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Intel Core 2 Duo E7200
| Caractéristiques | |||
| Socket | 775 | ||
| Number of cores | 2 | ||
| Clock rate | 2.53 GHz | ||
| Cache | 3 MB | ||
| Thermal Design Power | 65 W | ||
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| Technology | 45 nm |
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Régis Jehl
Test date: November 6, 2008
Test date: November 6, 2008
E7000 vs. E8000
Intel launched its Core 2 Duo E7000 line in April 2008 with this CPU, the E7200, although the processors in the earlier E8000 series are more powerful.
Both sets of processors are dual-core, but the E8000s have 6 MB of cache in place of the 3 MB on this line, and a bus running at 333 MHz in place of 266 MHz here.
The E7000 series is engineered at 45 nm, allowing it to have a Thermal Design Power of just 65 W.
Both sets of processors are dual-core, but the E8000s have 6 MB of cache in place of the 3 MB on this line, and a bus running at 333 MHz in place of 266 MHz here.
The E7000 series is engineered at 45 nm, allowing it to have a Thermal Design Power of just 65 W.
According to its technical specification, Intel's Core 2 Duo E7200 is 5% less powerful than the next model, the E7300, and this small discrepancy on paper was repeated in our labs.
To take the example of our file compression test using WinRAR, the E7200 took 3 minutes 54 seconds to complete a task that only took the E7300 3 minutes 48 seconds.
Compare the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 with the AMD Phenom X3 8650 and other CPUs in our
Product Face-Off
Product Face-Off
The difference was a lot more marked in Photoshop CS3, where applying a complex filter took 5 minutes 41 seconds on this processor compared to just 5 minutes 17 seconds for its big brother.
That said, if you're likely to be doing a lot of intensive 3D graphics work like this, you might be better off looking at a CPU with four cores from Intel's Core 2 Quad range.
These models are more pricey, but they make good use of the extra cores: the Q8200, for instance, only takes 3 minutes 33 seconds to complete this same Photoshop test.
On the other hand, the E7xxx range uses a little less power than the E8xxx and Q8xxx processors: we rated our test PC at 155 W when idling and 195 W with the CPU load at 100%.
Pluses
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Good compromise between performance and energy use
Minuses
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Not as powerful as a quad-core processor for demanding applications
The E7000 are decent dual-core processors that are worthwhile for relatively demanding users. For more powerful tasks, though, they just can't keep up with the latest quad-core CPUs.
