Intel Celeron E3400 socket: LGA 775

What the Celeron E3400 is

The Intel Celeron E3400 is a dual core Wolfdale desktop processor that Intel launched on January 17, 2010 for office towers. It runs two cores at 2.6 GHz with no turbo, so 2 cores give 2 threads. The pair shares 1 MB of L2 cache on a 45 nm process with 228 million transistors on an 82 mm² die. Power is rated at 65 W with an 800 MT/s front side bus and the SLGTZ sSpec.

The E3400 leads the E3300 by 100 MHz at the same 65 W. Against Pentium Wolfdale parts at similar clocks it trails in cache sensitive work because 1 MB faces 2 MB, but office suites rarely expose the gap. Hardware virtualization is available, which helps virtual machine use. The multiplier is locked at 13x.

There is no graphics on the CPU. Display comes from the board chipset such as G41 integrated graphics or a discrete card.

Socket and motherboard compatibility

The Celeron E3400 fits LGA 775 with 775 lands. Intel 4 series boards boot Wolfdale natively, while 3 series boards need a BIOS that lists the R0 stepping. Check the board CPU list because 965 boards often lack 45 nm support.

LGA 775 chips never fit LGA 771 despite similar pads. The Socket vs chipset: what decides whether a CPU works guide covers pairing rules, and the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 page shows a quad on the same socket.

Memory, PCIe and cooling

Memory is DDR2 or DDR3 in two channels depending on the board chipset, up to 16 GB on common ATX models. A matched DDR2-800 pair suits most E3400 towers.

The 800 MT/s front side bus links the CPU to the chipset. PCIe Gen 2 slots hang off the chipset.

Cooling is the stock 65 W LGA 775 push pin sink on the 72 × 72 mm pattern. Retail boxes shipped with a low profile aluminum sink.

Upgrade paths

On LGA 775 the upgrade is a Pentium Wolfdale such as the E5800 at 3.2 GHz with 2 MB of cache, or a Core 2 Duo E8xxx with 6 MB on the same board. Beyond LGA 775 a move to LGA 1156 needs a new board and DDR3.