The Best current CPU for Overclock IMO

[Scougar]

It took be about 30 mins....3ghz with stock cooling on a gigabyte S3 with value ram...Only bought it a month ago, so I assume I received a recent stepping.

Fingers Crossed [Delivery in progress]

Matthew

 

[melbourne720]

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.

All it is, is clockspeed though. I have tried a e2160 and an e6600 (both at 3GHz) in identical rigs, and most games there is a 1-5% difference in frame rates. FEAR had identical min/avg/max frame rates!

 

[nlel1975]

Fingers Crossed [Delivery in progress]

Matthew

Good luck lets hope you get a good one and have no problems.... there are still some going about which do 3ghz fairly easily as the previous poster says but there are also the others which struggle to do 3ghz without loads of voltage... its a lottery so don't be to surprised if you find yours doesn't hit 3ghz easily. I would set my expectations lower so as not to be too dissapointed.

With an e6420 you get an extra 2mb cache and the higher possibility of achieving 3ghz as long as you have ram capable of 375mhz (which some ddr667 will do). I`m pretty sure the e6420 is a better bet when aiming for 3ghz.

 

[man_from_uncle]

Good luck lets hope you get a good one and have no problems.... there are still some going about which do 3ghz fairly easily as the previous poster says but there are also the others which struggle to do 3ghz without loads of voltage...

I don't know what a lot of volts is for these cpus, but I need about 1.425v to hit 3ghz (i might get away with less, but i've not had time to experiment). I'd probably be happy though to put anything up to 1.45v with stock cooling and 1.5-1.55v with top end air.

 

[Scougar]

Thanks for the good luck

So when does the 4mb actually matter over 1mb and 2mb variants? i.e. In what situations/usage?

Also, VFM also comes down to what you want to use it for. If your doing video/rendering/supreme commander then I see the soon-to-be quads as a better overclocking deal, but if your into fps games and general windows stuff, then getting the 2160 or 4300 seem fantastic.

I still think the 4400 is fantastic for those struggling with lower class memory though due to it's multi.

Matthew

 

[nlel1975]

I don't know what a lot of volts is for these cpus, but I need about 1.425v to hit 3ghz (i might get away with less, but i've not had time to experiment). I'd probably be happy though to put anything up to 1.45v with stock cooling and 1.5-1.55v with top end air.

I regard 1.425v as a big voltage increase from stock for 3ghz (but not for a typical e4300)... which increases heat which is bad when your on stock cooling... the e6420 usually does 3ghz with less voltage maybe 1.38v which means less heat as less worry when it comes to stock cooling.

Many people won't risk overclocking there e4300 to 3ghz when it requires 1.425v becuase of the heat generated and others don't want/expect to increase voltages that much to get 3ghz stable.

I guess if your happy with the heat generated (you said elsewhere that it is under 65C under load) then fair enough... I wouldn't regard 65C as particularly high when they are capable of going up to 80C before shutdown.

Just remember the life expectancy and overclock ability may deterioate at a faster rate the higher the temps are.

 

[man_from_uncle]

I regard 1.425v as a big voltage increase...

Well I though initially i'd try it at a lower voltage to see if I could get it stable at around 1.4v. But almost as soon as I got into the BIOS I thought......why not go the other way? What's the absolute most I can get out of this chip? Life expectancy be damned.

I'm trying 3.15 at 1.45v doing Superpi32m to start with (I always use that as a quick indicator), but if that works i'll probably just trying creaming the thing. If I can get 3.4+ at 1.55v I'll probably grab a Titan Amanda and let it fly.

PS Temps under superpi fluctuating between 52 and 55C.

 

[man_from_uncle]

It all went fine so I dropped the volts back to 1.425v then wacked it up to 3.2ghz. One of the cores hit 56C for a second, but mostly they averaged at 53-54C.

Running superpi32m again. Should get under 18mins this time.

 

[nlel1975]

Well I though initially i'd try it at a lower voltage to see if I could get it stable at around 1.4v. But almost as soon as I got into the BIOS I thought......why not go the other way? What's the absolute most I can get out of this chip? Life expectancy be damned.

I'm trying 3.15 at 1.45v doing Superpi32m to start with (I always use that as a quick indicator), but if that works i'll probably just trying creaming the thing. If I can get 3.4+ at 1.55v I'll probably grab a Titan Amanda and let it fly.

PS Temps under superpi fluctuating between 52 and 55C.

As I said before I think you got a good chip even if it does require 1.425v as long as its stable its good try to lower the voltages to reduce temps although yours aren't bad anyway.

 

[man_from_uncle]

Dam it. It was almost pretty close. Superpi finished 17min 30secs or so, then the thing promptly crashed like it could tell I was moving the mouse towards orthos.

Anyway, play time over. I've moved it back to 3ghz, dropped the volts to 1.4v and we'll see how it goes tonight.

 

[Jono8]

would have to agree. I got a e6320 the other day and runs at 3.1ghz over 10hrs orthos stable at stock volts (1.248 after v droop). Was so easy to do its untrue.