The Best current CPU for Overclock IMO

Participant · 26 May 2007 at 15:02

Nicos Rex said:
Forgive me if I have got the wrong end of the stick here. First you say that the 6320 and 6420 should clock well as they are new, then you say that the newer chips aren't so good for clocking. Unless I am mistaken, these two statements are contradictory.

Wow, is there an echo? Did you read the first reply in this thread pointing out that very fact?

just Scott · 26 May 2007 at 15:12

My E6320 is running happily at 3GHz with stock vots and cooling. Good chips.

plasticmekon · 26 May 2007 at 15:23

Bah.. nobody mentioning any hot 805 action? Surely a chip that cost me £65 and can reach 3.8 stable is half decent?

Millwall.FC · 26 May 2007 at 18:33

plasticmekon said:
Bah.. nobody mentioning any hot 805 action? Surely a chip that cost me £65 and can reach 3.8 stable is half decent?

yea but it does less work per cycle than a core 2 duo

kingo15 · 27 May 2007 at 09:31

i have a e6420 running at 3.2 ghz orthos stable at below stock volts cracking chip if you ask me

Minstadave · 27 May 2007 at 09:39

Millwall.FC said:
yea but it does less work per cycle than a core 2 duo

And consumes vast amounts of juice.

WJA96 · 29 May 2007 at 11:27

Minstadave said:
And consumes vast amounts of juice.

And could double as a radiator on a cold day.

Nicos Rex · 29 May 2007 at 14:20

Robbie G said:
Wow, is there an echo? Did you read the first reply in this thread pointing out that very fact?

I did indeed, but since nlel1975 had not yet seen fit to enlighten us as to the thrust of his thesis I felt that a slight nudge was in order.

I must confess that I am still none the wiser.

melbourne720 · 29 May 2007 at 14:35

I would have thought some of the most OC'able chips would be the ones with:-

(a) A high multiplier, avoiding high FSBs
(b) Low heat output
(c) Low price

Obviously at the end of the day it's most important that the chip can either do the speed without errors or not, but I would say there were the criteria to keep a look out for. I would think therefore that those chips like the e2140, e2160, e4300, e4400 with there high multipliers, low heat and (most importantly of all) low price would be the ideal ones.

Although my e6600 managed 3GHz no problem, it is warmer than the above range, as well as being more expensive.

lay-z-boy · 29 May 2007 at 15:23

WJA96 said:
And could double as a radiator on a cold day.

And a hot day too

WJA96 · 29 May 2007 at 15:27

lay-z-boy said:
And a hot day too

You were able to run an overclocked 805 on a hot day? I'm not worthy to be on the same forums.

You must have been wearing an Asbestos suit? And were you pouring liquid CO2 over it?

lay-z-boy · 29 May 2007 at 15:52

WJA96 said:
You were able to run an overclocked 805 on a hot day? I'm not worthy to be on the same forums. You must have been wearing an Asbestos suit? And were you pouring liquid CO2 over it?

Pentium D, but the 930d, clocked at 4.2ghz @1.55v, it is the only cpu i have ever encountered that made a 120.2 with 150cfm fans seem inadequate :eek:

the water was boiling i tell thee :eek:

WJA96 · 29 May 2007 at 16:23

lay-z-boy said:
Pentium D, but the 930d, clocked at 4.2ghz @1.55v, it is the only cpu i have ever encountered that made a 120.2 with 150cfm fans seem inadequate

the water was boiling i tell thee

Uh-huh

nlel1975 · 19 Jun 2007 at 16:18

After much deliberation and changes of mind I`m going for the e6420 because it seems they are all on the same stepping at the moment (I think) so the majority of them should be able to achieve a very good overclock eg 3ghz+ it seems the only thing you need to worry about is the heat as they get hot at 3ghz on stock cooling.

The other CPU I nearly went for was the e4300 but it seems there are good steppings and bad steppings and the early ones were generally better. Thats not to say you can't get an e4300 now that will do 3ghz its just harder with an e4300 then a e6420 IMO becuase e4300 generate even more heat as they require more volts to get 3ghz stable and there are many reports of people not getting more then 2.7ghz out of them saying the e6300 or e6400 they had was easier to overclock requiring less volts.

So I figured for £ 33 more it was worth it for the extra cache and the increased likelyhood of getting 3ghz... the most I was expecting out of an e4300 is 2.66ghz @ 333x8 but some reports saying Gigabyte boards don't o/c them well or they couldn't get it higher then 320 (with the 9x multi I presume) then others say they got 3ghz @ stock. So there appears to be a difference between chips which is less noticeable with the e6420 at present.

What a lot of them don't say is whether it was orthos 8 hours stable which is a number 1 priority for me but I don't mind shelling out for an aftermarket to keep 3ghz cool if it looks a bit hot with stock cooling.

Just take a look at the latest postings on the official e4300 for reports of people having a hard time with their e4300.... there is very little or none of that on the e6420 thread - you would expect there to be some bad ones or is it just that the e6420 bad eggs aren't getting mentioned... someone must have a bad e6420 surely!

The closest you get to a bad e6420 overclock is someone running the stock cooler and not wanting to run higher then 2.66ghz becuase the 70C heat generated when running at 3ghz... so it seems if your going to splash out on a decent cooler you might as well get the e6420 and a decent cooler is pretty much a necessity with the e4300 to get anyway near the same stable speeds as an e6420.... although not many people will want to run a stable 3ghz e6420 at 70c under load for too long.. a percentage of e4300 just won't be stable at 3ghz without crazy voltages and decent cooling.

Denno · 19 Jun 2007 at 16:49

Academic

All sounds pretty academic arguments for the sake of 20 or 30 quid. I've got an E6600 running at 3150 with an Artic Cooling Freezer Pro7 in a hot room with a CPU temp at idle of 39 degc and under full load of 45 degc. The longevity of a CPU is so short these days you can practically replace them every year, my case and power supply cost more than the CPU. My personal thought is that the E6600 is probably the sweet spot for price / performance, and that is based on gut feel only and possibly the upright air exposed moist digit technique of estimation. :-)

Denno

nlel1975 · 19 Jun 2007 at 16:58

Denno said:
All sounds pretty academic arguments for the sake of 20 or 30 quid. I've got an E6600 running at 3150 with an Artic Cooling Freezer Pro7 in a hot room with a CPU temp at idle of 39 degc and under full load of 45 degc. The longevity of a CPU is so short these days you can practically replace them every year, my case and power supply cost more than the CPU. My personal thought is that the E6600 is probably the sweet spot for price / performance, and that is based on gut feel only and possibly the upright air exposed moist digit technique of estimation.

Denno

Well I have read that some of the newer E6600 steppings aren't as good as the old steppings whether that means they can't hit 3.4ghz or 3.0ghz I don't know... to some a CPU that only does 3ghz is bad.

Certainly the fact you can often overclock a e6420 to 375x8 is better in some ways then a e6600 at 333x9... the e6420 will allow you to achieve reachable goals with a higher fsb... which is good if you have faster ram = more performance.

flexo786 · 19 Jun 2007 at 17:36

Hyper said:
My E4300 (just bought last week) went straight to 3ghz out of the box

same here just need better cooling

nlel1975 · 19 Jun 2007 at 19:23

flexo786 said:
same here just need better cooling

you probably got a good chip... but its possible to get a not so good one thats all I`m saying /read the countless others in the e4300 official thread lately who have artic freezers etc etc and can't get to 3.0ghz...

I know some chips are better then others its been the same since the Celeron 366 and P3 650 days... I had a Celeron 366 that did 550mhz stable and 2 others that only did 458mhz... and a P3 650 that did 866 and another that only did 806mhz.

With the e6420 there is more chance that you will get a good chip as they're all the same stepping atm and there are few if no negative posts about the e6420 in the official thread - I suppose there is always the possibility that bad ones aren't being reported and the possibility that bad ones exist but I would say the odds of getting a good e6420 are higher then getting a good e4300... the e6420 needs less volts then a e4300 anyway.

With this in mind I would spend the extra £ 33 or whatever to get 2mb more cache and a higher odds of a good chip...

Scougar · 21 Jun 2007 at 13:31

I originally bought a 2160, but changed it to the 4300 at the last moment as I thought the 2160 had a lower multi

(Opps, my mistake). I'm not that fussed as the other reason was that the 4300 has the 2mb cache which has to have at least some positive affect on performance.

I the 4300 only cost £10 more than the 2160, compared to £30 more for a 4400 (which has the 10x multi), so I consided it a sensible move with VFM in mind.

Unless your planning overclocking I don't really see any point buying a 2140/2160 however, seems a bit like buying an 8500gt, bit of a bum deal for average joe if he plays decent games.

EDIT: I personally think that the quad core will be the best overclocking option when the prices reduce. Not exactly cheap but a good investment if you play games like Supreme Commander that make use of it

Other than that I would say 4400 is best option. I would have considered the 6xxx range if i'd have the cash, but ONLY because of the 4MB cache

Matthew

man_from_uncle · 21 Jun 2007 at 14:22

nlel1975 said:
After much deliberation and changes of mind I`m going for the e6420 because it seems they are all on the same stepping at the moment (I think) so the majority of them should be able to achieve a very good overclock eg 3ghz+ it seems the only thing you need to worry about is the heat as they get hot at 3ghz on stock cooling.

The other CPU I nearly went for was the e4300 but it seems there are good steppings and bad steppings and the early ones were generally better. Thats not to say you can't get an e4300 now that will do 3ghz its just harder with an e4300 then a e6420 IMO becuase e4300 generate even more heat as they require more volts to get 3ghz stable and there are many reports of people not getting more then 2.7ghz out of them saying the e6300 or e6400 they had was easier to overclock requiring less volts.

So I figured for £ 33 more it was worth it for the extra cache and the increased likelyhood of getting 3ghz... the most I was expecting out of an e4300 is 2.66ghz @ 333x8 but some reports saying Gigabyte boards don't o/c them well or they couldn't get it higher then 320 (with the 9x multi I presume) then others say they got 3ghz @ stock. So there appears to be a difference between chips which is less noticeable with the e6420 at present.

What a lot of them don't say is whether it was orthos 8 hours stable which is a number 1 priority for me but I don't mind shelling out for an aftermarket to keep 3ghz cool if it looks a bit hot with stock cooling.

Just take a look at the latest postings on the official e4300 for reports of people having a hard time with their e4300.... there is very little or none of that on the e6420 thread - you would expect there to be some bad ones or is it just that the e6420 bad eggs aren't getting mentioned... someone must have a bad e6420 surely!

The closest you get to a bad e6420 overclock is someone running the stock cooler and not wanting to run higher then 2.66ghz becuase the 70C heat generated when running at 3ghz... so it seems if your going to splash out on a decent cooler you might as well get the e6420 and a decent cooler is pretty much a necessity with the e4300 to get anyway near the same stable speeds as an e6420.... although not many people will want to run a stable 3ghz e6420 at 70c under load for too long.. a percentage of e4300 just won't be stable at 3ghz without crazy voltages and decent cooling.

I am sure you are quite correct in general terms, but I have had nothing but an easy ride with my e4300. It took be about 30 mins (then 8+ hours testing)to get it stable at 3ghz with stock cooling on a gigabyte S3 with value ram, and before I turned it on I'd never even used a gigabyte bios. It was the easiest overclock I've ever done and I've got no reason to think it won't go a lot further. Even on these hot days it's not getting about 65C (which is my own self imposed heat limit). In fact, the thing runs so cool that at stock speeds the fan on the heatsink wasn't kicking in; scared the heck out of me until I saw that it was sitting idle at under 30C with no fan.

Only bought it a month ago, so I assume I received a recent stepping.