The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

I do believe I tested an older version of one of these in the day of Intel socket 478. In my experience, most kits are usually good to get you started, but if you overclock more intence, you may find you outgrow it and want more advanced parts as I did. I found Zalman to offer better waterblocks in their kits but both will be certainly quieter and a bit cooler then top en Zalman 9700 on air. Although if you need to get up and running now and on air is cool, the CNPS9700 is closest to the lowest end water coolers out there. A yr ago, I took my D805 to 4GHz on the CNPS9500-LED and a P 4 660 to 4.2GHz. Not bad for air. Not the coolest but did the job in well cooled home. For those who cant feed it w/ A/C then water is a better idea if overclocking a lot.

Here's a link to a review from Overclockers Cafe:
Reviews/cooling/Tt_Bigwater_745/index.html

 

sammorris,

Well Sam, the results are in. The Silverstone FM121 120mm case fan is a winner. Worth every penny of the $16 cost. At 1600 RPM it's quieter than the stock Cooler Master fan and moves a whole bunch more air!



Now the case fan runs at 1600 RPM and the CPU fan at between 800-1000 RPM. It lowered the Northbridge, Hard drive and Video Card temps a couple of degrees. At 2400 RPM it is LOUD!!! And I mean loud! The CPU stays right near room temp unless I load it down. Room temp is about 78F or 25-26C. The improved air flow allows the case to breathe better through the side and back vents better, which is why the NB and Video GPU run cooler. The PS runs much cooler out the back of it as well because the fan is quickly removing all the heat from inside the case where about 30% of the heat from the PS is vented with the Thermaltake TR-2 as well as several others with that design. By anybody's standards it's one very quiet computer! At 5 feet all you can hear is a little bit of air moving!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835220014

Anybody looking for a fan that can move incredible amounts of air that you can control the RPMs/airflow with, look no further. Whatever speed you set the fan at it holds that speed rock steady! This thing Rocks!!! It's a bit expensive at $15.99 but to me, it's worth every penny. With the heat we get here in the summertime, I'm ready for anything!

I'm going to run OCCT on it for a bit and see what happens when it heats up and I increase the fan speed. It's nice to have the ability to do that.

EDIT:Here's the OCCT. Notice that while the CPU, HD and GPU temps went up, the NB didn't budge! At 2000 RPM the noise is not bad either. It doesn't get annoying until it hits 2100 RPM!



Best Regards.
Russ

 

One the subject of case temps, I bought a Thermaltake Bach VX 4000BWS case for my build project Im getting together at the moment. Its got a 140mm front intake and a 120mm exhaust, plexi glass side window but comes in BLACK.
A freind of mine said he noticed a significant increase in temps when he switched to a black case. Has anyone else encountered these or similar problems?

 

Interesting result Russ, glad to hear it worked out.

 

Both the current cases I use are black, but they run cooler than my previous case because they're better ventilated. If it's painted black inside like the Antec P182SE is though, then that will be an issue. most cases are only blaxk on the outside, so it shouldn't prove a problem, unless your pc is directly exposed to sunlight all day.

 

As Sam knows I moved from a beige case to a black one of the same make with the exact same components. The only difference I noticed was the the black one was more sensitive to the ambient temperature. In other words if the room is warm, the black one will absorb more heat than the Beige one. My room is on the SW corner of the house, so the walls do get a bit warm in the summertime as they heat soak for about 8-9 hours.

BTW, my computer has been on all day yet the top above the PS is barely luke warm. That tells me that the new fan is doing a good job of circulating air as there's not much room between the top of the case and the PS!

Clock On,
theone

 

Hey guys, what ever happened to the noisy but performance barrel/drum and squirrel cage blower/exhaust fan units? I used to see a lot of these in the AMD Barton & Thorougbread days when ATX cases got so hot you needed then. THey were nothing quiet but got the job done if on a controller and thermal sensor. For you guys wanteing the best on air in hot climates, look into these. 1 or 2 of them is far more efficiant then 4 - 10 of the little ones most use to try and stuff in a mid tower ATX.

Also, to ones looking for better ATX case cooling, try moving to BTX ATX backward compatible server tower & mod to fit your needs for style. Use the 2nd EATX PWR for extra exhaust fan. 2 140mm in lower front and 2 140mm in upper and top rear will do pretty good if already utilizing BTX style CPU cooling and CPU intake tube/blower box.

You can find some aftermarket DC or AC fans used in server applications. I use PAPST AC on a DC powered solenoid off the mobo 3 wire for on/off controll of 12v to 120VAC. They are quieter on AC and great to intergrate into water cooled system too. (120mm x 40mm all metal is great for ATX rear exhaust if mounted on outside.

Just some more "on Air" cooling ideas

And that's what's clockin' like it over here!
Cool hah!

 

The only time I've seen squirrel cage blowers these days are in laptops, and those PCI-slot exhaust fans. Whilst the former are certainly effective, the latter left me a little underwhelmed, it wasn't too loud but the noise character was terrible and it didn't move much air.

 

Hey Sam,
Tell you what I'll do! You buy one of those Silverstones and try it! If you don't like it, I'll give you the money back for it and you can keep the fan! I say this in front of God and this forum, that I've never seen any fan that moves so much air so quietly! Yes it can be very noisy at full speed, but at 1600 RPM this thing is very quiet and moves whole bunches of air! The biggest bonus is that the PS runs so much cooler. Before with the Cooler Master case fan the air was downright hot coming out of the PS. Now it's just warm! You won't even have to show me an invoice as your word is more than good enough for me. This thing is amazing and my temps have never been better!

Clock On,
Russ

 

I'm genuinely interested in the FM121. I swear by Nexus case fans, however 12V is just slightly too silent for me. A fan that's pretty mujch inaudible at 12V means it could go further and still be satisfactorily quiet. In the same way, your word is certainly enough for me to try one. Annoyingly a shop I placed an order with last week carries it, but I guess I'll setup a second order.

 

Sam,
There are 2 things about this fan that simply amaze me. The temperature of the air coming out of the PS is now barely warm. With the old fan it was hot. I know you have the same design Thermaltake as mine with the plastic covering part of the fan so it also has vents on the side of the PS that dump that ducted hot air into the case. The other thing is the speed control is the tiniest thing I've ever seen! I was expecting the control to get very hot but it's stone cold. Speaking of cold, my computer has been in constant use for the last 20 hours and the top of the computer over the PS is almost cold. There isn't another close to warm spot anywhere on the case except the PS exhaust, and thats not even close to hot. Even the exhaust port behind the rear fan is cold.

I ran 3DMark03 before and it kicked the HSF up to 1.6. I don't bother with 06 because I don't have a video card good enough to run that very well I ran PCMark05 and it hit 1.3! Here's the 3DMark03!



Not at all bad for what it is!

BTW, I pulled my floppy out as I haven't used it in months and installed the fan controller in it's place. The frame isn't long enough to reach the locks on the tool-less part and they are too short to reach with screws from the other side. I'll figure a way other than bending the sides outward. I ordered a black one which looks nice with the silver case. I wanted a little contrast and it looks nicer than the Beige floppy!

Clock On,
Russ

 

I think the whole point of 3dmark06 is that nobody has a video card to run it well, the point is not to get good fps, but for it to be a good test. I'm still interested!

 

just for S & G here's my 3DMARKO3 scores with stock GPU settings. I know there's a lot better scores out there but as I've said many a time I'm not much of a gamer.

 

Mort81,
What surprises me is that the 7600GT is not that much faster then the X800GTO 16 piper that I had on the D-940. It did 11,837 and it was an 8x AGP. I wish there was something like the ATi Tool I had for it. I've heard of RivaTuner but it's a lot harder to use! I don't understand half of what the stuff in it is or does, so I leave well enough alone. LOL!!

Clock On,
Russ

 

"BENCHMARKING"

Can someone finally just creat a benchmark app for the office & media needs where for the most part, video is left out of the scenario except where CPU related.

Who is offering the test for open office, WinRar, MP3 encoding and such. I too am not a big gamer. I build for that and use it but it is not as important to me as my CAD systems and media encoders. I need number crunching test apps. Like AutoCAD, SolidWorks and Maya?

My overclocked Intel D950 did better in Auto CAD then my AMD (939) in sig but the AotuGK trsncode was a good at a near head to head w/ AMD leading only by a few minutes. Here the double the L2 cache shows its performance.

 

NuckNFuts

the general pc benchmarking program is PcMark its on futuremarks site, you might need to buy it to get all your encoding speeds ect, but it does a through pc workout not realy dependant on graphics card.

I did have some other software i will have to try and dig it up and tell you what it is, there might be some open source pc benchmarking software, have a look on http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php?form_cat=138

must be some in there you will find usefull

 

If you think about it, the 7600, although a generation ahead is a mid-range card versus the top end position the X800 series took, so it seems reasonable that the two perform similarly.
Also, ATitool works for nVidia cards now, try it out!

 

sammorris,

I used CoolBits to overclock the 7600GT up to the 7600GT Fatal1ty Pro speeds. I get about the same 3DMark_03, but I was able to move the quality up a notch, as you can see by the screen shot. 650 on the core and 1600 on the memory clocks.



Not too bad for my $99 investment!

Clock On,
theone

 

thats a nice chip you have in that 76 if it will hit 650core on stock volts. the best i have gotten out of mine is 615 (will go higher but causes issues) but my mem i can max at 820/1640.


with mine at that speed i just cleared 13000 last year with my 3400+ i havent tried 03 since. i get just umder 4k in 06 but my new cpu/ram only gave me about 200 more points than the 3400 even tho it scores more than triple in the cpu tests.

edit

i gave it a go just, on default settings with my 24/7 settings of 3ghz with my 76gt running 600core and 1500mem it did this

im tempted to change my settings so it will crack 15k

 

marsey99,
It will run at 670 and 1640 but it locks up 3DMark_03 during the first Wings of Fury test when the 2 bombers crash together. When you get it going again it tells you that it lost focus. By setting it to 650 and 1600 it allowed me to increase the video quality and still give me a little better 3DMark to boot! Heat doesn't seem to be an issue either! I think 03 is a very good test for video stability. With 06, it's hard to tell as it runs like it's wading in fudge to begin with!! LOL!!

It well should be a nice chip, as it was an important part of the luckiest week of my computer life! First Mort81 got me thinking when I made my intentions known that I was going to build another P5N-E for myself. He just simply asked me why I would do that after all the problems with Gina's 2 duff Asus motherboards! I got to thinking about that and opted for a GigaByte. While I was considering which one to buy, docTY turned me on to a deal on a v1.33 for $99. From that seller I came across some excellent G.Skill cas4 2x1GB memory, on sale for $129, which at the time I bought it was only a couple of dollars more than 2x512 cas4 Corsair XMS! Then the 7600GT went on sale for $99 and I wound up saving about $70 between all 3 items. BigDK was nice enough to PM me some suggestions for settings that helped a lot, and I haven't looked back since! For sure I would like to find that Dog whose stuff I stepped in! LOL!! Then to top it all off, it all went together like butter on toast and was up and running at 2.7 in less than 2 hours! No problems, and it worked first try. Even the 2 fans I bought and installed since, work exceptionally well and improved the cooling all around. I guess it's just a "lucky" computer, and it just keeps on getting better! LOL!!

BTW! I got 4200+ with 06 on this card stock, the one time I ran it! It may have even been even more but I just can't remember. I posted a question about that but I'm just too lazy to go back and look for it!

Clock On,
Russ