PC Upgrading Discussion

[Lee Downham]

I use a Scythe Mugen and my Q6600 overclocks easily 50%, don't use the Intel stock cooler and watch out with cooling pasta, use a half rice grain and a credit card to make a smooth surface on the cpu.

... nice ...
I get overheating with mine if I run the CPU at 3.6Ghz and push the cores to 100%, can´t see it being in the coolers though, ´cos ours´ are essentially the same thing and the Tuniq is / was one of the best ... its probably the massive difference in air temperature between Belgium and here then

To be honest ... my machine runs rock solid at 3Ghz, and I haven´t messed much with my overclocks since I set it up ...
Need my machine stable for work purposes - a couple of months back had a few days downtime after a bad experience experimenting with a crappy BIOS update ... wife nearly killed me ´cos she needed to work and I was madly trying to get it fixed! :doh:

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

Try running your memory 1:1.

On the pics you see my settings using a Gigabyte board.

I can run mine on 4.20 stable too but 3.6 is ok for me, i even used my pc while it was over 30C in this room, still no problems at all.

 

[Lee Downham]

The main diff I think is that you are on the Intel X38 chipset ... in some ways its unfortunate I went for the Nvidia 680i (on an Asus Striker Extreme - which I have mixed results and feelings about) - the Nvidia chipset is nowhere near as good as the Intel for overclocking but I wanted SLi option (still to be done!) ... the 780 chipset was not around when I got this, and board was v.cheap for all its features ... hence my choice, and read that 3Ghz was easy with Striker, which was my goal really.

Tested and run it with BIOS update (1504) at 3.7Ghz (see attached pic), but this was what caused me the aggro and downtime ... and when I ran CPU benchmarks, I watched the temp rise and rise and rise 'till it eventually hit 60-something degrees C and machine bombed out on me, repeatedly ... :doh:
Chipset/mobo combo also reportedly has a big hole between 3Ghz and 3.6Ghz ... tried a few settings but didn't want to spend days testing to find out.

Had strange results with my Gskill memory sticks too - have mem settings unlinked from CPU bus and got recommendations from GSkill engineer for my motherboard from an overclock forum (so are hopefully fairly damn accurate!?) ... if I run it at his settings on 800Mhz, I get occasionaly blue screens, if I run it slightly quicker at 827Mhz, then blue screens and all instability gone

One question Marcel - I assume you have the CPU throttling / speed stepping disabled in your BIOS, or is that on and is cutting in to stop any overheat?

EDIT: BTW ... nice system and overclock mate :thumb:

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

I disabled speedstep and other energy savers.

The 680i should overclock also very well but you need to take care to not install the nvidia ntune ****, just use the bios settings. I asume you know overclockers.com too, there you can find many info.

 

[Lee Downham]

On the speedstep stuff - yeah thought as much ... think I needed a lot of juice (power) to make it run at 3.7GB, hence the heat issue
EDIT: just remembered in reading this back, I think it was the chipset (northbridge) that was overheating ... ???

And yeah ... been to and got links to many a good o'clocking site, including that one I believe ... but thanks for the thought :thumb:

Ahh man, I really gotta stop with this before I start (again!!) ... for now, my machine runs super sweet and super stable with everything I chuck at it (work and play), and I don't have any CPU bottlenecks or need for any extra heaters in my "office" right now (its mid-August and we don't have air-con in the house). :lol:

Maybe once Winter comes and I need a bit of warmth then I will have a fiddle again ... :wink:

Anyhow :focus: ... I guess Marcel would agree in saying that even with all the new processors on the market, if you get a Q6600, and the right mobo/ram combination, you will find yourself a very happy chappie (or chappass ) with a big return on your investment ... :thumb:

 

[Ben Tusting]

I've got a Xigmatek HDT S1283 Fan

I've ordered this Equipment

ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK)
DFI Lan Party DK X38-T2R Intel X38
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 (H.D.T.) 120mm PWM Fan x3 Heat-pipe LGA775/K8/AM2 Cpu cooler Quad Core Ready

How long will this pc last before it needs to be updated i don't really want to update it again due to it costing a lot of money just to play racing games.

I was tempted to go for this Graphics card
XFX GeForce 8800 GT Alpha Dog 1024MB GDDR3

Due to it having physics but apparently no racing games use physics so there was no point in getting it

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

I've got a Xigmatek HDT S1283 Fan

I've ordered this Equipment

ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK)
DFI Lan Party DK X38-T2R Intel X38
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 (H.D.T.) 120mm PWM Fan x3 Heat-pipe LGA775/K8/AM2 Cpu cooler Quad Core Ready

How long will this pc last before it needs to be updated i don't really want to update it again due to it costing a lot of money just to play racing games.

I was tempted to go for this Graphics card
XFX GeForce 8800 GT Alpha Dog 1024MB GDDR3

Due to it having physics but apparently no racing games use physics so there was no point in getting it

You ordered very good parts, and i read some reviews about the coller and it seems great i even think it's better then the Scythe i own.

Your X38 DFI will overclock easily with these parts and will let your Q6600 run at 3.6 Ghz. If you have the system i can help you overclocking, just make a few pics from your bios screens and send them to me and i will send them back with the settings i should use.

When will you receive the parts? Btw the ATI is a good choice i have read several magazines with tests and it performs very good at a reasonable price.

 

[Jacco Cornelissen]

Overclocking ? I also want to overclock my CPU i think it's the bottleneck in my system.
I hope you can help me with this Marcel
I have a Intel core Quad9450.

 

[Jens Piskorsch]

Overclocking ? I also want to overclock my CPU i think it's the bottleneck in my system.
I hope you can help me with this Marcel
I have a Intel core Quad9450.

Yep, that really really is a bottleneck

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

Overclocking ? I also want to overclock my CPU i think it's the bottleneck in my system.
I hope you can help me with this Marcel
I have a Intel core Quad9450.

Sure i can help you too Jacco, i will start an overclocking topic her:

http://forum.racedepartment.com/tech-support/6410-overclocking-topic.html

 

[Ben Tusting]

This week some of the parts are coming Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The fan came on Saturday bought it from ebay it was £10 cheaper

 

[Ben Tusting]

What's better a sas hard driver or a sata hard drive.

SEAGATE 500GB BARRACUDA ES.2 SERIAL ATTACHED SCSI SAS on eBay, also, Internal External Hard Drives, Drives Storage, Computing (end time 17-Aug-08 14:48:40 BST)

 

[James Yates]

What's better a sas hard driver or a sata hard drive.

SEAGATE 500GB BARRACUDA ES.2 SERIAL ATTACHED SCSI SAS on eBay, also, Internal External Hard Drives, Drives Storage, Computing (end time 17-Aug-08 14:48:40 BST)

You won't be able to run SCSI straight off your mobo, so just stick with SATA. Go for a Samsung Spinpoint F1 as they are silent, compared to the Seagate which sounds like a jet at takeoff.

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

James is right, SAS is SCSI you need additional hardware for that, i have had it but it does not add much for personal use.

Go for F1 Samsung as James said, i use a Samsung too, or if you want a real quick drive go for the Western Digital Raptor, i use one as my system drive, my Samsung is my extra storage. I also use a few usb drives for backups and photo's, they are from Toshiba 2 x 500 GB and 1 x 1 TB.

The Raptor is expensive but runs at 10.000 RPM and has a good warranty. If you buy one you can keep it for the future too, mine is arround 3 years old now and still one of the fastest drives there is.

 

[Ben Tusting]

Just received the graphics card this morning, which output puts out the better picture DVI, S video or DVI TO HDMI

View attachment 4103

View attachment 4104

 

[James Yates]

Just received the graphics card this morning, which output puts out the better picture DVI, S video or DVI TO HDMI

View attachment 4103

View attachment 4104

use the DVI to HDMI converter, that will give the best picture

 

[Ben Tusting]

I didn't receive a converter in the box it's optional

 

[Attila Domján]

You can also buy a DVI-HDMI cable directly

 

[Ricky Willox]

DVI video is the same quality as hdmi its digital there is no difference in the image quality. Only real difference is the hdmi cable can carry sound. Just connect the dvi cable from the monitor to the graphics card .

 

[Marcel Hulsbergen]

DVI video is the same quality as hdmi its digital there is no difference in the image quality. Only real difference is the hdmi cable can carry sound. Just connect the dvi cable from the monitor to the graphics card .

Thats true, both digital and there is no difference in 1011101111000111 with dvi or hdmi, just the sound if you have hdmi1.3.