New Conroe rig

Pulsar

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Hi,

I have just completed my annual PC upgrade and thought I would report back to you guys on how it went.

When buying PC parts I generally try to go for the best price:performance ratio which usually leads to a rig that can be overclocked.

Here is what I have now:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 CPU 1.87Ghz
Gigabyte 965 DS4 motherboard
2Gb GSkill 6400HZ RAM
Radeon x1800XT 256MB
Tagan 480w PSU

So those are the main components. It was a tough decision to go for a Core 2 over a A64 for a few reasons. I have used AMD for about the last 4 years and have been very happy with them. I also already had one of the best 939 motherbaords (Ultra-D) and the 939 X2 CPUs were dropping in price quickly.

What swung it in favour of the intel was:

Good overclockability
Running on low volts - low heat/noise
Slightly more future proof
wanted to try something new

After a few teething problems, I now have the rig setup with a fresh windows install and all drivers updated. I have spent around an hour overclocking so far and am sitting very comfortably at 3.1Ghz. This is a faster clock than the £600 x6800 Core 2, albeit with 2MB of cache rather than 4MB. To say I am chuffed would be an understatement. :thumbsup:

One of the best things about this is that I am running the CPU at STOCK volts. what a chip. :D Temps are great (34 idle, 40 load) and I have done some testing with dual 32MB SuperPi. I shall Prime this tonight and if it is stable I will leave it there 24/7.

If you have any questions, please fire away.

Cheers

Rob
 
very interesting indeed.........

I sold my old rig not so long ago, in anticipation of the conroe's..... and it is encouraging to know that you are chuffed with them!

However, as i have never overclocked anything in my life, how straight forward was it (i have read the various "how to" guides etc) and are you on the stock cooler?

Hope my newbie questions are not to dumb!
 
jamie110 said:
very interesting indeed.........

I sold my old rig not so long ago, in anticipation of the conroe's..... and it is encouraging to know that you are chuffed with them!

However, as i have never overclocked anything in my life, how straight forward was it (i have read the various "how to" guides etc) and are you on the stock cooler?

Hope my newbie questions are not to dumb!

Overclocking is not hard, you just need to take your time. To achieve this I just changed a few settings in the bios.

I am using a Thermalright XP120 CPU cooler. I really can't recommend this cooler enough, it is near silent with a Akasa Amber fan and keeps the CPU nice and cool.

Rob
 
nice rig, and yes, those coolers are great. ive pimped them in threads here too :rotfl:
 
Looking at the conroe's the fsb is 1066 and your ram is only 6400, does this not cause a bottleneck??
 
bcopping said:
Looking at the conroe's the fsb is 1066 and your ram is only 6400, does this not cause a bottleneck??

nope.

Conroes real FSB is only 266Mhz. The 1066MHz FSB you see is actually just the 266Mhz bus quad pumped. So the RAM only has to run at 266Mhz at stock speeds. As DDR2 (and DDR1) ram is double data rate, you times the 266 by 2, to get 532, so you only need DDR2-533 (PC2 4200) to run at stock speeds.

Since he's overclocked it to 3.1Ghz, he'd be on a 442Mhz FSB (1771 effective), so the RAM would have to be overclocked by 42Mhz to keep the 1:1 ratio. (using DDR2-800, so actual speed of 400Mhz).

Sorry if thats a bit confusing lol.
 
depress me with a 1Mb super PI time please - let us know what speed it does it at!:rolleyes:
 
You know that the e6300 isn't a conroe core, right?

It's allendale
 
I think I will wait a few monyhs before going conroe, My mobo supports it but I have a 805d running at 4Ghz O\C on water in there at the moment so i am going to burn that till it blows then pick up a new cpu when the demand slows a little I was going to wait but I just needed to get everything before the conroe's were released.

They do look like amazing cpu's though perfect for the home builder's out there
 
daniel_owen_uk said:
You know that the e6300 isn't a conroe core, right?

It's allendale

You are right. It is a Core 2 Duo CPU using the Allendale core. Thanks for the correction. :)

Rob
 
booyaka said:
depress me with a 1Mb super PI time please - let us know what speed it does it at!:rolleyes:

With all setting stock for RAM etc (Think it is running 5,5,5,15 very loose timings) I get a 1MB time of 19.219 seconds for SuperPi 1M. Not bad for a £135 CPU. Shame the motherboard nearly costs the same!
 
jamie110 said:
spot jonny new to all this...... :eek:

What is a 1mb Super PI :rolleyes:

It is a small program that calculates the mathematical number Pi to a set number of decimal places. People use this as a benchamrk for raw CPU power. 1M is 1 million decimal places.

Rob
 
Pulsar said:
With all setting stock for RAM etc (Think it is running 5,5,5,15 very loose timings) I get a 1MB time of 19.219 seconds for SuperPi 1M. Not bad for a £135 CPU. Shame the motherboard nearly costs the same!

:rotfl: just tried mine at 1mb and it came out at 48 secs :rotfl: - not overclocked anything though.
 
CAS FAN said:
:rotfl: just tried mine at 1mb and it came out at 48 secs :rotfl: - not overclocked anything though.

:rotfl: you beat me lol. I got 53 secs (althon XP 3000 with 1GB DDR-333 RAM).

I'm gonna have a go on my Pentium MMX 200Mhz, 32MB RAM machine when I get time lol, just for a laugh lol.
 
CAS FAN said:
:rotfl: just tried mine at 1mb and it came out at 48 secs :rotfl: - not overclocked anything though.

what cpu is that?

My 3700 does about 32 seconds when @ 2.75ghz.

Man that fast!!!! (think the world record is now under 10 seconds somewhere!)
 
how much did the cpu, board and ram cost?

so is your board a p965 chipset? i read on reviews that this chipset didn't overclock as well as the x975, so much for that.

3.1ghz is great and from a £130 chip

im thinking of building a new rig myself on a £600 budget (no monitor or cd/dvd drives have them already)
 
BYF said:
how much did the cpu, board and ram cost?

so is your board a p965 chipset? i read on reviews that this chipset didn't overclock as well as the x975, so much for that.

3.1ghz is great and from a £130 chip

im thinking of building a new rig myself on a £600 budget (no monitor or cd/dvd drives have them already)

I paid around:

CPU £135
Mobo £120
RAM £170
Gfx £150

I know that the RAM costs alot, and I think you could happily get away with some £120 value RAM as I am not asking it to do anything that special.

I actually paid slightly over the odds for one or 2 components becuase i am lazy and wanted to buy them all from one shop (OcUK). I have seen the mobo for less and the CPU.

Cheers

Rob
 
booyaka said:
what cpu is that?

My 3700 does about 32 seconds when @ 2.75ghz.

Man that fast!!!! (think the world record is now under 10 seconds somewhere!)

Athlon64 3200 so not that quick these days.
 

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