Revised Upgrade help plz?

Dob1eman

Dob1eman

Dob1eman

Associate
Joined
24 Apr 2007
Posts
168
Location
Derbyshire
Right I have asked a few questions over the last few days and have decided to upgrade my PC with the following:

Abit IP-35 Pro
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 768MB GDDR3

Few questions:

1. I know that to fully use 4GB memory I will need to upgrade my Vista Ultimate to the 64bit version at present I use Vista 32bit. I currently have 2GB of Corsair DDR2 XMS2-8500C5 would that possibly work with the memory I am going to buy so that way I could have 6GB memory would that work together?

2. Everybody has told me to get the Q6600 and overclock it. I don't know how? Any simple step my step instructions especially if there is a guide with doing it with the Abit IP-35 Pro? I am not after a massive overclock? Also is it necessary will it be worthwhile, will I see visable benefit with overclocking? Do you also overclock the memory?

Any advise much appriciated?
 
the shadow said:
Hi take u time to overclock im sure its fast enough for now.anyway im sure help is on the way. :cool:
Click to expand...

OK I will most likely look at the overclocking aspect later on, any ideas of a guide of some sort to follow?

Also any ideas on the memory question? :)
 
I'm pretty sure that you can get away with using memory sticks of different speeds, but that you should avoid mixing sticks of different capacity. If you did have two sticks of 2gb each and two sticks of 1gb each, I believe you would still only see 4gb as it would just ignore the extra 1gb on each of the first two sticks. Someone let me know if I'm talking cobblers please!
 
Vista Ultimate to the 64bit version at present I use Vista 32bit.
Click to expand...

I believe you can get that changed to 64bit for free actually, just talk to MS about it.

If you mix sticks of different speeds it just uses the speed of the slowest stick, rather a waste, and will limit your overclocking potential if you do.
 
DavidB said:
I believe you can get that changed to 64bit for free actually, just talk to MS about it.

If you mix sticks of different speeds it just uses the speed of the slowest stick, rather a waste, and will limit your overclocking potential if you do.
Click to expand...

Cheers for the info. I got both the 32bit & 64bit Vista when I brought it because it's the Ultimate retail pakage. The reason I stuck with 32bit at first is because of driver concerns and the fact I only used 2GB. I assume 64bit Vista is pretty much the same as 32bit? I am hoping all my exisiting games and software will work with it?

Intresting about the points you made regards memory, newbie question but why would mixing the memory speed effect overclocking the CPU?
 
I am hoping all my exisiting games and software will work with it?

Intresting about the points you made regards memory, newbie question but why would mixing the memory speed effect overclocking the CPU?
Click to expand...

Theres a pretty good chance that 99% of your stuff will work with 64bit now, its getting better supported everyday.

Because overclocking is the FSB * a multiplier. the slower ram will be runing at a lower fsb.
E.g you have a processor running 1066 fsb effective, which has an effective fsb of 266.5(/4). You have two types of memory, one running at 800mhz (400mhz fsb) and one at 667mhz (333.5mhz).

You want to overclock the CPU, but your ram wont overclock. To do so you increase the FSB of the processor to say 300, giving you 300*8 or 2.4ghz. You want to get too 3ghz, which would require a fsb of 375mhz.

But the problem then lies in you requireing a higher FSB than your lower ram will reach, the higher ram will cope up too 400mhz (400*8= 3.2ghz) but the lower RAM is holding it all back limiting you to a fsb of 333.5mhz (2.668ghz).

So you see in this example, that buy having the lower speed ram, your stopping yourself from being able to reach 3ghz plus.

(please note, in this hypothetical situation, the lower ram wont overclock, if it could overclock to higher speeds there would be less of a problem, although timings would probably be worse).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom