A 4.1 GHz Dual Core at $130 - Can it be True?

Page 16 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Is overclocking the memory required if I have a DDRII 667 ?

If you ar using it on a d805 you need to overclock the fsb from its 133 stock, but it is not "required" only if you want to see 667mhz



Also would like to see some pcmark05 scores on some other d805's on futuremarks orb cant tell the orignal freq so its been tuff to search
 
The reason why I didn't just spend some loot on a vid card was because I have an AGP mobo. So considering I would have been looking at 200-300 for a card and 350 for a 939 dual, I decided to build a system from scratch with a better upgrade path. And rather than scavange parts from my current computer, I can sell the other one whole and recoup a good portion of the cost on my new build.
Mostly the way I valued out my current comp was to see what 4 or 5 other computer companies would charge for building a conputer with similar specs. Even if I get 1/2 to 2/3 of that considering it's not a 'new', I've still made out pretty good.
With the 805 setup and PCIe I can always just get a new video card in another 1 1/2 years and still have a great setup.
 
Traced my single core problem to a corrupt OS installation. Now corrected.

.... Also would like to see some pcmark05 scores on some other d805's on futuremarks orb cant tell the orignal freq so its been tuff to search

My system @ 4.0GHz on PCmark05, but failed one CPU test:

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/projectdetails.jsp?projectType=13&projectId=378013

Both our systems fail the Multithreaded Test 1 on CPU Test Suite of PCMark05 Advanced consistently. Not sure what's up with that. 2000 pts higher than the same vid card and settings (different driver, 81.89 driver with the AMD and 84.21 driver with Intel), water, and hard drive setup with a 3700+ San Diego and NF4 chipset:

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcm05=142048


Wife's system on 3dmark05 (x300 vid card) @ 4.0GHz on air (CPU score = 6533):

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=2043284

My system on 3dmark05 @ 4.0GHz (CPU score = 7429):

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=2043838

Keep in mind that 3dmark is highly dependant upon the vid card, mainly a vid bench. Also the wife is overdue for a format since her OS was installed with a hyper-threading CPU.
 
yesterday i picked up silverstone fm121 fan to throw on the big typhoon to see what i get. It was a good choice, i am sure i can get more once i tune everything up.
I am not really happy with the super pi score, not sure if my hdd or ram has an effect.
Just to letyou know, super pi was tested first then 3dmark06 then superpi again then ran about an hour of burn in.
I run 3dmark06 cause its cpu's test seem to be harder then any other even the pcmark's cpu test.
fb30a12e.jpg


my pcmark05 at 3840 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcm05=377644
will run again at 3.9 i am really not to happy with the HDD score at all got to find a way to remedy that.


Darklife, is your system on h20? I find your wifes 2nd cpu test drops off alot maybe cause of temp?
my last 3dmark05 at 3.84http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=2039170
 
Anyone have the same combo as me?
ECS 945P-A, D805, DDR2 PC5400 RAM

the max OC i can get is with FSB up to 150, with motherboard CPU voltage set to AUTO. w/ voltage set to anythign > 1.375 and FSB > 150, the system will not boot, and the BIOS will report with Overclock failure.

Has anyone managed to get this combo higher than FSB 150? any tricks/tips appreciated.... Thanks in advance
 
Yes, my system is on water cooling.

I don't think the wife's drop off is due to temperature as the CPU never gets above 62C under full load. In fact the Gigabyte G-Power Pro allows it to run under full load @ 4.1GHz and 62C (with another voltage increase). Its not until 4.2GHz that it starts to throttle back under full load. Works better than some cheap water cooling solutions IMO.

More likely its the OS install. It was originally formatted with hyper-threading support enabled for her CPU, which is not an option for the 805. I put the 805 in and fired it back up. She's getting numorous errors on file compression/decompression and has a few bugs with XP now that she didn't have before (eg: can't save anything to desktop). Unfortunately, our computers are used heavily for our business, so include a ton of programs to re-install and reconfigure. We backup to images, but her backup image won't work because of the hyper-threading change, so it has to be set up from scratch again. The plan is to reformat this weekend, if/when she gets her work for a customer done. I'll update as to whether the format solved her problems and changed CPU score or not.

But either way, her scores are in line with yours and aren't bad, and neither are yours. 🙂
 
Anyone have the same combo as me?
ECS 945P-A, D805, DDR2 PC5400 RAM

the max OC i can get is with FSB up to 150, with motherboard CPU voltage set to AUTO. w/ voltage set to anythign > 1.375 and FSB > 150, the system will not boot, and the BIOS will report with Overclock failure.

Has anyone managed to get this combo higher than FSB 150? any tricks/tips appreciated.... Thanks in advance

I don't have that MB to test in house, but my first guess is that it can't handle the bus rate. You shouldn't have to increase vcore at all to get 160 FSB. I can boot to 180 FSB with vcore set to auto (stock voltage). All other settings are set to auto as well. CPU temp is 53C under full load, so heat is definitely not your problem either. Tells me that your MB is the constraint.

This is the wife's on air (fan on lowest setting) @ 3.6GHz, all voltages and settings at auto except for FSB @ 180. 🙂

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=2044851
 
....my first guess is that it can't handle the bus rate. You shouldn't have to increase vcore at all to get 160 FSB.....

Thanks for your reply darklife41, is the ability to handle the bus rate motherboard bound or CPU-bound? the CPU support 800mhz procs, so i assume that 200Mhz FSB is no problem for it, which is why i'm confused why i can't push it beyond 150 FSB. The only other thing i can think about is PCIe bus locking, which i think the ECS motherboard does not have.

Does anyone have this m/b and is attempting what i am doing as well?

thanks.
 
I've just ordered the last of my parts.

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) (MY-108-CS)

1 x Western Digital Raptor 150GB WD1500ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-069-WD)

2 x Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-070-WD)

HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT ICEQ 3 SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-053-HT)

This project has become very expensive for me. I didn't forsee having to purchase a new GPU (my old one is AGP). I've upgraded from a old P4, none of the parts i was age to salvage and use in this project, apart from a DVD, my Delta 1010 SC and Powercore DSP Card.

To be honest i will not be running games on this machine, its soley for music production. But with having invested in watercooling and the benifit of how quiet it will run, i've purchased the above GPU to keep things quiet.

All should look nice in my Liam Li Limited Edition Case.

All i am waiting on now is the parts to arrive along with the a new pump res pressure cap, as the old one is cracked. Alpha Cool Germany need to get there skates on, i've been waiting over a week.

Just hope this baby runs OK, and i get near the 4GHZ mark - I'll be highly dissapointed if it does not.
 
Gotta love those 90F computer rooms... you know it only takes 60 watts to run an easy bake oven? 🙁

230+ watts for the CPU alone is getting to be a bit rediculous. 230 watts radiating into your home versus an average 120W-ish CPU... meaning a 1-2kW (or more depending on your house) machine has to kick on twice as much to cool down that room.

Some of you guys might not live on your own, but energy bills can hurt.
 
....my first guess is that it can't handle the bus rate. You shouldn't have to increase vcore at all to get 160 FSB.....

Thanks for your reply darklife41, is the ability to handle the bus rate motherboard bound or CPU-bound? the CPU support 800mhz procs, so i assume that 200Mhz FSB is no problem for it, which is why i'm confused why i can't push it beyond 150 FSB. The only other thing i can think about is PCIe bus locking, which i think the ECS motherboard does not have.

Does anyone have this m/b and is attempting what i am doing as well?

thanks.

Motherboard would be my guess. The CPU is fine. The other possibility is the PSU. You need at least a 500w PSU to get it up to 4.2/4.3GHz comfortably. I'm too lazy to do the math @ 3.6GHz, but probably close to what a generic 300w PSU can handle. 🙂
 
got my updated 3dmark05 at 3.92ghz broke 10k <never thought that would happenhttp://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=2044889
and pcmark05 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?pcm05=378853

my corsair watercooling kit came in today , i should have it on by this weekend. but i wont get to much more i am already at 1.52volts , ill go for 1.57v or so. The voltage droop problem i have to fix also

Congrats on the 10k barrier. Remember that higher volts will put out more heat. Try to boot with lower voltage and work up. Both of our 805s are running at 1.45v @ 4.0GHz. Your results may vary.

I kind of miss my SLI setup, but it didn't perform nearly as well as the 805. 🙂

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=1042339
 
Darklife' Have you done the vdroop mod for your motherboard? I just picked up the parts today i need it badly. It should help with some oc and stability issues
 
Darklife' Have you done the vdroop mod for your motherboard? I just picked up the parts today i need it badly. It should help with some oc and stability issues

No. Not interesting in any mods that void the warranty of the MB. Both the pencil mod and the pot with soldered wires will do just that. If the end user wants to void their warranty, that's their business. But as a dealer, I'd be eating the cost for any failures.

And really only extreme overclocking is going to benefit from such a mod. We plan to sell the systems @ 3.8GHz-4.0GHz, which doesn't require any mods as long as a good PSU and cooling are used (from what I've seen so far anyway). 🙂
 
Help - I am having trouble pushing my cpu past a 620 bus speed. I am running a Nvidia Chip set on an MSI P4N Diamond board. I have a 500 watt power supply and DDR2 memory rated at 1066. The system is water cooled by a Innovatec system with a large fan cooled radiator on the side. My goal was to run this chip at a 700 mhz bus speed and so far 635 FSB is about all I can maintain. The CPU temp hits about 64 cel on full load at around 650 FSB.
I am not a guru when it comes to ocing. I know alot of the time it is luck of the draw when it comes ocing Cpu. I compared the voltage results to Tom's and mine came in a bit lower. So far I have up the voltages and disabled spread spectrum. Anyone have any other ideas to try? :?: Thanks

OBTW: It only crashes at full load; it will boot into windows fine at 700 FSB - at load the cpu temp get to 63 - 64 cel. Was kinda wondering if the water cooling was pulling enough heat off. I am thinking it is because the room temp will go up and when I turn off the radiator fans the radiator really heats up. The water temp hits about 52 cel under full load.
 
Help - I am having trouble pushing my cpu past a 620 bus speed. I am running a Nvidia Chip set on an MSI P4N Diamond board. I have a 500 watt power supply and DDR2 memory rated at 1066. The system is water cooled by a Innovatec system with a large fan cooled radiator on the side. My goal was to run this chip at a 700 mhz bus speed and so far 635 FSB is about all I can maintain. The CPU temp hits about 64 cel on full load at around 650 FSB.
I am not a guru when it comes to ocing. I know alot of the time it is luck of the draw when it comes ocing Cpu. I compared the voltage results to Tom's and mine came in a bit lower. So far I have up the voltages and disabled spread spectrum. Anyone have any other ideas to try? :?: Thanks

OBTW: It only crashes at full load; it will boot into windows fine at 700 FSB - at load the cpu temp get to 63 - 64 cel. Was kinda wondering if the water cooling was pulling enough heat off. I am thinking it is because the room temp will go up and when I turn off the radiator fans the radiator really heats up. The water temp hits about 52 cel under full load.

Sounds like you need to give it a little more juice mate ... up ya voltage in small incrumnets till it stops crashing.
 
Ive been wanting to upgrade for some time now but the ultimate cost was insane. Now that I can upgrade and spend a good $300 (US) less I am jumping on the ball.

Id just like to run some things by you guys before I fully commit. Since before I have made some not so wise hardware choices.

CPU: Pentium D 805
Mobo: Gigabyte G1975X
RAM: Corsair DDR2-533MHz (2 x 1gb. 2GB total)
Vid: eVGA GeForce 7900 GT KO 256mb

These parts other than the video card which was my own decision is based off of the THG article and what I have read in this forum thread.

The last bit that I am curious on is what kind of case should I get or would basically any case with sufficient air flow do that job? And then of course the PSU. I currently have a 350w Antec which is of course not enough. Should I go with another Antec 450-500w or maybe switch to another brand?

I plan to do some work to whatever case I get. I read earlier in this thread about cutting away the fan holes to get better air flow and less noise so maybe that will faulter any need to get another case. Also with the case I'd like to have room for atleast 3 HDDs, but I do plan on expanding more than that in the future once the first 3 are full.

EDIT:
Also would like to know if the mobo and ram mentioned above would be compatible with a new Conroe when they are finally released? I read a little bit about the Conroe and it says that its a very hungry when it comes to memory bandwidth...
 
Right now there's only one 975x PCIe board that I know of which is widely rumored to be conroe compatible, the Intel D975XBXLKR. Until the Conroe is actually launched though, that's not a guarantee. Something about how the voltage regulators are different with the upcoming Conroe motherboards and not issues with the 975 chip per-se. I decided to get an Asus P5ND2-SLI which will get me up and running now and not worry about Conroe compatibility.
As far as your ram goes, at 533 that depends on what the new processors demand. I chose a pair of 667 since the 800's are a bit pricey atm.
If you're happy with the case you have now, save your money and use it. My current case is a steel full tower which is pretty darned heavy so I opted for an aluminum this time around.
One other recommendation, if you are going to be playing the overclocker game with this chip, I would recommend a 600 watt Power Supply. Power supplies should be 65-85% taxed when under load, so the lower the wattage the closer you are going to get to 100% which is bad. The sadness of seeing more money going to a stronger power supply pales in comparison to feeling your heart stop if you hear your power supply pop!
 
The Intel D975XBXLKR doesn't support SATA 2.

While its true that there are no guarantees at this point that any MB on the market will be compatible with Conroe (including the current Intel boards), its also quite possible that 945 and up will be compatible. Bottom line, if you care more about being Conroe compatible than having a system now, wait to be sure. Nvidia is about to release (NF5?) their version of the Conroe supporting chipset. However I'm betting any 975x will work as well. More about the voltage regulator theory here, but its all speculation at this point:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20060202133551.html

NF5:

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=922

If you read the TG review, they already calculated that PSUs run @ 80% efficiency and recommended at least a 500w to overcome that. Probably a little overkill for most situations, but better safe than sorry. It really does no good to use a bigger PSU than you need as running at 40% capacity vs running at 80% capacity makes little difference to a good PSU. Trick is to stick to a name brand that puts out true power. Most generic PSUs don't actually put out what they claim (usually 75-85% of their claim). Last thing to skimp on is the PSU as it can take other hardware out when it goes. Since the 805 @ 4.3GHz only uses around 230w, any good 500w should be more than enough unless you're also running SLI with 2x7900GTX or 2x1900XTX, and even then it might work fine. The 805 @ 4.3GHz draws about the same as the P-E 965. Nothing wrong with going to a 550w or 600w, but not necessary either.

Antec makes great PSUs. I'll vouch for TruePower and SmartPower series, never tried the other new series. The best bang for the buck on the market IMO. If you want to spend more, I've been pretty happy with OCZ (Topower) PowerStream (600w) as well. I'd avoid Thermaltake and Tagan (had issues with both) and any generic brands.

One other bit of advice, if I were spending the money for a 7900GT or GTX at this point and using air cooling on the GPU, I wouldn't go with anything but BFG for the lifetime warranty (does any other vid card offer that?). Reason being that 68**, 78**, and 79** series all have pretty high failure rates, for every manufacturer. If you plan on keeping your card for a few years, or getting something for it if/when you sell it, the lifetime warranty is definitely worth the extra expense IMO. Nothing worse than having your warranty run out just before you expensive vid card dies. Keep in mind that you void the warranty of any card when you put water cooling on it. 🙂
 
Sorry, forgot about cases and memory. Pretty much personal preference for cases. Antec makes some very nice cases with good air flow (and most include a PSU). Thermaltake also makes some nice cases. However there are plenty of cheap cases around that will do just as well. I'd look for a separate CPU vent, a top exhaust fan (since heat rises, most of the heat gets trapped up there and won't circulate well), and the ability to put fans in front and back. 120mm fans are definitely an advantage, although a bit noisier. Think 'positive pressure' when setting up your fans. You want more airflow in than out, rather than the other way around.

I spent big $ on a Lian Li a couple years ago. While its lighter (because its aluminum) and very nice to look at, it has some of the worst air flow that I've seen when loaded with hard drives. Good thing I'm using water cooling. I'll probably go with an Antec or Thermaltake later this year, but only because my case is on display so it has to look impressive (or so I like to think). 🙂

Think I've beaten the memory thing to death. My numbers show that the 805 OC makes DDR2-533 perform as good as any 667 or 800. (Waste to use 667 or 800 since you can only get 215 MHz @ 4.3GHz, 1:2-FSB😀RAM.) I get virtually the same score with Corsair Value Select DDR2-533 @ 4-3-3-8 (SPD=3-3-3-8@200MHz, 4-4-4-11@260MHz) as I do with Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800. The Crucial has the tightest timings available for DDR2-800 at this point (SPD=4-4-4-12). Currently running the Crucial DDR2-800 with 215MHz/4.3GHz@860MHz (1:4) @ 4-3-3-8. Sandra 07 memory bandwidth benchmark has the 800 a whopping 5 pts higher than the 533, go figure. 🙂

I'd get the lowest latency 2 x 1g DDR2-533 that I could find for the 805. That way you're ready for Vista too, if you decide to go that route. If/when its proven that Conroe needs more bandwidth, your 533 will still be worth about the same as it is now. 🙂
 
Thanks for tip Rezon. It turned out to be a software glitch. Both procs were at 55% usage at idle; ended up reloading Windows. I am running at 3.6 with no issues. I did up the voltage a tad. Temps are very low and could go much higher, but am trying to keep the wattage down and am very satisified with the performance. Cpu temp is 40 cel and 55 cel loaded.
 
I tried reading through most of this thread and read the entire article. My specs are as follows:

Antec True Power 500W PSU
ASUS P5LD2 w/ FSB @ 240Mhz
Intel 3.0GHz P4 630 @ 3.6GHz w/ AC Freezer 7
2 GB(4x512) DDR2 PC2 5300 Dual Channel OCZ Gold Performance Series @ 641.2Mhz
Creative Audigy 2 w/ 5.1 Cambridge Sound System
XFX Nvidia 7800 GTX 256MB @ 485MHz/1.32GHz w/ AC Accelero X1
LG L203WTX 20.1" Widescreen LCD
Western Digital 120 GB 7200RPM HD

I was wondering if I should grab this CPU? I do gaming a lot and video encoding about little more than half that of gaming. I saw all the benchmarks, using the Pentium 4 670 (3.8Ghz) as the closest reference point for my CPU. With my current cooling, along with fresh coat of arctic silver of course, what would be the best speed to obtain? I saw the 4.1Ghz heat under load at 87C! I under maximum load on my CPU I only hit 58C, and thats in the summer, I idle at 37C. Isn't having it at 4.1Ghz and 87C going to reduce the CPUs life by years? I mean the spec temp for my CPU and that one is 64.1C.

Not only that question about which cpu temp/speed ratio would be ideal for a gamer like me, but is the upgrade worth it for me or even worse? I could sell my CPU for about 80-100 right now and buy this one for around 145 after t&s on newegg. So that around a 45-65 dollar upgrade, not bad, for the benchs I see. All of your guys' insight and opinions on this would be VERY, VERY helpful and appreciated. Thanks.
 
Don't know if this helps, but i replaced my 571J (3.80) with the 805 and even clocked at 3.6 it blows away my old 3.8 that was oced to just under 4.0. I don't think anyone uses Aquamark anymore, but I went from a 79,800 to a 94,600. I play alot of Bf2 and there is a very noticeable difference. Anyway at 130 bucks it make a nice tide me over till the Concore is out. You don't have to go all the way up to 4.1. I think between 3.4 -3.8 would be a good compromise.
 
Thats very good to hear. I play many games, HL2, CSS, Farcry, FEAR, BF2, Oblivion and so on. If you wouldnt mind, could you grab a sandra score for me. If you own Counter Strike Source, could you also do a visual stress test? These numbers would be really useful, oh and also, what kind of cooling are you using for the 805 and what are your idle/load temps? Biggest thing that concerns me is the fact that lets say I get 4.0Ghz but my load temp is 80C or more, thats some serious heat and I was wondering if anyone has any ideas about how long the CPU will last. Should I run at 4Ghz still or should I go to say 3.6 so I can keep it longer than a year? I would think 80C or more will cause the CPUs life to be a year or less. If anyone can speculate it would be what makes me decide to sell my 630 and go dual core and OC like mad, especially since the rest my system can handle it.