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Some Help with Q6600 & Corsair Dominator

Discussion in 'PC hardware help' started by JaguarGod, Dec 8, 2008.

  1. JaguarGod

    JaguarGod Active member

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    The ATA 133 limit is technically 133MB/s, but that is maybe burst speed or something. I think 50 - 60 is common. Maybe burst speed approached 133MB/s?

    The Q9550 is the Processor I really wanted, but I could not afford to put any extra money in my setup. The price you paid is good, especially in UK. I would have imagined it being over 300GBP. Crysis WH is one of those games that is CPU limited, so it makes sense that the Q6600 would not cut it. Especially with your video card :p

    I was wondering, my motherboard says it is rated at DDR2 1366+, but it supports FSB up to 1600MHz. However, the overclocking tool that comes with it, has an easy setting that takes it to 1760MHz. I thought raising FSB over motherboard spec was bad.
     
  2. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    The Q9550 is only £250, but I got the E0 stepping, back when all you could get from retails was C1s. The E0 is basically a Q9650 with a lower multiplier, and is know to overclock well on a low voltage, which mine has done. While I didn't pay any less than usual for my CPU, I guaranteed myself a (at the time) rare version, which on that basis would technically be worth maybe £60-£70 more than I paid, as the Q9650 is nearly £400.

    If there's one thing you need quad core CPUs for, it's dual graphics. The exceptional CPU load of Warhead, plus the CPU requirement of running two GPUs in it drops my minimum frame rate down to about 17 with a 3.5Ghz Q6600, it's about 22 with my 3.65Ghz Q9550, not ideal, but playable, were it not for the stuttering when loading textures. I'm possibly attributing this to running a 32-bit OS, but in Vista, while the game performs better, the game speed is not uniform, which is very disorientating.

    As far as overclocking the FSB beyond the motherboard's rated speed, it has much the same effect as a CPU, it's not going to justify a warranty return if you can't surpass a certain speed, but it's not going to do any harm unless you up the voltages too much. It is however, a source of instability - the maximum FSB my board can achieve is 455, regardless of any other settings, simply because I use a quad core CPU. That is the limitation of my chipset (X38) specifically, not my particular board.
     
  3. JaguarGod

    JaguarGod Active member

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    Wow, that was a good deal! That's probably the best you can do without breaking the bank :p

    As for my CPU, I think I will leave the FSB at 400MHz. It makes the most sense to me as getting the RAM to 1066 is pretty simple. The next logical step (to me at least) would be 533MHz with 1:1 RAM ratio, but I am guessing 533MHz is insane for this CPU/Motherboard combo. I don't want to deal with stability testing any more either.
     
  4. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Oh, I broke the bank alright... :p
    Even the P45 chipset can only reach 505mhz FSB with a quad core, so 533, never going to happen :p
     

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