cheap oc upgrade?

helpimcrap · 25 Aug 2007 at 11:30

thinking about a cheap upgrade...

i have an opty 146 @ 2.8 and 2gb Ram with an 1800XT card and a DFI NF4 mobo.

i've been considering intel for a while now but recently things have changed since i last looked.... i was pretty set on a 6300 and clock the crap out of it but now we have 2140/2160s which seem cheap but also stupidly OCable.

can someone spec me a cheap base setup for OCing. the emphasis is on cheap and bang for buck.

no budget as such, just cheap as you can.

i would be ordering all parts from OCUK as i have done in the past so if i cant buy it here i'm not interester.

these are preliminary enquiries so i can digest the information before making a choice....

cheers

Vimes · 25 Aug 2007 at 12:04

Well I have a similar setup to yours...

I have an opteron 146 @ 2.6 / 2.8 (depending how warm it is) and 2gb Ram with an 8800GTS 320mb card and a DFI NF4 Ultra board.

I have recently built a system up for someone using one of the new Gigabyte P35 boards and a 2160, with 2GB of Crucial 5300 RAM. The 2160 clocked fine at 3.0Ghz, I just left it at that as I don't live close enough to the person who I built it for to keep popping round. We used a Scyth Ninja HSF, yet the std HSF seemed to cool the CPU fine - even at 3.0Ghz..!!!

So the 2160 runs cool and clocks for fun, so it seems. The 5300 Crucial seems to go well above its rated spd values as well. I do tend to favour Crucial as their support and returns is second to none in my experience.

AFAIK the 2180 will be out very soon and with the higher multi that might be helpful in getting a little more out of it...?

The Gigabyte P35 boards, not too sure if it affects all of the range, seems to have changed now from the first revision 1 / 1.1 (which I bought for the above build) to a revision 2.0. These have 8 USB ports on the backplate as opposed to just 4 on the revision 1's, for me that is more useful. Although I do believe that OC are still stocking the 1 / 1.1 version of the boards.

Considering that the X38 chipset boards are only a few weeks away, at most, I would tend to wait on...

The 2180 coming out and then deciding between that and the 2160.

One of the Gigabyte P35 boards, should be revision 2.0 in stock by then.

OR

One of the X38 chipset boards that by then should be on the market, Gigabyte have noted that they will be releasing a cheaper board based around that chipset.

I am not aware of your monitor or whether you intend to look to change that. My TFT is a 19" Samsung 913n and whilst it is not up there with the 24" monsters it certainly complements the rest of my sytem and runs everything really well.

You might want to read this article regarding the 8800 graphics cards....

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/416/

Just out of curiosity with such a rig that you have already what is it that you want to achieve that you can't do now...?

helpimcrap · 25 Aug 2007 at 12:09

Vimes said:
I am not aware of your monitor or whether you intend to look to change that. My TFT is a 19" Samsung 913n and whilst it is not up there with the 24" monsters it certainly complements the rest of my sytem and runs everything really well.

Just out of curiosity with such a rig that you have already what is it that you want to achieve that you can't do now...?

i have a 17" CRT iiyama which is good for the purpose its designed for and therefore my graphics card is ok on it (maxed out everything on any game so far... just not that high a res... 1280*1024 max).

as for what i cant do now.... well nothing really... i only surf the net and play CS:S lol. i just fancied clocking the crap out of something different. this can run at 2.9 but it gets too warm and i did toy with the idea of a water cooling setup but for the money i could upgrade and then this PC would be my second for my room and maybe get an LCD monitor up there... hmmmm...

thanks for the input.

Vimes · 25 Aug 2007 at 13:20

Nothing wrong with just wanting to clock the crap out of your rig

The only thing that I was going to get to is...

When I built that rig up and ran it at 3.0Ghz it was nice and fast. I then used my graphics card in it to try it out compared to my Opteron rig. I could not tell any difference whatsoever when playing the games that I tried or just using the PC.

I understand tha there are applications that would specifically benefit the features of the dual core Intel over that of the Opteron but I don't use them.

All I'm suggesting is that *if* you are quite happy with your rigs performance then don't expect too much of a difference if you then change to the kind of rig that I built up.

On writing the above I do remind myself that there are people who have done a similar move and reported seeing significant changes, for the better, all round - I just wasn't one of them

I am a little surprised that now you have mentioned your 17" CRT that it wasn't at the top of your list of things that you might want to change, as that would, imo, make a 'real' noticeable difference. Understanding, of course, that your screen size takes a toll on your graphics card / system. A 17" CRT at 1280x1024 is the same as my TFT at 19" - it adds up to more than a 2" viewable increase so it would make a great difference for you without increasing the stress on your GPU. Even a 22" W/S could be powered by your rig.