.5X. Which is...me being pedantic, haha.

 

T9500 is the fastest core 2 duo Santa Rosa compatible penryn CPU.

There are *some* hints that a 1066Mhz series-4 chipset penryn (1066Mhz FSB) cpu could work with more advice that it doesn't. I've put together some info that may help you if you want to try a T9400/T9600 1066Mhz FSB CPU:

Theory: Using a 4-series penryn (T9400/T9600) on a Santa Rosa systemboard

 

I tried a P9500 in my Sony SZ and it did not work. My laptop would not even boot. Even if it did i have read it would downclock the speed and run slower also. I have a T9300 processor in my laptop which is what it came with.

 

I have a feeling that Moral Hazard might be willing to have a go at the more exotic methods to have a 1066Mhz FSB CPU work. Likely to require modding bios with different microcode to support a series-4 T9400/T9600 1066Mhz CPU. P-socket CPU being pin compatible with the Santa Rosa systemboard.

 

The thing that I don't like in T9300. I love RM Clock and it would underclock it to 2.4GHz, because it doesn't support half multipliers

 

yes, I am willing to mod my bios.
I'm also looking at a P8400, which should be very nice to overclock. the only thing that's wrong with it is the cache size. But I do like that it is 25W.

 

Obviously i to was keen to install a 25w processor into my laptop.
However, i've not read any hard proof about advantages battery life wise.
The T9300-T9500 processors are faster than the P8400 and they also have 6MB of cache compared to P8400's 3MB of cache.

At idle in power saver all these processors downclock.
You will most likely notice marginal benefits when your taxing your laptop.

My laptop is pretty cool running though and that was even before i installed an SSD drive. When i ran HW Monitor my temps were idling at 24C. I am using A5 on my CPU. I need to do those tests again and disable the SuperFLA and IDA multipliers but as you can see from my HW Monitor result by looking at my highest temps my scores are quite decent regardless. I've not even used RMClock.
I have read people with the PXXX series processors getting higher temps in the 40s at pretty much idle.



Anyway if you do go for it do let us know your result and the steps you took.

 

Currently I will be reading the bios mod forums that nando4 has suggested.
If I do give the bios mod a go I will be sure to post results here.

@Rachel, your laptop is very cool so if I don't do the bios mod I will be very happy with the T9300.