upgrade advice

jamest · 1 Nov 2008 at 12:50

Hi everyone,

I'm looking at getting a cheap upgrade until the i7's come out and start dropping price next year.

For the motherboard I'm looking at:
Asus P5K SE-EPU Intel P35 (Socket 775), but open to suggestions if there are better overclocking boards for a similar price.

I'm stuck with the CPU though. Not sure between the E2200 & E5200. They seem roughly the same price, but which one would be best for overclocking and playing games?

Finally am I right in thinking PC6400 RAM would be adequate for overclocking either of the above processors?
Something like: Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x1GB)

Thanks

jamest · 2 Nov 2008 at 14:17

Thanks for your replies.

I've just ordered the following:

- Asus P5Q Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
- OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2
- Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB)
- Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775)

Can anyone give me some tips so I can get this overclocked when it arrives? Been so long out of the game I don't really know where to start... :confused:

Presumably if I increase the fsb to 240 that will get me to 3ghz. What about the dram frequency? should I use a divider to get this as close to 400mhz as possible?

Is the multiplier on these chips unlocked? From my AMD overclocking days, I just remember trying to reduce the multiplier as much as possible to allow the greatest fsb speed.

Any help would be great.

Thanks

jamest · 2 Nov 2008 at 14:25

I would try and get the FSB to be on a 1:1 ratio preferably, that should mean 3.2Ghz with an 8x multi.

Right, so from that I take it the cpu multipliers aren't locked?

jamest · 2 Nov 2008 at 16:31

Thanks for your comments guys. I'm not expecting 4ghz out of it. I'd be quite happy with 3.2ghz!

Will I have to increase the voltage on the cpu to get to 3.2ghz? what's a safe amount to put through it?

Lastly, can you explain what the 'FSB Strap to North Bridge' option does? :confused:

Thanks again

jamest · 5 Nov 2008 at 21:05

So glad I got this CPU now. Its running like a dream! :cool:

Currently at 3.8ghz with 1.35v (as set in BIOS). Idle is 38°, Load 56° according to Coretemp. Not sure how much I trust Coretemp though, given the VID reading I'm getting...

How long should I run Prime before I can be sure its stable? Only run it for 10minutes so far, no errors yet though.