CPU for SLI?

[Davemek21]

q6600@3ghz (9x333)
8800GTX in SLI (169.28)
OCZ reaper 4gb 800 5-5-5-15 2T
EVGA 680i latest bios
Vista 64 all updates & SP1
Thermaltake 1200w PSU

So the new 1200w thermaltake PSU is in and I've moved my tower to a much colder room, temps are cpu at 20-21-26-26, mobo at 24 and gfx cards are 50 each. I've hit 15700 consistantly on 3dm06 now.

Two questions;

1) I feel heavily CPU limited and I'm quite fancying a wolfdale. I can sell my q6600 for about 80% of what they retail for at the moment and get the wolfsdale.. worth it? Would love to start clocking that bad boy. What difference would I see in 3dm for example?

2) is there any way to set both of my GPU fans to 100%? Noise isn't an issue for me at all.

 

[MumboJumbo]

Why on earth would you get 1200w. TYou know GTX sli will be run on the corsair 520w? Big waste of money.

1) You arnt overly cpu limited in games. You dont currently need a dual core over 3ghz for most games. Supcom may be the exception. And i dont know if the nvida mobos will be good enough at handling the high FBS to overclock them very well.

2) Download the gainward expert tool. Or use the nvida control panel. The gainward expert tool will allow you to overclock them.

 

[Davemek21]

Well I had the 620HX and it was getting ridiculously hot. Nivida rec. is 750w plus so I just took the plunge. My main question is about the cpu really. I'm looking at 780i as the mobo.

 

[MumboJumbo]

some reports have show them to overclock well. ive not really read up much about them. Perhaps they have not followed suit with the 680i

 

[Hesky82]

I think you should give an E8500 a shot, 4ghz should be possible as it only takes 420FSB. I managed that much on an old Asus 650i board and E6600.

Make sure your board likes the half multi if you do go for the E8500.

Saying that, I get a nice increase in frame rate when I run my quad at 4Ghz instead of 3Ghz.

You could keep the quad and buy a new motherboard which could overclock it significantly higher. If you have a GO stepping Q6600 its really worth doing, if its an old B3 ditch it and get a Wolfdale.