OVERclocking Conroe & DDR2

[Surf]

My next build possibly may be a overclocked Conroe E6420 hoping to reach around 3.25-3.5ghz. This means raising the FSB from 266mhz to 440mhz with 8x multiplier.

Based on the above goal and from the preliminary web research so far, it seems that memory speed is in-significant if the setup is used primarily for autogk, HC, Shrink, Recode, etc. Zero game usage.

Currently there seems to be the DDR2 price tumbling, a set of 2gb of DDR2-667(by Kingston) is on sale for about $82 !!

So, can anyone confirm on the relevancy of the memory speed with respect to video re-encoding?

TIA

[mitsubishi]

Well if no-one else has anything to say, I plan on testing on Monday, see this post for what I mean: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1004494#post1004494

[Blue_MiSfit]

It's pretty minimal. Very rarely is memory bandwidth any sort of bottleneck.

Look at the difference in performance with an AMD Athlon64 system. Switching to DDR2 (even with a low latency integrated memory controller) improved performance barely if at all, and thats with 2x the memory bandwidth!

Set a divider, and forget about memory speeds :) It's all about the CPU.

~MiSfit

[jeffy]

My next build possibly may be a overclocked Conroe E6420 hoping to reach around 3.25-3.5ghz. This means raising the FSB from 266mhz to 440mhz with 8x multiplier.

Based on the above goal and from the preliminary web research so far, it seems that memory speed is in-significant if the setup is used primarily for autogk, HC, Shrink, Recode, etc. Zero game usage.

Currently there seems to be the DDR2 price tumbling, a set of 2gb of DDR2-667(by Kingston) is on sale for about $82 !!

So, can anyone confirm on the relevancy of the memory speed with respect to video re-encoding?

TIA
You have to be sure that your motherboard can boot at the given ratio FSB to DRAM! Not all the boards can do it! The other side is also the stability at that frequency since encoding is... the beast :D

8x440=3.52 GHz

If you set the ratio 1:1, your DDR2 memory has to be stable at a frequency of 880 MHz.
If your board is able to boot at the ratio 4:3, then you will only need a DDR2 memory stable at a frequency of 660 MHz.

[Surf]

DDR2-5300(667mhz) is out of the list...DDR2-6400(800mhz) is on sale for the same. Also, I am having second thoughts about E6420 after seeing the MEgui's clocking chart. It seems that there is no gain with the 4mb cache vs the 2mb's 4300, 6300, 6400.

The mobo of choice is narrowed to Asus P5B, Gigabyte DS3 or Asus P5K.

The current top cooling HSFs are the Tuniq, Scythe and Thermalight, but they are all hefty & tall, about 150-160mm. This raises a concern for the desktop(htpc) case. Any recommendation?

[graysky]

Small case is going to limit your cooling ability; if your goal is to megaclock a e6420 from 266 --> 400 (50 %), that will require higher than normal vcore which will increase your heat output. You'll need something with more cooling ability like a TT or ultra-120 extreme which will need a larger case. I'd recommend a p182, I love mine and it fits the u-120 x.

[Blue_MiSfit]

the p180 series is awesome... I have a p180 and its very quiet and cools ridiculously well...

Now if I can just get a better power supply so that I can actually stress my X2...

~MiSfit

[mitsubishi]

There's a comparison of a few heatsinks fan here: http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2115&page=5

There's actually more on the K8 page, since they've tested more, but that's the page for the 775.

I've got the CNPS9700 and can vouch that it is awesome, especially at the low setting. It's pretty big though, probably about 2cm higher than my 6800GT!

[Andreas]

Small case is going to limit your cooling ability; if your goal is to megaclock a e6420 from 266 --> 400 (50 %), that will require higher than normal vcore which will increase your heat output. You'll need something with more cooling ability like a TT or ultra-120 extreme which will need a larger case. I'd recommend a p182, I love mine and it fits the u-120 x.

Any ideas on v-core/ram voltage adjustments? I have a Conroe E6400 and cant get stability above 2.4Ghz... not tweaking the v-core though..bit scared...any suggestions for a newby

[dancho]

this guide is gonna help you:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=147164

[graysky]

@dancho - thanks for the plug

[Andreas]

tx for the link. Had the V-core on auto - changed to manual and already a 10 c drop in heat on CPU at full load and stable!

[delacroixp]

Had the V-core on auto - changed to manual and already a 10º C (50º F) drop in heat on CPU at full load and stable!
First of all... welcome to Doom9 on your first post and especially welcome to Hardware, Software and extreme machines...
Secondly, what are the specs of your system wholistically... and
Thirdly, what do you mostly do with your system... games, encoding, work... if work, what kind (eg video editing/production, photoshop etc)

Overclocking can be a bit of a dark-art at times, but generally speaking, 'less heat is better than more'... and converting to water-cooling may be a serious option when you upgrade to quad-core or possibly invest in a serious dual-core Xeon (Clovertown oct-core) system...

Good Luck going fwd...


:):D:eek:
Pascal

[foxyshadis]

The only thing I'd point out about that guide is the changing voltage through the bios is an odd way of doing it; it's much simpler to use RMClock instead. It's quite a bit more than just a temperature monitor. You can find your lowest stable undervolting settings very quickly without a lot of reboots that way.

[Andreas]

Thanks for the welcome! Video Editing/Graphic Design...Premiere/Photoshop and a little of the other stuff. Always trying to get the hardware going faster.. Using MKV for archiving DV-AVI and its great, only problem is turning it back.. Been reading threads on Doom9 and here I am.
Specs as per "delacroixp":
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU E6400 @ 2.48GHz(new & stable)
Board Gigabyte 965P-DS3
Ram 4096 MBytes PC2-6400
Internal HDD's Dual RAID0 1 X 600GB & 1X 240GB
Graphics 7800 GTX
Sound Creative SB Aud 2.0
Power 750 Watt Supply

The RMClock does make alot of sense. Thanks foxyshadis

[jeffy]

The only thing I'd point out about that guide is the changing voltage through the bios is an odd way of doing it; it's much simpler to use RMClock instead. It's quite a bit more than just a temperature monitor. You can find your lowest stable undervolting settings very quickly without a lot of reboots that way.

Foxyshadis, can you please explain how and where can you regulate CPU voltage in RMClock? I don't see any such option in this utility. (This one, right? http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml)

[foxyshadis]

It's all done under profiles. You can define how it changes both FID (multiplier) and VID (voltage) in different power modes, and choose a VID for each FID. That way you can get a lower minimum while remaining stable at full speed. (Beware of being too low during a transition; the states just above the lowest need a slightly higher voltage than you'd expect or it'll cause an occasional freeze.)

[BigDid]

Hi,

+1 for RM Clock,

When the configuration is done to your need you just forget it except for the visuals in the system tray.

Did

[graysky]

I can't get that app to control my multiplier or my voltage. Using an ASUS P5B. The app seems pretty easy to use. Is there a guide to configuring it? Maybe I have something setup incorrectly, or it's just not compatible w/ this board.

[BigDid]

I can't get that app to control my multiplier or my voltage. Using an ASUS P5B. The app seems pretty easy to use. Is there a guide to configuring it? Maybe I have something setup incorrectly, or it's just not compatible w/ this board.
Hi,

Some articles: http://cpu.rightmark.org/articles.shtml
or their forum: http://forum.rightmark.org/?id=6

Did

[burfadel]

I'd go DDR2-800, as the 1333MHZ CPU's essentially require it...

Besides that, whatever you decide on ensure you have good case ventilation, as the extra heat from the motherboard chipsets (yes they do get very hot), RAM, CPU, graphics card etc can cause your HDD to get hotter than it should... Preferably keep them as cool as possibly to help reduce the risk of HDD failure. This is something thats usually overlooked. Even if your HDD is in fairly consistent use and running 24 hours a day it should last past the extent of the warranty, and for Seagate's thats now 5 years... you won't reach that if you're not careful with heat!

[Andreas]

I'd go DDR2-800, as the 1333MHZ CPU's essentially require it...

Besides that, whatever you decide on ensure you have good case ventilation, as the extra heat from the motherboard chipsets (yes they do get very hot), RAM, CPU, graphics card etc can cause your HDD to get hotter than it should... Preferably keep them as cool as possibly to help reduce the risk of HDD failure. This is something thats usually overlooked. Even if your HDD is in fairly consistent use and running 24 hours a day it should last past the extent of the warranty, and for Seagate's thats now 5 years... you won't reach that if you're not careful with heat!

My HDD's are generally pretty kewl with 4 120mm Stealth fans in a Gigabyte 3D Aurora case...

:thanks: for the heads up...

I'm getting an Thermaltake Blue Orb CPU cooler today...
Will report back later...

[Andreas]

this guide is gonna help you:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=147164
Thanks for great link. Getting CPU cooler today. Will update thread on results:devil:

[delacroixp]

I'd go DDR2-800, as the 1333MHZ CPU's essentially require it...

Besides that, whatever you decide on ensure you have good case ventilation, as the extra heat from the motherboard chipsets (yes they do get very hot), RAM, CPU, graphics card etc can cause your HDD to get hotter than it should... Preferably keep them as cool as possibly to help reduce the risk of HDD failure. This is something thats usually overlooked. Even if your HDD is in fairly consistent use and running 24 hours a day it should last past the extent of the warranty, and for Seagate's thats now 5 years... you won't reach that if you're not careful with heat!

My HDD's are generally pretty kewl with 4 120mm Stealth fans in a Gigabyte 3D Aurora case...

:thanks: for the heads up...

I'm getting an Thermaltake Blue Orb CPU cooler today...
Will report back later...
You've probably got the 2-in-series and 2-in-parallel setup with 2 fans in the front of your case blowing in (1 on either side of your HDD's) and 2 fans at the back of your case blowing out... pretty awesome !!!

I'm sure your HDD's are ice-cold, even with 4 or more HDD's though it's a shame to be blowing all that heat from your HDD's onto your CPU, GPU and even into your 750 watt PSU.
You might consider cutting 2x120mm holes underneath your case, so allowing cool air into the middle of your case and redirecting the 2 front fans to face outwards also... in this way, everyone gets their own fresh-and-cool air...
A fan on the opposite side of your motherboard may be an option which works well in keeping, not only your MB cool... but cooling down your CPU from behind aswell...

I would hazard a guess that this kind of air-cooling system could even offset graysky's 1:2 Ambient-to-CPU temperature ratio (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=144121)...
(ie 1º C increase in room temperature causes a 2º C increase in CPU temperature)... perhaps getting closer to a 1:1 ratio...


:):D:eek:
Pascal

[archaeo]

Nice thread.
Have any of you have used the Asus AI suite bundled OC software for the P5B...?

I have an E6700 Core 2, with 2 Gb DDR 800 and a Asus P5B mobo. Newbie to OC'ng, I have initially been using this software and having it auto-set Bios and other memory settings. It seems to work pretty well, as I do notice that my 2.66 Ghz will go up to near 3.1 Ghz when demand is high - and temperatures stay within a reasonable range. I have 3 case fans and masscool CPU fan for cooling.

I have been researching a bit more lately about setting this system to a constant OC speed, but I have to admit I'm not that comfortable (yet) with tweaking the settings, and this seems to be working fine. Have any of you started out this way with the Asus AI suite? What have been your experiences?

[jeffy]

Nice thread.
Have any of you have used the Asus AI suite bundled OC software for the P5B...?

I have an E6700 Core 2, with 2 Gb DDR 800 and a Asus P5B mobo. Newbie to OC'ng, I have initially been using this software and having it auto-set Bios and other memory settings. It seems to work pretty well, as I do notice that my 2.66 Ghz will go up to near 3.1 Ghz when demand is high - and temperatures stay within a reasonable range. I have 3 case fans and masscool CPU fan for cooling.

I have been researching a bit more lately about setting this system to a constant OC speed, but I have to admit I'm not that comfortable (yet) with tweaking the settings, and this seems to be working fine. Have any of you started out this way with the Asus AI suite? What have been your experiences?

I tried it with P5W DH Deluxe, but AI Booster requires restart almost whenever I change something, so I can do it straight in BIOS instead. The common question is: do you know what CoreTemp is and what does it do?
http://www.thecoolest.zerobrains.com/CoreTemp/

The temperature shown in AI Booster is NOT the real temperature of the CPU cores, so this is the first thing on my mind! You can go really high, depending on the chip, of course, but for the best stability the temperature should be as low as possible.

[archaeo]

When running at 3.0-3.2 Ghz, my CPU temp hovers between 48-51 c. After high CPU demand (encoding) is finished, it usually returns to it's idle temp about 38 c @ 2.667.

I haven't seen that little proggie before, I'll give it a test to see if it's in line with what my temps are reporting to be.

[manono]

do you know what CoreTemp is and what does it do?

Well, it monitors the CPU temps. What's good about it is that you can stick it down in the Sys Tray and it still shows you your temps. I have it on all the time. And it's very accurate; in my experience, the most accurate at reporting the CPU temps.

[Andreas]

:eek:You've probably got the 2-in-series and 2-in-parallel setup with 2 fans in the front of your case blowing in (1 on either side of your HDD's) and 2 fans at the back of your case blowing out... pretty awesome !!!

I'm sure your HDD's are ice-cold, even with 4 or more HDD's though it's a shame to be blowing all that heat from your HDD's onto your CPU, GPU and even into your 750 watt PSU.
You might consider cutting 2x120mm holes underneath your case, so allowing cool air into the middle of your case and redirecting the 2 front fans to face outwards also... in this way, everyone gets their own fresh-and-cool air...
A fan on the opposite side of your motherboard may be an option which works well in keeping, not only your MB cool... but cooling down your CPU from behind aswell...

I would hazard a guess that this kind of air-cooling system could even offset graysky's 1:2 Ambient-to-CPU temperature ratio (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=144121)...
(ie 1º C increase in room temperature causes a 2º C increase in CPU temperature)... perhaps getting closer to a 1:1 ratio...


:):D:eek:
Pascal

@ delacroixp

:confused: Jip. You got the airflow spot on! Do you do internet readings? :eek:
I can't turn the fan's around as the 7800GTX will push hot air onto the HDD's. And I really dont want to start cutting my mobo up quite yet... but hey thanks for the insight! I'm sure one of these day's I will wake up after a good night out, go buy a electric metal cutter and cut two 12 cm holes under my PC!....I'll keep you updated.

You are abs. right - somehow a cooler system seems just to respond better and is more efficient. I'm still waiting for me Blue Orb......sold out in South Africa! Getting stable E6400 overclock 2.63Ghz fsb running @ 1300 and ram DDR2 800 400Mhz @ 36 C, voltage bellow standard with stock cooler. I'm dying to get the cooler to take rig over 3.0Ghz. graysky :thanks: Editing/Rendering/Exporting/Encoding with Premiere 2.0/Photoshop/AutoMKV just got alot better and 10 C cooler :cool:

Food for thought. ...today I went to a friend who's doing design and has basically got the same rig as me. It's a new E6420 mobo and has a fresh install of XP pro SP2 with new X 2 Seagate 320 SATA2 16 MB HD etc. The difference is that mine has 2 stripped volumes in raid 0...

It's like health and sickness literally! I cant believe how I ever used to work with non raided drives EVER!!

Are you guy's working with raid 0 volumes and are you having problems as mine seem quite stable and most people seem to have a "drive crashing" fear factor thats preventing them from blissful computing?

[archaeo]

Have installed CoreTemp - and it is giving me different temps than the AI suite - about 2-3 degrees cooler than AI reports.

Is it fairly common to have the two cores a few degrees apart when idle? I've noticed that they tend to even out when I run them through prime95 torture test. But overall, one of the cores seems to run a bit warmer then the other...

[burfadel]

Have installed CoreTemp - and it is giving me different temps than the AI suite - about 2-3 degrees cooler than AI reports.

Is it fairly common to have the two cores a few degrees apart when idle? I've noticed that they tend to even out when I run them through prime95 torture test. But overall, one of the cores seems to run a bit warmer then the other...

I think this is quite normal... there are a lot of processes still single threaded so the cpu load at idle on one core is favoured over the other. When you're using Prime you're running both flat out, so they should be even.

[dancho]

the most interesting thread about cpu temperatures:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=131008

which program do you trust ?? :)

[archaeo]

that is a very informative thread.

[delacroixp]

@ delacroixp
Are you guy's working with raid 0 volumes and are you having problems... as mine are quite stable and most people seem to have a "drive crashing" fear factor that prevents them from experiencing the joy of 'blissful computing'?
RAID is a little more complicated than the regular setup and restoring a crashed drive will be exponentially more difficult...
However, I did find an Addonics 5X1 eSATA Hardware Port Multiplier (HPM) (http://www.addonics.com/products/host_controller/ad5sahpm-e.asp) which allows for 5 HDD in RAID (0 & 1 , stripped & mirrored) leaving only 1 HDD redundant (rather than 1 in 3)... to restore your setup if one of the drives were to crash and burn...

Using the mirror setup is, perhaps, more important than the stripped option... unless you really don't have much of value on the RAID volume...


:):D:eek:
Pascal

[delacroixp]

Hi,

Some articles: Articles: CPU Rightmark (http://cpu.rightmark.org/articles.shtml)
or their forum: CPU Rightmark Forums (http://forum.rightmark.org/?id=6)

Great app but do you have any advice on overclocking the Manchester dual-core...


:):D:eek:
Pascal

[graysky]

RMClock (http://cpu.rightmark.org/download.shtml) is another good one. It accurately got the right offset for my Q6600 where other apps like speedfan read 15 °C too low. Coretemp doesn't run on my machine; it restarts windows about 1 sec. after I load it.

[burfadel]

I should mention that in an earlier reply a person gave the example of the change from DDR to DDR2 didn't give AMD's any performance increase. This is true for the AMD's

What people should remember is that AMD's have the memory controller as part of the CPU, whereas Intel its on the motherboard. The differences in design mean that DDR2 speeds affects Intel CPU's more. Also, to properly run a 6550, 6750 etc etc (official 1333 fsb), you need DDR2800 at least. If you do not you can lead to problems with performance.

[graysky]

What people should remember is that AMD's have the memory controller as part of the CPU, whereas Intel its on the motherboard. The differences in design mean that DDR2 speeds affects Intel CPU's more. Also, to properly run a 6550, 6750 etc etc (official 1333 fsb), you need DDR2800 at least. If you do not you can lead to problems with performance.

You sure about that? 1333 is just 333 quad pumped so running DDR2 @ 333 = 333*2=667. DDR2667 is enough for a 1333 FSB. I'm running my q6600 @ 9x333 and my DRAM is @ 667.

[archaeo]

Coretemp doesn't run on my machine; it restarts windows about 1 sec. after I load it.

I am noticing similar problems when I have CoreTemp autostart on my system - it'll crash to the blue screen quite often when opening other programs. There must be some memory conflicts, I'm guessing

[graysky]

The dev of coretemp announced that he fixed the problem and will be releasing an updated version. Link (http://www.alcpu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1140#1140) there.

[archaeo]

The dev of coretemp announced that he fixed the problem and will be releasing an updated version. Link (http://www.alcpu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1140#1140) there.

thanks for the update.

[graysky]

No problem... I just wish I knew when it was planned to be released.

[Surf]

Hi Graysky,

thanks for the reminder in terms of wattage/heat when oc-ing.

The next time when you are extremely bored, could you please show the temp with respect to oc-ing from 2996 to 3600ghz? You have six settings at your ME-gui oc thread. The Q6600 is quite interesting after July 22nd...

[graysky]

@ surf: I don't wanna clock up that hight since air cooling is ineffective. If you're curious about the temps @ 9x333, have a look at this thread (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=144121) that shows how the load temps fluctuate with ambient temp. All the data in that thread was collected @ 9x333.

If you want to see what you're in for heat-wise w/ a Q6600, have a look at this thread (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=142882) that shows how you can drop your temps by lapping the base of your heat sink and the top of your chip.