merom core 2 duo t7x00 es. vs. retail

whats the difference between two processors specifically in this case merom based processors (specifically t7200 and t7400) that are engineering samples vs. retail new in retail box processors? any differences in performance, reliability, new vs. used? whats the story???

 

Performance should be the same. The ES CPUs generally have an unlocked multiplier, and no warranty. They'll also tend to come as bare CPUs, while retail ones will of course come in a box (with warranty).

 

so this is a good idea because you CAN OVERCLOCK THEM?!?!?!?

 

You can only overclock them if the mainboard supports it and if there's adequate cooling. In a laptop, neither of those is particularly likely.

You can overclock non-ES ones too - it just has to be done by raising the FSB rather than the multiplier.

 

right but raising fsb affects all the other components which is physically damaging to the rest of your laptop... applying arctic silver 5 is about the best thing i can think of at the moment for cooling the laptop cpu... any other thoughts?

 

Cut holes in the bottom of the notebook. Haha, but seriously. I don't know, haven't given it much thought besides a cooling pad

 

i see so arctic silver 5 and a super high quality cooling pad is about all that can be done on a notebook?

 

Yes, that's about all that you can do with a notebook. You'll still have to get a BIOS which supports overclocking though.

Overclocking with the FSB doesn't really affect much else. It changes the chipset and RAM speed, but RAM speed can easily be dealt with (just by using a different divider) and the chipsets generally overclock well anyway. Everything else is safe because the i945 chipset locks the PCI/PCIe bus speeds.