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Q8300

paradisiac

paradisiac

paradisiac

Soldato
Joined
22 Mar 2009
Posts
7,754
Location
Cornwall
what the highest speed i can expect to get from this with a: stock HSF and b: relativley cheap aftermarket HSF?
dont have a lot of money to spend and havent really done overclocking properly for ages now, so dont want to go too far, just if i can get a bit more from the cpu then would be a bonus.
 
Hi m8,

You can probably hit 3GHz on the stock cooler - but this chip isn't the best overclocker due to a high stock FSB and low maximum multiplier. With a good n' cheap cooler like this you could probably get 3.5GHz, but you may be limited by you're fully occupied RAM slots.

However, if you are mainly playing games your 2.5GHz Quad core will not be limiting you're framerates - it will be your video card. With that in mind, you may want to consider investing any CPU overclocking money in a faster graphics card.
 
cmndr_andi said:
Hi m8,

You can probably hit 3GHz on the stock cooler - but this chip isn't the best overclocker due to a high stock FSB and low maximum multiplier. With a good n' cheap cooler like this you could probably get 3.5GHz, but you may be limited by you're fully occupied RAM slots.

However, if you are mainly playing games your 2.5GHz Quad core will not be limiting you're framerates - it will be your video card. With that in mind, you may want to consider investing any CPU overclocking money in a faster graphics card.
Click to expand...

hopefully getting a new gfx card either for xmas or just after, given the wife some ideas but cant get owt until i know if she has got me one.

what you mean by my ram slots all being occupied, is this not good when overclocking?
 
Yea, it can limit overclocking as it puts more stress on the memory controller. You may want to drop your RAM speeds if you are having problems overclocking.

As for overclocking on stock cooling, install this stress testing program and run it for 10-15 minutes and see what the maximum temperature you hit is. That will inform you on how far you can push the chip with just the stock cooler. (The intel thermal specification of the Q8300 CPU is 71.4 degrees C).
 
cmndr_andi said:
Yea, it can limit overclocking as it puts more stress on the memory controller. You may want to drop your RAM speeds if you are having problems overclocking.

As for overclocking on stock cooling, install this stress testing program and run it for 10-15 minutes and see what the maximum temperature you hit is. That will inform you on how far you can push the chip with just the stock cooler. (The intel thermal specification of the Q8300 CPU is 71.4 degrees C).
Click to expand...

run that before overclocking, or after each stepup?
 
I'd run it now. It will give you a baseline (stock cooling and clockspeeds) - so you know where to go from.

Then obviously run it again after each stage of overclocking to test stability and temperatures.
 
cmndr_andi said:
I'd run it now. It will give you a baseline (stock cooling and clockspeeds) - so you know where to go from.

Then obviously run it again after each stage of overclocking to test stability and temperatures.
Click to expand...

ok will do when i get home from work and will post up the results and see where i can go from there. i read that just upping the fsb to 400 with stock hsf and voltages untouched will give a stable 3.0GHz, will it make any real difference to performance or do i need to be aiming at nearer the 4.0GHz (if pos)?
 
Cool, look forward to seeing the results of the baseline test.

As for overclocking, I think the overclock to 3GHz should be rather safe (but definitely do the baseline test first). As for the voltages, I wouldn't leave them "untouched" but instead at stock. If you leave them untouched (ie. Auto) the voltage will scale with the CPU speed, which is not a good thing.

As for performance gains, in CPU intensive tasks like video editing and winRAR the extra CPU speed will give you a nice performance boost. However, in games you will get little to no benefit as you will be very much limited by your graphics card.

4GH is AFAIK not realistic on that CPU, as it would require an FSB of 533MHz, which few (if any) motherboards can produce and the CPU can't handle. High FSBs are usually the limiting factor when overclocking this CPU.

do i have to input this into the program anywhere?
Click to expand...

No, the program will shut down by default if it goes over 80 degrees (which is safe for a short time), so you don't have to worry, it's just something to keep in mind.
 
ok kool, got my DVI-HDMI adaptor (free from work) to take home tonight so hopefully will be able to test both this and the res at the same time :D
 
lol ok fair enough, mine is pretty silent at the moment which is good. dont really use the pc for anything other than games, so if its not going to make to much difference in them then might look at getting it as high as pos on stock, and then see what gfx card and hdd i can get as i think both are holding me back somewhat. my only experience with faster hard drives is with the earlier WD Raptors, are these still some of the best drives of are there better out there, and would this release more potential from my machine?
 
paradisiac said:
lol ok fair enough, mine is pretty silent at the moment which is good. dont really use the pc for anything other than games, so if its not going to make to much difference in them then might look at getting it as high as pos on stock, and then see what gfx card and hdd i can get as i think both are holding me back somewhat. my only experience with faster hard drives is with the earlier WD Raptors, are these still some of the best drives of are there better out there, and would this release more potential from my machine?
Click to expand...

i don't think the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 will be louder then the stock HSF
And a faster HDD will just in prove your loadin times and speed up windows a bit that about it. you really do need a better GFX tho

XFX ATI Radeon HD 4890 1024MB
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?&groupid=701&catid=56&subid=1403&sortby=priceAsc
very good card for the money

if you want to or can spend a bit more money
VTX ATI Radeon HD 5850
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-121-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1502
 
Th3D0n said:
i don't think the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 will be louder then the stock HSF
And a faster HDD will just in prove your loadin times and speed up windows a bit that about it. you really do need a better GFX tho

XFX ATI Radeon HD 4890 1024MB
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?&groupid=701&catid=56&subid=1403&sortby=priceAsc
very good card for the money

if you want to or can spend a bit more money
VTX ATI Radeon HD 5850
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-121-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1502
Click to expand...

paradisiac said:
hopefully getting a new gfx card either for xmas or just after, given the wife some ideas but cant get owt until i know if she has got me one.

what you mean by my ram slots all being occupied, is this not good when overclocking?
Click to expand...

hopefully the gfx card issue will be resolved soon. will it not help speed up games though with a faster hdd as it will be able to load the next part quicker, i rip all my games to iso and run them from a virtual drive as i find it quicker than running them from cd/dvd most of the time.
 
ok fair enough, might give that a miss for a bit then, remember having raided raptors ages ago, thing loaded pretty damn quick.

so if i got it up to 3.0GHz, with a better GFX Card then i should be ok, or will it be just as good leaving the cpu alone.
 
A new HDD won't give you any framerate increases in games, but it will help load times (and windows boot times) as well as make browsing through files in windows faster. As you plan to rip DVDs then you will likely looking for more storage anyway, so in that case I strongly recommend giving this a look- it is one of the fastest Hard Drives around and actually really good value.

As for graphics card, the ones Th3D0n recommended are great. Though, if you want to spend less money - I suggest this should be the minimum upgrade considering your resolution.

so if i got it up to 3.0GHz, with a better GFX Card then i should be ok, or will it be just as good leaving the cpu alone.
Click to expand...

It really depends on the graphics card you plan to use, however even with a 5850 a C2Q Yorkfield @2.5GHz isn't going to limit things down much. However, for the sake of £15-20 on a good cooler you can have 3GHz+ and a cooler machine to boot.
 
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