The (new) Official PC building thread!

oh my goodness. I am at 4.0ghz stable and ram is at 1068mhz @ 5-5-5-15 finally. where do I start. in order to achieve 4.0ghz stable, I had to bump the vcore up to 1.31v. I played and played with the NB,SB,and FSB voltages only to discover 3 hours later that my mobo overvolts all of those plenty when set to auto.

in order to get things stable, I was having to set my cpu vcore voltage clear up to 1.375v which after rebooting actually showed to be at 1.328 in the bios. then when I ran orthos the vdroop would drop clear down to 1.31v according to everest.

I wasn't about to leave the vcore set that high but then I discovered another nice little feature in the bios called loadline calibration. I had set it to disabled because I read in a review for my mobo to definately disable this feature in order not to damage the cpu.

so I enabled loadline calibration and set the cpu vcore to 1.33125v which is actually 1.312 according to the bios after reboot and 1.31v in everest. now when I run orthos there is absolutely no cpu vcore droop according to everest. the cpu vcore stays at 1.31v like it should.

I don't know if 1.31v is too much for sure but until I find out differently I'm going to leave it there for a while anyway. here's some pics from cpu-z just to verify:

 

abuzar1,

Dollars to donuts he either works there, sells their line or both! LOL!!

Russ

 

looks good Mort and lol i have a rug just like that

 

ZoSoIV,

it was no easy task getting it to 4.0ghz. 4.2ghz might be pushing the vcore voltage. at least higher than I want to go now. I'll try to find out what the highest vcore recomendation is without any worries of electrical migration. mines .087v over intels recommended max voltage now. temps aren't bad, idle or loaded, but you've got to remember I have the king of cpu hsf's.

 

great Mort my system update is still stalled.when i get things up and going expect PMs or even maybe a phone call.

I may just push mine to about 3.7GHz/3.8GHz range then depending how yours holds up the next week or so.running the vcore voltage that high may cause a heat problem encoding, gaming etc.

 

Abuzar: It took you that long? lol he's been doing it for ages, I knew of the brand when I first saw his username, so I assumed he'd taken it from there.
Mort: Indeed you do, no worries about cooling with that!
Creaky: it's what I'm starting to do with 250s... I'm thinking of upping straight to a 750 at present, can't quite manage the shell out for a TB drive just yet, and I think 750GB will do fine for my games drive. Don't forget though, if you wait a few months for something new, you'll still get screwed, you'd have to keep on waiting as things keep moving on - you'd never buy anything!

 

Wish I lived near the Creakster. lol. I'd have to sweet talk him outta couple of 500GB HDD's!! hehehe.

creaky you really should reprimand SAMMY for posting such temptations.

@all,
I'm looking at a WestingHouse 19" LCD (standard NOT WS) monitor for $166 OTD from a local retailer. It has 5ms response but I can't remember the model #. Any ideas on that brand. I'll see about getting more info. Sorry for that. :S

....gm

 

Lol the Pixel count is actually slightly higher with a standard aspect 19" to a widescreen one - 1280x1024=1.311 Megapixels, 1440x900=1.296 Megapixels.

Reprimand me if you must, but if anybody's in the market for some big storage, what can I say? Sure it's overclockers, but at £20 less than anywhere else, it's worth the hassle, isn't it?

 

@ Greensman I've got the 20.1 Westinghouse I bought at BB on sale for $199 (also have their 32") I'd recommend it since I think it' better than my proview and my Viewsonic.That price is awfully good compared to what I originally paid for my 19" models.Chris

 

I'm guessing that's good then. lol

Oh you're on the right path for a smacked bottom. creaky you start... hehehe.

Thanks Chris. I believe I may have a new monitor in my very near future.

....gm

 

Hey guys, this pretty much proves Anandtech is full of bullshit. They have a Freezer 7 Pro cooling BETTER than a Thermalright 120 Extreme!

 

Lolol, that is a bit broken...

 

looks good to me on that test.. my coolermaster is right at the top...cool.lol

 

lol

What a bullcrap test.

 

Lol - a picture where words would do... Creaky and ddp are almost like opposite ends of the spectrum!

 

the arctic cooling freezer 7 pro is a good cooler (especially for the money) but there is absolutely no way it cools better than a TR ultra 120 extreme....................................

 

Indeedy. I owned both and I get 4C lower full load temps at a 150mhz higher overclock using a 600rpm 120mm fan versus the full 2700rpm of the Freezer. No chance. Oh, and I'm also using the Ultra-120A, not even the extreme.

 

abuzar1,

I ran into the same argument between the Arctic Freezer 7 Pro and the Zalamn 9500. I've said many times that the FS-7 Pro was overall, the better cooler. Where the FS-7 Pro shines is when the ambient temperatures get above 29C as it just does a better job cooling than the 9500. Above 29C, the temps jump up dramatically with the Zalman. Below that temp, they both are fairly equal There are so many variables when it comes to cooling a computer. Most of them center around two things, ambient temperature and case airflow. In the case of the ambient temperature, even the stock coolers can do a good job if the room is cool enough. It's when the ambient temperatures get higher, that the situation changes. That's where the total surface area of the cooler becomes more important, which brings us right to case airflow.

Common wisdom says buy a decent case, put some decent fans in it and it should do a good job of cooling. Common wisdom is also wrong. We can control the airflow going through the case. What is more difficult is to cool the hot spots, like the area around the CPU/NB or the memory. That's why so many cases have a side air duct, to try and get more airflow to the CPU cooler. Unfortunately most side air ducts are in the wrong place, directly over the CPU cooler. It would work a lot better if it was a couple of inches more towards the front of the case. Then the air would be behind the CPU fan where it would supply cooler air to the CPU cooler's air intake! Channeling the airflow to hot spots is the difficult part. We can change the direction of the fans, and play around with the fan speeds. We can also add small fans for the chipset and memory, but that's about it. The worst part is that just switching to a different MB, even with all the same components can change everything. That 965P you had before ran cold as ice, but that P35 MB you replaced it with runs hotter. It's a never ending process. Change one component and it can change the airflow pattern inside your case. It's a never ending maddening process! LOL!!

I think it's funny when I read about someone complaining that their computer doesn't get cool enough in their Antec 900 case. That thing's got enough fans to fly, so why is it hot in there? The answer is simple! The air isn't getting to some areas inside the case, so heat builds up in those places which contributes to the overall temperatures inside the case.

Best Regards,
Russ