The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

I've already expressed my reasons for using Plextor.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=161189

 

They're not bad at all, but those who obsess over burn quality choose Plextor drives above others. My NEC has been great.

 

Mort81,

Actually, the latest NECs are bitset ready. I have one of the new 18x AD-7170A drives and it is bitset ready out of the box. I just use DVD DeCrypter to set it. I also like the 2MB cache!

Happy Computering,
theone

 

I am not ashamed to say that I am one of those sad b*stards that is obsessed about quality.

And if you are obsessed about quality, then you need to get the best burners.

I firmly believe if its worth doing something, its worth doing it correctly first time around.

If you start with a good burner and then add a good media, and finally use a good software setup, then the results are 'a good disc'

You may not notice the difference in playback of films, or data storage, but if you start backing up PS2 and Xbox games, then the difference can be seen in the playability of the disks.

Poor burns and crap media give slow load times and poor playback with freezing of the screen.

Its like everything in life, you get what you pay for, and again the original request was for the best in the market for a budget of £1500, as the cost so far has dropped below £850, then I should be correct to assume that an extra £30 on the burner is available.

These are the IDE cables I use, if you’re still looking.

 

oh just a question out of interest how much will my pc cost if bought in a shop.

Also how long before the intel core 2 duo e6600 wil come down in price.

 

theonejrs,

Thanks for the info/correction. That must have just come about as of rescently. Used to be NEC's were bitset ready for dvd+r dvd9 media but not the dvd5 media. Learn something everyday.

BigDK,

I agree the plextor PX-716 was probably the best drive available but I don't think the same is true of the later models such as the PX-740, PX-750, and PX-760.

 

Novadrago: Tonnes more to a), and this summer to b).

 

some interesting reading on the nb and overclocking here for you.

 

BigDK,

I, personally have never had any luck with Plextor drives. I can also say the same thing about anything Sony. Nothing wrong with the product design but rather just my bad luck with them.

I turned to Asus for my DVD-Rom drives and have had very good luck with them. They have also wound up having the fewest read errors of any drive I've ever tested. The test software won't allow for a 100% rating but it consistantly gives a 99.9% to the Asus E616A2. And the 2MB cache is just the icing on the cake. There are no skips, stutters or sound breaks ever with this drive. You can paues a DVD for 5 hours and when you push play it starts immediately with no breaks in audio or video. The fit and finish is extremely good with no rough edges or scratches of any kind. Even the silver finish on the faceplate manages to look a cut above the rest as the silver has a bit more depth to it looks fantastic in my silver case.

I find the 18x NEC AD-7179A DVD/RW drive to be a good performer. I've used it more than any other drive I've ever owned and the only coasters I ever got were my own damn fault. This drive also has a 2MB cache but the fit and finish is not quite up to the level of the Asus, but still quite good! I'm very happy with it's performance.

I have a couple of these Plextor drives.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827249006
They are for a customer build and I'm gonna run some test software on both of them and see how they do. I didn't buy them so I shouldn't have any problem with them. If you check my sig you will see that my 5.1 Dolby PLII is a Sony. I didn't buy it either! I've had it for 2 years. I can assure that had I bought the very same one, it would have died long ago. That's just my luck with Plextor and Sony!

On a side note! I noticed time and time again the biggest single complaint about any optical drive in reviews is noise and vibration. My present case is the first "tooless" case I've ever owned. I discovered that when you install the drive, use the screws as well and you won't have any noise or vibration problems. Both my drives are so quiet that you barely hear them at all. Same goes for the Seagate Barracuda S-ata drive. Dead silent, even with the side cover off! You can hear it un-park and address at boot-up, but that's it!

BTW! I came to an agreement with the lady I built the D-940 for and she's gonna pay it off and then take it! I let her play Quake & Quake2 on it today and she's hooked! I finally will be able to build a Conroe or Alendale! Stay tuned!!!LOL!!

Happy computering,
theone

 

crazy fsb for the commando. is this the future for cpus and 1333 fsb?

edit
fix pic

 

I use lite-on and benq optical drives (see sig) and only verbatim dvd+r media booktyped dvd-rom. I can honestly say I NEVER experience any freezing, pausing, or pixelation during playback. Believe me, I'm a perfectionest and would change my ways if there were any playback problems whatsoever.

I just finished a little project. I put 24 season 5 on 3 verbatim DL dvd's using remake, rb/cce (3 passes) and imgburn. That's 6 hours of video on each disc. Playback is perfect and the quality is better than if I was watching it on fox (excluding fox hdtv).

 

Not had much experience with Liteons, but Benq drives were awful back when I had one, so I just avoided the brand per se.

 

How long ago did you have a benq. What model? Benq DW1640, 1650, and 1655 are some of the most popular drives ever made and still saught after big time. Even the DW1620 was a good drive. The DW1650 is one of the best drives ever made imo and there are a lot of ppl that feel the same. Fast ripper, very low pi errors, quiet, dependable, bitset ready, great software support (qsuite).

Lite-ons have always been solid and popular optical drives.

 

It was 5 years ago, don't know the model number, clearly by reputation they're far better now but nonetheless my experience with them was so bad I just vowed never to buy from that company again.

 

One bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch and like you said that was 5 years ago and their reputation has dramatically improved. I wouldn't even have bought another intel cpu just 1 year ago. I rank the plextor PX-716 #1 but for the money and best bang for the buck the clear #2 in my book is the benq DW1650.

 

Mort81,

I know exactly what Sam's talking about. Thier first drives had bad bios chips. Usually a re-flash would kill it completely. The drive did some very strange things like opening the door in the middle of a DVD, or spinning up like you just put a disk in it and then telling you to insert a disk. I did 3 RMAs, which cost more than the drive and finally gave the last one to my neighbor.

I've used other benq drives since and it's one tough drive. A bit noisy but never had any problems except for the very first ones.

Happy Computering,
theone

 

Affimative. I never had an older benq. I was using litey's then. The 1st benq I had was a DW1620 (still going strong) and then the one I now have, DW1650, which has been nothing less than outstanding.

I contemplated getting a plextor PX-716 many times but couldn't justify the additional cost when my benq and litey were providing me with flawless results.

In the future I will refrain from passing on what products have served me best through my experiences. Everybody's entitled to their own opinions and lessons learned. Experience is the best teacher and sometimes the costliest.

 

Sounds like I had the same issue as Russ, the laser would be on whether or not there was a disc in there, and it refused to open the tray. This happened within a month, RMAed it, happened again within a month, so I just abandoned it until my next PC came with a DVD writer.

 

I need some help on choosing between these two cards...not sure if there is any difference...other then whats bundled with each one...I think they might be same card...they are both 8800gts OC Foxconn...but they have different part #'s...foxconn does not list one of the #...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814186016

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814186011

Or would you recommend the stock clocked version of these cards...

OC'ed and Stock clocked are the same price...

 

hey I was wondering if anybody knows how well an Abit AB9 Pro ATX LGA775 P965 Motherboard will overclock? Ive been searching around and cant find a review of the board with its latest bios version, all I can find are reviews of it that are a year old that speak of a new bios coming out soon. I'd like to find out since those reviews show the fsb max at 370.

oh and im planning to overclock a E6400 with it.

any help would be super