oc performance without braking the bank

Hesky82 · 3 Feb 2007 at 05:51

Hi guys, I'm looking to upgrade my system, I'm sort of looking for the best overclocking performance without spending to much dosh on the upgrade, I'm gonna stick with my gfx. ive pretty much set myself on these bits.

Abit AB9 QuadGT - seems super stable with some people hitting 550FSB in initial testing, northbridge strap and a great price.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 - price is finally coming down.

2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2 DDR2 PC2-6400 - seem to hit well over DDR2-1067 thanks to micron chips.

I was sort of thinkin about going with an E6300 to save some cash but it does seem the conroe 6600 is woth the extra cash. cpu will be watercooled.

What do you guys think?

Will_3rd · 3 Feb 2007 at 09:53

Hesky82 said:
Abit AB9 QuadGT - seems super stable with some people hitting 550FSB in initial testing, northbridge strap and a great price.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 - price is finally coming down.

2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2 DDR2 PC2-6400 - seem to hit well over DDR2-1067 thanks to micron chips.

I was sort of thinkin about going with an E6300 to save some cash but it does seem the conroe 6600 is woth the extra cash. cpu will be watercooled.

Not sure about the motherboard and memory but I can tell, you would be better off with the 4300 as it has a higher multiplier, lower bus speed meaning you don't to spend large amounts of cash on faster memory and its cheaper then the 6000 series Core2Duo's.

Hesky82 · 3 Feb 2007 at 11:24

better off with a e4300 over an e6600? dont they both use the same 9 multiplier? the e6600 just runs a higher front side bus frequency and more cache.
I recon you were comparing e4300 to e6300 and the e4300 does seem the safer bet. then again with a good overclocking board a 7 multi used on the e6300 shouldn’t create to much problem though.
funny how Intel quietly released the new e4000 series.

Cheer

Will_3rd · 3 Feb 2007 at 15:42

the general consensus is that 4300 is the easier overclocker but the 6300/6600 allows for the higher overclock

AFAIK the 4300 has a 9 multi 800 FSB and the 6300/6600 have a 7 multi 1066 FSB

Hesky82 · 3 Feb 2007 at 16:39

if that was the case both the e6300 and e6600 would run at 1.86GHz, which is not true.

e6300 - 266FSB (1066 bus speed/4) x 7 multi = 1.86GHz

e6600 - 266FSB (1066 bus speed/4) x 9 multi = 2.4GHz

C2D still have quad pumped FSB like the old p4's

yeah it seems the e6300 can overclock that little further, probably dude to the lack of people running e4300s

Will_3rd · 3 Feb 2007 at 17:31

Oops my mistake :rolleyes:

nightic · 3 Feb 2007 at 18:13

Hesky82 said:
Hi guys, I'm looking to upgrade my system, I'm sort of looking for the best overclocking performance without spending to much dosh on the upgrade, I'm gonna stick with my gfx. ive pretty much set myself on these bits.
Abit AB9 QuadGT - seems super stable with some people hitting 550FSB in initial testing, northbridge strap and a great price.

500-515Mhz FSB is a more realistic top end on the Abit QuadGT.

Hesky82 said:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 - price is finally coming down.

Depends how far you want to clock.
An E6300 with the Abit QuadGT should take you to 3.5GHz (if the CPU will reach that) but it would be near the top end of the board's ability (with the current BIOS anyway) requiring most chipset voltages to be cranked up.
For a saving over the E6600, the E6400 would be a good compromise - giving you an easy 3.6GHz (again, if the CPU allowed it) whilst not over-stressing the motherboard.

Hesky82 said:
2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2 DDR2 PC2-6400 - seem to hit well over DDR2-1067 thanks to micron chips.

These now use ProMOS ICs, not Micron.
There are many better kits (that do use Micron) available in their price range.

Hesky82 · 3 Feb 2007 at 18:36

hi nightic,
doh looks like all the ram manufactures are switching to ProMOS chips. any idea which sticks still run them? Team Xtreem use them in there 2gb sets but there nearly 200quid.

probably going to take a miss on the Abit QuadGT as good as it is, and go with the new Asus P5N-E SLI 650i board as it is better priced. and the money i save on that I can put towards an e6600, or even grab an e4300 and maybe even go for some pc5400 low latency ram to save even more money, or some low end pc6400 and not really overclock it, and build a bargain pc.

Asus P5N-E SLI - e4300 - pc5400

or spend a bit (around £120 more)

Asus P5N-E SLI - e6600 - pc6400

what do you recon?

nightic · 3 Feb 2007 at 18:57

Hesky82 said:
hi nightic,
doh looks like all the ram manufactures are switching to ProMOS chips. any idea which sticks still run them? Team Xtreem use them in there 2gb sets but there nearly 200quid.

probably going to take a miss on the Abit QuadGT as good as it is, and go with the new Asus P5N-E SLI 650i board as it is better priced. and the money i save on that I can put towards an e6600, or even grab an e4300 and maybe even go for some pc5400 low latency ram to save even more money, or some low end pc6400 and not really overclock it, and build a bargain pc.

Asus P5N-E SLI - e4300 - pc5400

or spend a bit (around £120 more)

Asus P5N-E SLI - e6600 - pc6400

what do you recon?

Assuming you're set on the P5N-E SLi then I would probably still go for the E6400 (8x 450 for 3.6GHz which should be do-able on water) paired with something like the Crucial Ballistix PC2-5300 3-3-3 which are very well priced for Micron-based RAM.
(Having said that, I'm not that familiar with what an average P5N-E SLi will comfortably do, FSB-wise - if they're happy at over 500MHz 24/7 then the E6300 becomes viable).

The E4300 (9x multi yes, but not typically overclocking to the same degree as the E6300/E6400, run hotter and have slightly lower clock-for-clock performance) should really only be considered for boards that i.e. can't hit over 400MHz FSB.

Hesky82 · 3 Feb 2007 at 19:13

sorry nightic, i miss read your post as a recommendation for the e4300 not e6400. Minstadave has just gone for an e6400 for the same reason.

Crucial Ballistixs look good, am i right in saying the PC2-6400C4 also use micron chips? just slacker latencies running at a faster frequency.

thanks for the help!

nightic · 3 Feb 2007 at 19:17

Hesky82 said:
Crucial Ballistixs look good, am i right in saying the PC2-6400C4 also use micron chips? just slacker latencies running at a faster frequency.

That's right - the PC2-5300 ones will o/c to the level you're looking at anyway (i.e. 450-500MHz) whilst saving you some cash.

Hesky82 · 3 Feb 2007 at 19:28

nightic said:
That's right - the PC2-5300 ones will o/c to the level you're looking at anyway (i.e. 450-500MHz) whilst saving you some cash.

tempting, was also looking at the muskins that use micron chips but they seem much harder to get hold of and are more expensive. the Corsair sticks seemed to be the best bet as there cheap and the reviews ive read see them go over 900 at 4-4-4 and over 1100 at 5-5-5 just like the Muskins, but if they no longer use the same chips theres not much point. looking into the Crucial Ballistixs and a few review ive read it seems they dont seem to overclock quite as well.

nightic · 3 Feb 2007 at 19:33

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17687024

Careful when reading Ballistix PC2-5300 reviews - that product has been around a while and most reviews appear to be rather old.
The reviews from say a year ago won't reflect the performance of the sticks available now.

Make sure you're looking at the (1 or 2 only I think) recent-ish reviews of the RAM - note the new heatspreader design as an indication.

Recent review (from December 2006) here:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Crucial/Ballistix5300/

Hesky82 · 3 Feb 2007 at 19:42

cool, so basically ram with the new heat spreader (yellow with silver around the edge) are the new stuff?

nightic · 3 Feb 2007 at 20:27

Hesky82 said:
cool, so basically ram with the new heat spreader (yellow with silver around the edge) are the new stuff?

Yep - these are confirmed to use Micron D9GMH ICs.

Hesky82 · 5 Feb 2007 at 19:57

Thanks for the help nightic! I ended getting a set of crucial ram in the end, after a lot of deliberation I picked up a set of 10th anniversary, thought for the extra 25-30 quid it would be worth it and I may stand a chance of getting a better low voltage 3-3-3-8 clock with these cherry picked chips.
After yet more thinking I also ended up getting an e6600. I was dead set on an e6400 and the cheaper ballistixs but again I felt the 30 bux extra for the e6600 was worth it.
Can’t wait till I get vista and have to go on the hunt for another set of 10th anni’s :rolleyes: