The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Sam,
I guess what it all means is you don't have to overclock to get the 1066 memory speed! Some of the latest AMD motherboards support 1200MHz Ram via overclock.

Russ

 

Yeah, precisely. It's not an issue for Intels as PC8500 with the bare basic 200FSB CPUs is wholly unnecessary, but since all AMDs (I think) use 200FSB, obviously it was a feature they had to implement, and it's handy that they did.

 

Sam,
I think that's one of the best things about having an un-locked CPU multiplier. Just raise the multi and leave the CPU speed alone. The multiplier won't increase the CPU speed until after you pass 16x. When the CPU frequency goes up, so does the memory speed after 16x on the CPU multi! I just set the HT multi to 9 and it gives me an effective FSB of just over 1800MHz, regardless of the CPU multi setting. It has a very un-AMD like memory bandwidth too. Over 6,100MB/s. Once I replace this crazy motherboard, it should all be good!

Russ

 

Thing is though, unlike Intels, the unlocked multiplier is a little bit of a cheat, because as far as I can see it only goes up to 16x, which if you buy the most expensive chips, they're already at 16x anyway. Buy an Extreme Quad (Granted, the price difference is astronomical, but nonetheless they exist) and I've seen the multiplier raised to 11x, and 11x 333, or even 400FSB is a force to be reckoned with.

 

Sam,
I'm not sure where you are getting your incorrect information about the multipliers, but you can raise it a hell of a lot higher than 16x, with an AM2+ CPU Mine goes more than triple 16x as it goes all the way to 47x which would be 9.4GHz! LOL!! You don't even have to touch the CPU frequency. Not that it would ever run at that speed, but I have seen the Kuma overclocked to 3.8GHz, using just the 19x multi. I don't see that in anyway being a "cheat"! As near as I can see it's much more flexible because you can adjust the CPU Multiplier, the HT multiplier, the HT link speed, the HT Reference frequency, and there's still the CPU Frequency, with various voltage adjustments and Skew controls to help you.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

47x is certainly impressive (and also wholly unnecessary) but if the memory speed is getting raised beyond that point, it clearly isn't just a CPU multiplier adjustment, it's doing something else. The highest true multiplier setting still seems to be 16x.

 

Sam,
No, it was my bad on the memory speed. I completely forgot that I had raised the CPU frequency a little, which affects the memory speed. If you crank the Multi to 47x, the memory stays at 1066. While I agree that 47x would be totally unnecessary, who knows whether we may have CPUs in the next year or so that run much faster than the ones do today. Given the leap in performance in the last couple of years, nothing would surprise me! LOL!!

Russ

 

What in anybody's opinion is a better Terabyte HDD Seagate or Western Digital

 

I have the FALS WD 1TB drive. Ive not had any trouble with it. Infact, its almost as fast as the VelociRaptor!!! Ive heard bad things about ALL seagate drives. They MAY be going down hill. Just my thoughts on it though. If I'm mistaken I apologize! I believe its due to FirmWare trouble on the seagates.

 

Fair enough, that is very impressive, though I suppose, without a memory controller on the chipset, there wouldn't necessarily be such a demand on it for FSB anyway, the limit would be the CPU itself, or its voltage.

Rick: WD every time. If you buy the Green drives (10EACS, 10EAVS, 10EADS), they're cheaper, quieter, more energy efficient and more reliable, though slower. If you buy the Black drive (1001FALS) you lose a lot of the quietness (but not all of it, they're still better than Seagates in that regard), but gain a lot of performance.
The firmware trouble only affects 7200.12s but it's enough to stop me recommending them as it's a serious issue. On top of that Seagates use the most power, run the hottest and also make the most noise.

 

i have to agree with sam right now on the segates(i tend to like them very much myself) but there larger HDD arent doing to well in the open market. a guy i work with hsa 2 of the 1tb segates and within 3 weeks both crapped out on him and they are less than 6 months old. there are alot of issues with them larger drives right now. i do think the WD 1tb drives are at the top of the line right now. and yes the GP drives are great. i have the 500gb GP and love it. but as the temps go it does run hotter (well warmer hot is the wrong word) then my newest 500gb seagate.


if i was to buy another HDD right now it would be the same 1tb hdd that omegaman7 has the 1tb WD.

 

That could also be its position in the case. When all five main drives in my server have been running for hours in a hot room, most of my drives sit in the high 40s celsius. The Greenpower is at 44 and the Seagate is at 56.

 

Definitely. On low fan speed I get 32-36C on my main PC's drives. Full fan speed (which is still barely noisier than low speed on the Antec) sees them at 28-31.

 

Interesting poll I found on the Tech Report site:

 

well i would be in the 13% that choose the intel LGA775.
just me. Q9550 or Q9650 wil be here soon im hopeing..

 

That's an upgrade not a completely new system though. I still think 775 is the way to go for most people, so you have my support at least. I just voted for i7 because if I was genuinely starting from scratch, I would.

 

Hey guys. I just got my new ram for my server and now I have four sticks off ddr2 667 fb-dimm. I installed speedfan and took a look at the temperatures and was surprised to see them getting as high as 70c. So I installed a 120cm fan over the memory and chipset and it is now idling at about 50c. I was just wondering what the safe temperature range was for fb-dimm. I knew that it ran hotter but I'm not sure if 50c is safe for 24/7 operation.

 

sam,
It's more of a wish list. I think if it came down to what they actually are going to build, 775 and 1333's numbers would be quite different. Same for AMD. There would be a lot more AM2+ than AM3's!

Russ

 

Russ: That was my thought as well.
Krj: I probed my 4 sticks of PC6400, they ran up to about 67ºC load, I never encountered any issues running them like that for months.