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The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Discussion in 'Building a new PC' started by ddp, Sep 13, 2010.

  1. theonejrs

    theonejrs Senior member

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    Stevo,

    Here's those benchmarks I promised you.

    Processor Arithmetic, 3.2GHz, DDR3/1600 (PC3 (12800) Cas7 7-8-8-24

    [​IMG]

    And the Memory Bandwidth

    [​IMG]

    I think I can get a little more out of it when I get the HT solved, but I'm happy with the results so far.

    Best Regards,
    Russ
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2012
  2. Mr-Movies

    Mr-Movies Active member

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    Very true... LOL
     
  3. theonejrs

    theonejrs Senior member

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    Well, I've finished the first build, sleep be damned. :) I'm begin1ng to think that maybe all these years of overclocking, I wasn't doing it right, but I think the way it worked out for me, that the highly advanced controls in the high end bios will change the way we overclock.

    In the past, I used to establish the limits of the CPU first, and OC from there. This time since I planned to run it at a stock 3.2GHz, I started to see what I could get out of it.

    When I had the 1090t in the 790X-UD4P, you had to push the NB voltage to 1.3v, and the CPU NB VID to 1.2v. CPU voltage was 1.424v. That's why I bought the CoolIt LCS. With the 990XA-UD3, all of those adjustments are much finer as the increments for the NB voltage are 0.10v and the CPU NB VID increment is 0.05v. I wanted to see at what speed it would take to get to 80,000 MIPS, as I remembered that the best I could get out of the 1090t at 4gHz, was 83,000+ MIPS. I hit 83,000+ at 3.6GHz.

    I decided to run it full time at 3.4GHz, which lets me run the Hyper-Transport at 4800MHz. The HT is very important for high memory bandwidth, and 4800MT/s, is better than 4000MT/s It will run 5200 at 3.6, but it needs to go to 3.7 to be 100% stable. Here's some more benches at 3.42GHz @1.280v, DDR3 1600 cas 7, with timings of 7-8-8-24. I'm stunned beyond words at the ease of doing all of this. I'm even more surprised by the results.

    Processor Arithmetic
    [​IMG]

    Memory Bandwidth
    [​IMG]

    Memory and Cache
    [​IMG]

    IBT 5 pass
    [​IMG]

    Hardware monitor Pro
    [​IMG]

    I included this so you could see the highs and lows of temperature and voltages. The CPU hit 51 on the first pass, and 49 on the remaining 4 passes. I'm done, and I'm happy with the results. BTW, the new memory manager is great. A big improvement in cache and memory latency.

    Russ
     
    Last edited: Dec 16, 2012
  4. Mr-Movies

    Mr-Movies Active member

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    Good job Russ! It sure is nice that they have lessened the increments and long over due. Like you I have had pains getting everything balanced with the older settings provided by the BIOS and have had to bump up or down several times changing multiple variables to find a stable matrix. One of my ASRocks was like your FX990 that allowed finer increments and it does make a big difference.

    I'm seriously thinking about getting the H100i and was still thinking about the Notchau but after Sam complained about their poor fans I'm wondering if I should go that route or if I did, go ahead and buy better fans to replace the stock ones. I really like the idea of the 120mm/140mm push-pull they do whether or not their system is better or not is another thing of course. On Turbo Fan jet engines you get much better efficiency with that type of configuration and the same principle would apply here in a minor way of course being it is really a different beast.

    Get some sleep Russ and take care my friend,
    Stevo
     
  5. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    The fans Noctua produce now are undoubtedly different to the ones I had since this was back in 2007, but it seemed to me, given that SPCR reported the same issue with one of their samples, that it was an issue with how Noctua make their fans. Given the only reason to shell out the considerable sum on Noctuas was for noise reasons, this made them completely bum purchases at the time, but that's not to say that's still true now...
     
  6. Mr-Movies

    Mr-Movies Active member

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    Good to know that they may have changed. I won't scratch them off my list yet and may give them a go just to see how good they are, or are not now!

    Thanks Sam,
    Stevo
     
  7. theonejrs

    theonejrs Senior member

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    Stevo,

    Mr-Movies send his regards. He told me to look after you! LMAO.

    Seriously, what I've discovered is that Overclocking these days is all about having a well balanced overclock. The better the balance, the more linear the OC will be, with a bare amount of additional tweaking. I won't say the it's impossible to blow up a CPU with gigaByte "9" series motherboards, but they do limit the voltage increase you can make at a given frequency.

    At a starting point of 3.2GHz for the 1090t, I had to lower the CPU voltage from 1.475v, which was shown as 1.488v in the PC Health section of the setup. Thankfully it will go into an endless reboot cycle, and that 1.488v never makes it to the CPU, as it was claimed with many older model motherboards. It posts, but when it says Loading the Operating System, it gives a weird color BSOD, more like a deep but reddish purple, with bright white text. Got my attention real quick! LOL.

    Setting the voltage to 1.250v sets up a working range of 1.264v, 1.280v. and 1.296v, depending on the load, which is barely below the next adjustment, 1.300v, but if it needs 1.300v it will freeze on boot up, and keep rebooting until you increase the voltage to 1.300v, even though the difference is only .004v, I had to raise the voltage to 1.300v at 3.5GHz, and 1,350v at 3.8GHz, and 1.400v at 4.1GHz with the 1090t.

    Running at 3.4GHz doesn't sound like much of an overclock until you consider that the HT can't run at over 4000MT/s until it gets to 3.4GHz, so you pick up a very useful 800MHz on the HT, to 4800MT/s, which fattens the memory bandwidth to around 8,350+MB/s. At 3.8GHz, you can increase the HT link to 2600MHz, which raises the NB to 2600MHz, as well, for 5200MT/s, and a memory bandwidth of over 10,000MB/s. That was in the 990XA-UD3, when I first bought the motherboard, 9 months ago. At over 2.5 years old, with all the use the 1090t has had, I'm very reluctant to do benchmarks over 3.7GHz, especially since the going price is $290 on Ebay and Amazon for a new one, and From $185 Used! Thankye, no!

    I did solve the mystery of why I got the newest Piledriver early? I asked, and I loved the answer. She just told me, "You know how crazy it gets around here this time of year." "Someone made a mistake and pulled the wrong item." "Glad you lucked out." "Merry Christmas"!

    Merry Christmas indeed! LOL! I've spent over $20,000 a year, with Newegg every year, since I retired in 2006, what with doing computer repairs, and a number of builds, I made enough to live on. I also get to test a lot of different hardware, which keeps me more up to date with the newer tech. Hey. I'm still having fun, but it's a lot slower these days.

    Take care my friend, and have a Merry Christmas,
    Russ
     
  8. theonejrs

    theonejrs Senior member

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    Stevo,

    Buy one of these. Guaranteed it will become your fan of choice for a 120mm or 140mm fan. At 77cfm at 1350 rpm it's almost silent. 6 year warranty too!

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186078

    Arctic cooling also makes a 7 bladed 140mm, with the same specs.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186081

    Best Regards,
    Russ
     
  9. Ripper

    Ripper Active member

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    Have they sent you a thank-you note yet? Jesus!

    I'm looking forward to the next time I build a PC for myself and can spend hours deciding which fans to buy and meticulously overclocking my CPU.
     
  10. theonejrs

    theonejrs Senior member

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    Ripper,

    They are always making me special offers from time to time. The give me good prices on a lot of products, Like I bought a dozen 2.5" 80GB IDE drives for $10 each. Lots of old laptops with 20 or 30 GB HDDs in the, in the neighborhood, so they sold fast. I bought my FX-8320 from them, for $150.

    As far as the fans go for a 120mm or a 140mm, you can't beat Arctic Cooling's new PWM fans. 74 CFM, 600-1350 rpm, unbelievably quiet at full chat! I use it as a single pull fan for my Corsair H60 liquid cooler, in a Corsair 400R case. If I need more airflow when the summer comes, I have the H60 radiator suspended from the "roof" in the forward top fan slot, so all it takes is a Phillips head screwdriver, and maybe 5 minutes to add a push fan, if needed.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186078

    The 140mm is PWM, 77 CFM, 550-1350 rpm, and again unbelievably quiet

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186081

    The temps are amazingly low, and the computer is darn near silent. All you hear is a gentle rush of air. These are the latest temps and voltages. IBT, 5 passes.

    [​IMG]

    Best Regards,
    Russ
     
  11. Estuansis

    Estuansis Active member

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    Update, got my new parts installed and new side fan going. Temps seems to be very happy across the board. The side fan worked wonders for my video cards :) It also made big improvements in my chipset temps.

    Quieter as the video cards now properly stay within my idle fan temps at all times. The PSU is also noticeably quieter. Better fan management and a bigger fan would account for that. Voltages on the 750HX are stable and perfectly within spec, an improvement from the aging 620HX. No capacitor whine or anything else people seem to report and no quirks when booting or shutting down.

    Time will tell how well it holds up, but initial results are VERY promising. The Hyper 212 Evo seems to indeed be the better cooler when given proper airflow. However the install was a bit finicky and fiddly at first. Required removal of board from case vs the Eco which could use Gigabyte's stock backplate. Very solid install though, and seemingly pretty simple once the backplate and standoffs are mounted to the board. Just 4 screws.

    Also, IBT max load puts it at 49C vs about 52, 53 for the CoolIt. Again not a major improvement but every degree counts with AMD processors. The rest of my system is so much cooler and quieter which was worth the price and effort alone. I expect to see it drop maybe a full degree after the Ceramique cures.
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2012
  12. Estuansis

    Estuansis Active member

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    Just got done re-OCing my CPU. 3.8GHz, 1.4v needed now interestingly, just +.05v to 1.15v on the NB-VID needed for 2200MHz NB. HTT left stock.

    10 runs max stress IBT
    [​IMG]

    Tell me if that shows up, lol

    Russ, can you give any input? Any settings I can look at for better performance or stability?

    The Hyper 212 Evo is by far the better cooler with the same fans. The new side fan and mesh panel may help but the sheer capability of the cooler is much greater on the whole. 3*C is a big jump for an AMD setup. Especially considering I'm using higher voltage. The failing PSU may have been to blame along with the chip degrading ever so slightly. You'll notice I have a slight amount of vdroop. 1.4v in the BIOS reads as 1.392 in CPU-Z.

    The HX750 is wonderful and quiet. Voltages are absolutely rock solid and it is silent most of the time as the fan turns off when not needed :)
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2012
  13. theonejrs

    theonejrs Senior member

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    Estuansis,

    You should be able to set the HT link to 2200 like the NB. What motherboard are you using? What memory, speed, and timings.

    I put the Slipstream 140 on the top fan port of the side cover. Terrible fan, that has been discontinued, The blade design is awful. I had one blow a blade at 1700 rpm, and break two others. Since I bought 2, and since it runs under 1000 rpm on the SYSfan1 header, and moves a lot of air, I figured I would give it a try. Judging by my temps this morning, it does the job. It was 54F outside and the ambient temp was 72F.

    [​IMG]

    PM me your email address, and I'll send you a copy of my old Business Sandra (with the legit serial), that I use for benchmarks. It's got to be close to 8 years old, so I don't consider it pirating, since it's no longer for sale and the new Sandra's suck, with all the animated crap and made up of arbitrary scale numbers that don't mean a thing.

    I'm getting used to Win7, but the search function is a total failure, without an index. I did a search for "Local Computer Policy", got about 20 choices in blue, and if any of them led there, I didn't find it. The old way was better, with both multiple choice and an index! That's Micro$haft for you!

    Russ
     
  14. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Windows 7 still has a search index?
     
  15. Estuansis

    Estuansis Active member

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    Gigabyte 890XA-UD3. 790X chipset, SB850 SB. 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws, DDR3-1600, CL9-9-9-24.
     
  16. Mr-Movies

    Mr-Movies Active member

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    Absolutely and more enhanced than ever.... You can turn off indexing though if you wish too.

    Wait a minute I must be getting things screwed up here, 7 does nothing right and XP can't do anything wrong! ya that's right.... LOL :D

    Foolish me,
    Stevo :p
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2012
  17. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Yeah sorry I should have written that better. I know full well Win7 has a search index, but I wrote the question mark as I was questioning why it was being implied that it doesn't.

    I'm also a little confused about the definition of 'the old way' as if that refers to XP then that DIDN'T have a search index, hence having to scan through every file and taking many minutes, if not hours.
     
  18. Mr-Movies

    Mr-Movies Active member

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    I knew that was what you meant and I agree fully of course...
     
  19. theonejrs

    theonejrs Senior member

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    Sam and Stevo,

    My bad, it's in the help file. Open help and you get this screen:

    [​IMG]

    See the index at the top, you click on it, and you get the full alphabetical index.

    [​IMG]

    You want to change a drive letter, type drive in the keyword window and it's about the third one down. I tried the same thing in Win7, but there is nothing but all the mostly useless suggestions to look elsewhere. I didn't find any index there, either!

    Russ
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2012
  20. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Ah it's the help search you're after, not windows search in general.
    There's no 'Help' to speak of in Win7/Win8 as it's all online reference now. Not necessarily something I agree with, but a sign of the times I suppose.

    FYI, changing drive letters is in the exact same place as before.
     

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