About to jump in for an E8500

[Kirth Gersen]

Come across one at a very good price, so decided to go for it...

But just before I do, I would appreciate views on how far I can go with my current rig. I sense both the Board and the RAM may hold me back. Particularly the board. My max FSB with the E2160 is 371, and I will be looking for 440 if I am to get my target 4.2Ghz overclock.

Thoughts?

 

[Cob]

I would say the 371mhz FSB issue is down to the E2160 and not the board. The board should be capable of 500mhz.

 

[Tooks]

Agree with that. Max FSB with my E2180 at any multi on this board was a very similar 372.

With my E8400, with the multi dropped of course, the board will do 475+. (Mine's a P31, but it's basically a P35 chipset with ICH7R southbridge).

 

[Kirth Gersen]

Thanks guys - that helps. Do you think 4.2 Ghz achieveable?

Tooks, that's a fairly low clock with your 8400. What's stopping you?

 

[pastymuncher]

Thanks guys - that helps. Do you think 4.2 Ghz achieveable?

Tooks, that's a fairly low clock with your 8400. What's stopping you?

You may have a hard time getting to 4.2Ghz. These things are a right pain to clock and get prime stable. Loads of people are struggling with them and temps don't seem to be read properly either. I've been playing with mine for a week now and have only just managed to get 4.2ghz prime stable. It is really hard going.

 

[Talrinys]

Sounds like another stepping will be the overclock-thang then?

 

[Kirth Gersen]

You may have a hard time getting to 4.2Ghz. These things are a right pain to clock and get prime stable. Loads of people are struggling with them and temps don't seem to be read properly either. I've been playing with mine for a week now and have only just managed to get 4.2ghz prime stable. It is really hard going.

And that's with far better kit than mine... hmm...

 

[mame]

That not too hard to test if have hit an FSB wall with your board. on my old athlon 3800 x2, the max i could get was 265x10. At 270x10 it was unstable. Same as it was at 270x9 and 270x8. And was proved even more when the CPU went in someone else's motherboard and ran fine at 2.8ghz

 

[Kelt]

I would say the 371mhz FSB issue is down to the E2160 and not the board. The board should be capable of 500mhz.

Out of interest, do you know why that is? That e2*** series aren't capable of higher FSB's in relation to their bigger cousins??

 

[Cob]

Out of interest, do you know why that is? That e2*** series aren't capable of higher FSB's in relation to their bigger cousins??

Judging by the E2*** overclocking thread, most of the E2*** chips seem to hit their wall at around 430mhz (I'm stressing an E2140 atm that craps out at 440mhz, even tho my board can do well over 500mhz with an E6600). But some are coming in at much lower than 430mhz. The 4** series Celerons are also crapping out at 370-380mhz for some reason.

 

[Kirth Gersen]

Mine's an L2 Revision, which may be the reason for the crappy wall.

Talrinys has a point. The inexplicable instabilities post 4Ghz and the dodgy temp readings (I understand it is the CPU and not the software that is at fault) may result in a new revision for the E8000s.

I'm stepping back from the brink!

 

[Kelt]

Judging by the E2*** overclocking thread, most of the E2*** chips seem to hit their wall at around 430mhz (I'm stressing an E2140 atm that craps out at 440mhz, even tho my board can do well over 500mhz with an E6600). But some are coming in at much lower than 430mhz. The 4** series Celerons are also crapping out at 370-380mhz for some reason.

Ah right, thanks for the reply. Tallies with mine not going much beyond 420ish...

 

[YorkshirePadd26]

Do you really need to upgrade ? is a wolfdale at 4.2ghz really going to be any faster than a E2180 at 3.2ghz for what you need?

If you really really need all that speed then fair enough, but i'm sure not many people do.

Not real people anyway, maybe only 3dmark geeks who buzz over an increase of 5fps and go tell there mates

Come across one at a very good price, so decided to go for it...

But just before I do, I would appreciate views on how far I can go with my current rig. I sense both the Board and the RAM may hold me back. Particularly the board. My max FSB with the E2160 is 371, and I will be looking for 440 if I am to get my target 4.2Ghz overclock.

Thoughts?

 

[Kirth Gersen]

Agree 100%.

I think there is plenty of evidence to suggest that for most GPU bound games, 3.6Ghz or thereabouts is as fast as you need.

However, my particular thing is FSX, and that's CPU bound, with every Mhz counting...

 

[Tooks]

Thanks guys - that helps. Do you think 4.2 Ghz achieveable?

Tooks, that's a fairly low clock with your 8400. What's stopping you?

Time really!

3.7ghz is my day to day stable clock, and the only one that I've run Orthos on overnight (12hrs +) so it's the only stable clock I can claim.

I've had it running at 3.95Ghz, 439FSB, and although it was ok in windows and super pi etc, I don't think it was stable.

I need to have a play around with the voltages etc, but I don't know if I'll get to 4Ghz stable to be honest. It'll probably be 3.8Ghz I reckon, using the 8x multi on the cpu, and 475FSB.

All my CPU's in the recent past have always clocked better after a few weeks though, so maybe I'll get there! Some people maintain that this 'burn in' effect is a myth, but I think there is something in it.

At 3.8Ghz, my pc is 30% faster at the Custom PC benchmarks (which I think represent a decent real time use of a pc) than anything I've had before, so I'm pretty happy. I've had an E4400 at 3.4Ghz, an E6300 at 3Ghz, an E2180 and E2140 both at 3.6Ghz, and Q6600 that unfortunately would only do 2.7Ghz on the board I had it on when I was running SLI.

 

[bimmerboii]

My P35C-DS3R is running at 500FSB with no probs.. e6550 @3.5 (500x7).. see my sig