Benching on a budget is not easy. Motherboards that allow a BLK of 250 plus are not common. CPU's that have a BLK of 250 plus are rare, and a CPU with an unlocked multi are costly. But every now and then there is a combination that just works.
I was building a HTPC system when I came across a contest on HWBOT. I had a look and decided it was worth buying the motherboard since it was perfect for my needs.
The pocket rocket. Gigabyte H55N-USB3 mini ITX motherboard.
LINK
Coupled with the entry level Intel i3-530 and I had a benching rig for under £160
I had bought some OEM ram costing £74 from OverclockerUK when they had a special on Geil a little while ago. So I was good to go.
The poor motherboard looks really tiny in that Coolermaster Elite 330 Midi Tower Case, but tiny or not it was able to clock to 4GHz with out any problem at all.
True that Super Pi time is not going to be setting the world alight but I was reasonably happy with things so far.
I had a better time with the i5-750 CPU on this amazing Gigabyte motherboard which clocked the quad-core to 4 GHz with no problems what so ever. Really this is quite an amazing mini ITX board.
09 Min 03 Sec 078 msec
But the good stuff was still to come. The Gigabyte contest was devided into two stages. Under 4GHz and the second stage was open to any frequency.
So Stage 1 of the contest was sorted I had an entry submitted.
Time to get into the second stage of the contest.
The only way I could really compete was if I got my CPU really cold. Air cooling would not go much further than it did. Water cooling would offer only a little gain compared to the other submissions.
So I tried to find a source of Dry Ice near to where I live. Finally I did find some Dry Ice and was just as quickly rejected as an option. Man alive the stuff is expensive in the UK. When the women told me the price I thought she was selling me shares in the company not a few kilograms of Dry Ice. I had to find another way.
After a Friday night out I was walking home when I saw a sushi shop was cleaning up and there were bits of Dry Ice that they were looking to toss out. I saved what I could and took them home to bench.
Three hours of benching. That’s all I had. So it was split into two sessions. One was with a dirty Win7 OS but a OS that I knew would boot easy. I have found that some OS will boot easy when over clocking and others will bench fast or good but will not boot easy. XP Pro.
Here I am benching on the dining room table – I did not have time to mess around because the bits of Dry Ice I had were rather limited, so after they were crushed the benching rig was fired up.
Max BLK and clocks for the CPU
Bios Version. F5b
Vcore set via bios 1.62
Vtt 1.49
Ram at 1.65
All else set to auto.
The runs that were completed in Windows 7 were completely un-tweaked..
Here is my first completed benchmark at the max CPU I could do in the time I had.
A pretty average 7.26.800 but a starting place.
Benching just short of f 5.7 GHz not bad for a CPU that cost less than £80. 
Finding what the maximum clock speed was with this incredible little board had taken some time. And I had less than a cup of Dry Ice slush left to bench with. So as quickly as I could I pulled the dirty Win7 OS and swapped it with the XP benching OS I like to use. Not as easy to get into for some reason but one that is a bit quicker for 32Mil Super Pi.
I was not able to do anything besides the basics like LS and Maxmem. Nothing else at all not even CW. And I think I was lucky to get this run in.
7.21.453
I tried for one more after that. But this time with ram set in bios as per my best 4GHz run. And it was looking really really good for a sub 7 minute run. Right up to when the bench died on loop 21. The pot was empty. Not a bit of Dry Ice left in it, I have no idea how it lasted that long with nothing but Acetone in the pot. Good pot I think for dry Ice.
It was truly amazing what this budget combination was able to do. Gigabyte have a winner here, seriously one of the best over-clockers at a very good price.
Now the motherboard and CPU are happily playing 1080p video in the lounge as our HTPC.
Till next time that is.
I was building a HTPC system when I came across a contest on HWBOT. I had a look and decided it was worth buying the motherboard since it was perfect for my needs.
The pocket rocket. Gigabyte H55N-USB3 mini ITX motherboard.
LINK
Coupled with the entry level Intel i3-530 and I had a benching rig for under £160
I had bought some OEM ram costing £74 from OverclockerUK when they had a special on Geil a little while ago. So I was good to go.
The poor motherboard looks really tiny in that Coolermaster Elite 330 Midi Tower Case, but tiny or not it was able to clock to 4GHz with out any problem at all.
True that Super Pi time is not going to be setting the world alight but I was reasonably happy with things so far.
I had a better time with the i5-750 CPU on this amazing Gigabyte motherboard which clocked the quad-core to 4 GHz with no problems what so ever. Really this is quite an amazing mini ITX board.
09 Min 03 Sec 078 msec
But the good stuff was still to come. The Gigabyte contest was devided into two stages. Under 4GHz and the second stage was open to any frequency.
So Stage 1 of the contest was sorted I had an entry submitted.
Time to get into the second stage of the contest.
The only way I could really compete was if I got my CPU really cold. Air cooling would not go much further than it did. Water cooling would offer only a little gain compared to the other submissions.
So I tried to find a source of Dry Ice near to where I live. Finally I did find some Dry Ice and was just as quickly rejected as an option. Man alive the stuff is expensive in the UK. When the women told me the price I thought she was selling me shares in the company not a few kilograms of Dry Ice. I had to find another way.
After a Friday night out I was walking home when I saw a sushi shop was cleaning up and there were bits of Dry Ice that they were looking to toss out. I saved what I could and took them home to bench.
Three hours of benching. That’s all I had. So it was split into two sessions. One was with a dirty Win7 OS but a OS that I knew would boot easy. I have found that some OS will boot easy when over clocking and others will bench fast or good but will not boot easy. XP Pro.
Here I am benching on the dining room table – I did not have time to mess around because the bits of Dry Ice I had were rather limited, so after they were crushed the benching rig was fired up.
Max BLK and clocks for the CPU
Bios Version. F5b
Vcore set via bios 1.62
Vtt 1.49
Ram at 1.65
All else set to auto.
The runs that were completed in Windows 7 were completely un-tweaked..
Here is my first completed benchmark at the max CPU I could do in the time I had.
A pretty average 7.26.800 but a starting place.
Benching just short of f 5.7 GHz
not bad for a CPU that cost less than £80. Finding what the maximum clock speed was with this incredible little board had taken some time. And I had less than a cup of Dry Ice slush left to bench with. So as quickly as I could I pulled the dirty Win7 OS and swapped it with the XP benching OS I like to use. Not as easy to get into for some reason but one that is a bit quicker for 32Mil Super Pi.
I was not able to do anything besides the basics like LS and Maxmem. Nothing else at all not even CW. And I think I was lucky to get this run in.
7.21.453
I tried for one more after that. But this time with ram set in bios as per my best 4GHz run. And it was looking really really good for a sub 7 minute run. Right up to when the bench died on loop 21. The pot was empty. Not a bit of Dry Ice left in it, I have no idea how it lasted that long with nothing but Acetone in the pot. Good pot I think for dry Ice.
It was truly amazing what this budget combination was able to do. Gigabyte have a winner here, seriously one of the best over-clockers at a very good price.
Now the motherboard and CPU are happily playing 1080p video in the lounge as our HTPC.
Till next time that is.
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