Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140
August 24th, 2007 | This article was viewed 2,832 times so far...
Today we have the Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140 on stage, yes - finally there’s a really affordable dual-core Intel processor that great for people on budget!
In the past I’ve always avoided Intel’s offerings as they cost at least RM 600 even for the lowest range of their better processors, however ever since the Allendale based Core2Duo E4xxx series was launched, Intel finally stepped into the ground of value computing with RM 400+ retail price. Intel stepped further into the value computing ground with the Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140 with retail price of around RM 240, conquering AMD’s long-held budget ground. 
Please note that while the E2140 is based on the Allendale core just as the E4xxx series, it is NOT a Core2Duo processor. 
It is under Intel’s Pentium product range.
Today, I will compare the E2140 with the X2 3600+ (Windsor) - which is the lowest-end of the AMD’s Athlon64 X2 range of processors. The performance of the X2 3600+ Windsor version should not be that far off from the Brisbane based X2 3600+ which runs 100Mhz slower while having more Level-2 Cache.
Now, allow me to present to you the specifications of the contending processors for this review.
| Model | Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140 | AMD Athlon64 X2 3600+ |
| Core Code Name | Allendale | Windsor |
| Fabrication Process | 65nm | 90nm |
| Voltage | 1.162v ~ 1.312v | 1.2v ~ 1.25v |
| TDP | 65.0w | 65.0w |
| Frequency | 1600Mhz | 2000Mhz |
| Level 1 Cache | 32KB x 2 | 128KB x 2 |
| Level 2 Cache | 1MB | 256KB x 2 |
| Front Side Bus | 800Mhz | 200Mhz |
| Multiplier | 8 | 10 |
Performance & Overclocking
Here are the contenders for this review
- E2140 (1.6Ghz / 333.4Mhz RAM / 200Mhz bus / 800Mhz rated FSB)
- E2140 Overclocked* (3.2Ghz / 400Mhz RAM / 400Mhz bus / 1600Mhz rated FSB)
- X2 3600+ (2.0Ghz / 333.4Mhz RAM / 200Mhz bus / 1000 HT link)
- X2 3600+ Overclocked* (2.5Ghz / 312.6Mhz RAM / 250Mhz bus / 1000 HT link)
*Overclocked = Will be abbreviated as OC
The Intel processor was paired with Biostar’s TP35D2-A7 while the AMD processor was paired with Biostar’s Tforce 550. Both setup use 2x 1GB Kingston Value RAM. The initial BIOS of the TP35D2-A7 was unfriendly for overclocking but their latest BIOS end of August was just great! The E2140 is now running at 3200Mhz!
The following are the results from the tests I’ve conducted
PCMark05
| E2140 | E2140 OC | X2 3600+ | X2 3600+ OC |
| 4640 | 6690 | 4773 | 5231 |
| * Higher the better | |||
3dmark06 (CPU Test)
| E2140 | E2140 OC | X2 3600+ | X2 3600+ OC |
| 1388 | 2729 | 1485 | 1873 |
| * Higher the better | |||
SPECViewperf10.0
| E2140 | E2140 OC | X2 3600+ | X2 3600+ OC | |
| 3dsmax-04 (up to 4x) | 8.30 | 13.27 | 8.33 | 9.33 |
| catia-02 (up to 4x) | 9.49 | 11.26 | 9.19 | 10.08 |
| ensight-03 (up to 2x) | 8.90 | 14.08 | 8.85 | 9.25 |
| maya-02 (up to 4x) | 11.63 | 29.28 | 8.42 | 9.60 |
| proe-04 (up to 4x) | 7.00 | 14.90 | 5.88 | 6.12 |
| sw-01 (up to 4x) | 14.01 | 9.99 | 11.13 | 11.51 |
| tcvis-01 (up to 4x) | 4.06 | 4.24 | 3.00 | 3.03 |
| * Higher the better | ||||
Super PI
The value chosen for Super PI was 1M.
| E2140 | E2140 OC | X2 3600+ | X2 3600+ OC |
| 36.593s | 20.359s | 43.563s | 36.938s |
| * Lower the better | |||
As you can see from the results above, it’s performs well in comparison to the AMD counterpart. Realistically speaking, you can’t feel the difference between both processors BUT on benchmark, it’s clear who is the better processor.
Thermal Performance
| E2140 | E2140 OC | |
| Idle | 23°C | 35°C |
| Load | 34°C | 65°C |
The stock heatsink performs admirably in cooling the E2140 on it’s default 1.6Ghz with only 34°C on 100% load. Load temperatures at 2.4Ghz the recorded only 51°C while at 3.2Ghz recorded about 65°C. Ambient temperature comes to about 25°C. I wouldn’t stick with the stock cooler for 100% overclock like what I managed but it shouldn’t be a problem for running at stock speed and lesser overclocking, just remember to monitor the temperature.
While the stock cooler performs well, I’m surprised that the mount on the heatsink was so strong that it bends the motherboard slightly (Refer to the 3rd picture below). Based on the recorded temperatures, it is advisable to run on a better 3rd party heatsink especially when doing extreme overclocking.
Conclusion
There’s nothing to complain about it. It’s perfect, sure it’s not the best performer in town but you can’t expect Quad-Core performance from a low-cost stripped-down processor, can you? You get you paid for and you’ll get even more out of it if you know what to do with it - this processor is absolutely a gem!
The strongest point of the E2140 would be it’s overclockability, it’s works well on stock and it performs very well especially when overclocked.
The only drawback with Intel setup is that good boards for Intel processors generally cost more than good boards for AMD processors which is the only reason why this processor is not featured in my PC Buying Guide 
.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:53 am
wooot!
nice review of it, so…bila mau review quad core la?
August 24th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Let’s hope someone provides me the processor.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Still far away from Athlon X2 on performance & price?
August 24th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
The thing is while the results are compared to X2 3600+ Windsor, recent price changes have placed the price X2 3800+ and X2 4000+ close to the E2140.
So based on the results above and estimating the performance gain of X2 3800+ and X2 4000+ over the X2 3600+ (more Mhz and more L2 cache) - I’d say that the X2 should be better if you’re comparing at the same processor price level.
For actual usage (not referring to benchmarks) then I doubt you could feel the difference. The E2140’s strongest point would be that it’s highly overclockable.
August 25th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
what is the clock of X2 3600+ OC’ed?
August 26th, 2007 at 9:45 am
2.5Ghz. sorry I missed that one out cos the X2 3600+ OC benchies were added last minute. hehe.
August 26th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Hi there goldfries. nice review.
but AFAIK, the fsb for AMD should be 200MHz (not 400MHz), so 200×10=2000MHz (2GHz).
i think u done some typo error there.
anyway thanks for the review..:)
August 26th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
ok. about the FSB. i put it as 400mhz as based on
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=337&pgno=0
i’ve noted your points. i think i’ll change the data to avoid further confusion. THANK YOU!!!
September 23rd, 2007 at 4:27 am
dude
i oc the e2140 till 2.5ghz (fsb wall in mobo)
but the temp still 42c
haha
thanx to the cheap CM xdream
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:13 am
42c load or idle?
and which X-dream is this one?
Here’s my review of the X-Dream back in 2003
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=17&pgno=0
October 1st, 2007 at 8:41 am
Hey GoldFries,
Sorry for so many questions, but since some of my hardware is also in your reviews, so I have to ask about my Pentium Dual-Core E2140.
I’m going to change motherboards, so of course I have to clean off the thermal compound of the original heatsink.
But I run out of Coolermaster paste, and all I have is only that RM7 chapalang paste. Could it be sufficient or safe to use? How am I going to apply that chapalang paste since there’s no instructions?
October 1st, 2007 at 8:48 am
Hehe. Not every paste needs instruction, it’s simple. Just place a bit right smack at the center of the processor. that’s it.
And yes, those thermal paste are sufficient for use. Lesser thermal conductivity than those that cost more but nevertheless it still conducts.
October 1st, 2007 at 9:09 am
Hey there,
So I just need to put a small wad on the centre, and that’s it? No need to spread it at all?
October 1st, 2007 at 9:26 am
Yeah. after you put the heatsink on it’ll spread anyway.
If you spread it all over now, placing the heatsink might cause an overflow.
October 29th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Hey Goldfries,
I intend to overclock my Pentium Dual-Core E2140, like yours, but with a Gigabyte 945GCMX-S2 board.
However, not even an extra 5MHz increase of FSB is done at all, instead, after applying settings in BIOS it stops for a while, restarts, and bounces back to original settings.
The thing is, is the board itself have a protection system? The system works fine enough after bouncing back to original settings. And, could my memory sticks, processor and the card hurt in that process?
October 29th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Wait, you’re saying you attempted to OC with the board and it allowed you to change settings but in the end it just set itself back to default?
Don’t worry about your memory, processor or cards.
If it can’t boot, it’ll just go back to default. Usually the thing that hurts the system would be pumping of voltage.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Yeah, the board allows OC, but then bounces back to original settings. Maybe the 945 boards hates overclocking, or the board isn’t that good in overclocking.
Maybe I’ll get a cheap T-Force board if it’s available and I will overclock my E2140 until it reaches ceiling… but I don’t have moolah for this. Never mind, maybe later.
October 31st, 2007 at 1:31 am
[...] just run both my processor cores at 100% load and took the readings. The processor? My overclocked Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140 running at [...]
October 31st, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Hey there,
Could upgrading from an X2 3800+ / E2140 to any of the X2 5000+ worth the change, any boost in gaming framerates?
Thinking of hosting online TF2 server, but not sure will my X2 3800+ will work or not…
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:00 am
Sorry, what’s TF2?
As to upgrading of processor, it depends on what graphic card are you using. In the case where the processor is the bottleneck, then upgrade will see framerate boost.
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:43 am
Huh?? I thought you know this already - Team Fortress II! That’s a hot game! Well, the framerates are very nice in my current processor, but if I’m hosting an internet server, I’m not pretty sure whether will it have improvements or not.
As I’ve said already, I have a X1950Pro card, and I’m trying to future-proof the PC a little bit more. Not sure whether I will get a further push if I change to an X2 5000+. Crysis ran well in my current specs with medium settings anyway.
November 4th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Hey man,
Back to the E2140 topic, with my BIOS finally updated for my Gigabyte 945GCMX-S2 board, I now finally get to overclock the whole thing.
Currently now I’m typing in the E2140 @ 1.73 GHz. But my RAM speeds exceeding 667MHz, which is really in dangerous point! Btw, my PCIE/PCI freq is put to Async.
Is your Kingston Value Ram a 667 or 800?
November 4th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
I have a 7300GT but wanna do an upgrade. But limited with budget. Will Radeon HD 2600 XT do me enough ?
November 5th, 2007 at 5:31 am
The_YongGrand at 1.73 isn’t much. Exceeding 667 is not dangerous IMO, looks like your FSB:RAM ratio is limiting you.
My KVR is DDR2 667. it’s doing DDR2 800 only now but I’ve pushed it to DDR2 900+ speeds.
Opteron, wrong section but I’ll answer you - HD2600XT is faster than the 7300GT.
November 5th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Hey, goldfries! Yeah, 1.73 is such a miserable overclock, because if I set it to 1.8 that system wouldn’t work at all, and bounced back to the original settings.
So how can I modify the FSB:RAM ratio in my Gigabyte 945GCMX-S2 board? I couldn’t find any of them in the BIOS or its manual…
And also, my RAM sticks are Mushkin ones.
November 5th, 2007 at 10:58 am
it’s board limitation.
November 5th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Hey there,
You are right, that’s the board limitation. Oh…crap, that board wouldn’t even work on any thing above 1.73GHz and not even any of the FSB ratios (i found it) are totally spared.
Never mind about the board, as I have this for my extra ddr2 sticks and an extra pci-e video card to sit on it.
Hmm… time to find something else to play… my X2 3800+…
November 5th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Thanks goldfries. Sorry for posting in wrong section XD.
November 23rd, 2007 at 3:46 pm
the Super PI value in on 1M ?
November 24th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
yes. value on 1M.
I’ll amend the article.
December 2nd, 2007 at 6:03 am
hey, gyes, i’ve got a problem with my Gigabyte GA-945GCMX-S2 in overclock: i can’t gain fsb speed more then 320mhz, and stability speed is nearly 300mhz. I’ve made a BSEL mod, but it didn’t help as much, as it could be. They say, that this mobo can easy get fsb 350… i assume that my problem is in using memory in singl chanle..
December 3rd, 2007 at 7:46 am
you’re on 1:1 and DDR2 667?
December 7th, 2007 at 2:56 am
Hi I am planing on buying a Gigabyte 945GCMX-S2
its supposed to support FSB1066 (266×4)
I’m going to try my Core2 E4400 2Ghz(10x 200)
currently on a really cheap lame msi board that has no overclock.
hope to get 2.66Ghz 10 (multiplier) x 266fsb =2.6Ghz
also going to try a new(for me) CPU the E4500 2.2ghz 11 x 266 = 3GHz!
hope it works.
but The_YongGrand said : So how can I modify the FSB:RAM ratio in my G945GCMX-S2 board? I couldn’t find any of them in the BIOS or its manual… is there a way to increase the FSB ?
December 7th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Hyperion: Hey there,
The 945GCMX-S2 has very limited overclocking ability. I can manage to only squeeze out a tiny amount even after a BIOS update. You might need to get a Biostar T-series board for the best bang of the buck overclocking board.
Or else, try getting the Gigabyte’s DS3 series - I heard that they works well with overclocking too!
December 8th, 2007 at 4:28 am
Yup. some boards have very shallow or even no OCing features.
If you intend to play with OCing, shell out a little bit more and you’ll eventually get more than that value’s worth of processor speed boost.
December 8th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Hi guys, yes this is my first intel setup since the P3-500,(gone AMDfrom k7-800-2800+xp since) these Core2 are fantastic. so much less heat!!!
should arrive in a few days, I’ll post the results.
put with a good card, thats the problem I’ve spent my money on a graphics card GF7950 512MB DDR3(double the power my last card GF7600GT) now the next board goes for 2X the price the Intel P35 Express Dragontail 1333FSB Motherboard. apparently,
I’ve just downloaded the manual for the Gigabyte 945GCMX-S2 it says it can run at 1333fsb! pity if it doesn’t work I’ve already ordered it
December 9th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Hyperion: Hi there. Glad you like the Pentium Dual-Core! It seems that the 945GCMX-S2 isn’t up to the overclocking task - it’s a basic, heavily stripped down board for budget gamers who don’t really care about overclocking.
You has better try getting the Biostar TP35 or something - Mr. Fries has a cool review about it. That board is around RM350, but it’s a bang for the buck once you pump some more megahertz into it.
Another cheaper board will be Asrock’s Conroe1333 (the 1st version) but when you go for the FSB1333, the PCI-E frequency will be slightly increased, which will be quite unhealthy.
December 19th, 2007 at 5:07 am
OK I DID IT!!!!,
I got 3GHZ clock speed 1066FSB working with the Gigabyte 945GCMX-S2. now running stable (99%just crashes on 1 program**more detail later) core 2 E4500 2.2ghz to 2.926GHz
I had to adjust the RAM timing frequency multiplyer from 3.33 to 2.66 so the DDR667 ram is now running at (355mhz x 2)=710 on the default 3.33x multiplyer wouldnt run at 885 (too high) system wouldnt boot.
ALSO NB set PCI-E freq mode to SYNC system refused to boot on ASYNC.also no voltage increase, and the best part Stock heatsink and fan! I used nano silver thermal compound and on standard settings got 25deg idle temp, with the 2.92 ghz overclock, its running at 37deg idle temp (still very good) and under load inc to 50 deg. board has a great Q flash BIOS -if it goes wrong when booting just hold del adjust save reboot, a real pleasure.
December 19th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Hehe. interesting. At least you get to enjoy the power now.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
yeah, I’m running FEAR [8800GTS Extreme]now 1024MAX everything (even soft shadows)16xAF, - 16x FSAA at 124fsp !!! runs stable with no crashes, - 575core, 1.8ghz ram
the problem is the 1 program it crashes : is the Nvidia control panel with the 163 Nvidia drivers, that can control the GPU fan speed/advanced settings lol it seems ok if I don’t install that. It must be something to do with the PCI-E frequency being over-clocked too now ? any ideas?
I’ve also played with it at 2.5Ghz and 2.6 but for some reason, dont know maybe ram -> bus speed ratio its the most stable at 2.92Ghz (266FBSx4=1066) and at the default (200×4=800)
December 20th, 2007 at 5:06 am
8800GTS on 1024.
do you even need that power? 
December 20th, 2007 at 5:46 am
oh ya, lol, I was just benchmarking it against my previous cards
on the Core 2E4400, 2Ghz with a nvidia 7600GT I got max 74fps no AA !!!! at 1024
with soft shadows I got only 35fps now with 16X AA on the 8800 its nearly 100fps more a bit too much power for my 19″
December 21st, 2007 at 12:39 am
Hehe, framerate is something you can’t complain having more.
January 10th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Hey there Goldfries,
There’s a new model of Celeron which is called Celeron Dual-Core, which starts from E1200 (512K, 800, 1.6GHz). The only small difference in this processor is the cache half of that of the E2140.
Any benchmarks of this?
January 10th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Oh, haven’t you seen it?
It’s here
http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/608509
Posted my thoughts too.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Hey there,
I will be getting a SLi board as a prize, and that board, Asus P5NSLi might be an overclocker as well.
What type of a heatsink must I have for a successful, 1600MHz FSB overclock? Mine’s a E2140 too!
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:26 am
Just go for ximagtek S1283.. But depend on your ram also..
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
[...] managed to overclock it VERY easily. Knowing that my Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2140 could reach 3.2Ghz easily, I set it to 8×400 and voila, it continued to POST at 3.2Ghz. Too [...]