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

[Tom_Shaftoe]

Well a few pages back in this forum I posted a link to an explanation of how to get an instances of prime95 on each core, hope that is usefull, I know I found it quite usefull. I also found that the using the "Torture Test" setting in prime95 stressed my CPU more than the method that is described. I took the exact same steps, but instead of running a custom test, I ran the "Torture Test."
My suggestions to you would be to boot your computer at 3.8GHz at whatever voltage you are running now. If it won't boot, you're probably going to have to up the voltage in your bios a bit, and then see if it boots. Once you get it up, run prime95 on both cores. If it gets all the way through one set of test, it's probabably ok at that Voltage. If it doesn't get through the test, then bump up the voltage untill it does. Just go one step at a time. If it passes with your first try, you should try lowering the voltage to find the lowest voltage setting that will work for you.
I have exactly the same board as you, and I've been running my CPU at 3.795GHz for several weeks now. It requires a volatage of 1.475 in the bios, but it's been working great. You shouldn't worry too much about taking your Pentium D 805 all the way up to 4.1GHz with a vcore of 1.7...I tried that for a little bit while trying to see how high I could get my CPU. It's still running fine. It wasn't stable at that speed due to heet problems I'm assuming, maybe it was something else, but when I brought the clockspeeds back down everything returned to normal.
Oh, and I did notice the discrepancey between the vcore voltage I set in the BIOS, and that which is displayed by ASUS tunning sofware. I'm kinda wondering about hat now that you mentied it. Maybe the BIOS just needd to be upated, hopefully it's something simple.

My System Specs:
Intel Pentium D 805 (BX80551PE2666FNSL8ZH) @ 3.795GHz
OCZ OCZ28002048ELDCGE-K 2GB Kit DDR2-800 PC2-6400 (running in Dual Channel) @ 813MHz
ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe
eVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT CO SUPERCLOCKED
2 x Western Digital WD800JD 80G SATA 7200RPM 8MB Hard Drives (In RAID 0)
Zalman CNPS9500LED-CU
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Music
Antec NeoHE 550 High Efficiency 550W Power Supply Unit
Antec P180 Advanced Super Mid-Tower Case
Windows XP Professional SP2
ASUS E616AG/A5 16X DVD-ROM
NEC 1.44MB Floppy Drive (Black)

 

[Ducu_Mamelucu]

i am building a new system, and i was searching the site for a review on Opteron 144 - 146 when i found this article about the Intel 805 Dual core. I am a big AMD Fan, but this Intel seems to be alright! i want to know if intel 805 will perform better that opteron 144/146 (image editing, Photoshop, gimp ... raw conversion ....) which would make more sense to get?

 

[nurmurat]

hey guys is there any other Pentium D XXX series that can be oced

 

[Tom_Shaftoe]

I don't have any numbers at this point, but I'm thinking that the 1.8GHz lead of the Pentium D 805 overclocked to 3.8GHz on air, or the 2.1GHz lead of it liquid cooled wouldn't be much of a contest. AMD chips are fast, and you're going to get a much better performance per watt with them, that's for sure. A comparison between the Opteron 250 and a water cooled Pentium D 805 at 4.1GHz would be more fair comparison since they would have about the same total cost of ownership...though the AMD chip is always going to be more efficient.

 

[icbluscrn]

I don't have any numbers at this point, but I'm thinking that the 1.8GHz lead of the Pentium D 805 overclocked to 3.8GHz on air, or the 2.1GHz lead of it liquid cooled wouldn't be much of a contest. AMD chips are fast, and you're going to get a much better performance per watt with them, that's for sure. A comparison between the Opteron 250 and a water cooled Pentium D 805 at 4.1GHz would be more fair comparison since they would have about the same total cost of ownership...though the AMD chip is always going to be more efficient.

why compare them at stock speeds juts like the d805 the opty 144 is a cheap cpu and just like a a d805 they are very overclock friendly. (146 is a good oc'r to) and when pushed to its limit it will give a water cooled 805 a run for it's money

with that out of the way if you are using multithreaded apps then the d805 would be the way to go. if not the 144 would be just as good with better

the only downside i think (not really sure) is as far as amd chips overclock sucess may vay greatly however i see it more true when talking about the higher end chips.
In general the d805's all seem to be good oc'rs

 

[Tom_Shaftoe]

Good point, I'm glad you brought up that there is the option of overclocking the Opteron. Also, if I hadn't already got my Pentium D805 system up and running, I would hold off a bit until the nForce500 series chipset is released along with the launch of the Intel Core Duo processors which is just around the corner. Especially I would wait for a nice nForce 590 board, which would allow one to seamlessly transition from the Pentium D 805 to a Core Duo processor, which is apparently a great overclocker if the rumors are to be believed.

My System Specs:
Intel Pentium D 805 (BX80551PE2666FNSL8ZH) @ 3.795GHz
OCZ OCZ28002048ELDCGE-K 2GB Kit DDR2-800 PC2-6400 (running in Dual Channel) @ 813MHz
ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe
eVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT CO SUPERCLOCKED
2 x Western Digital WD800JD 80G SATA 7200RPM 8MB Hard Drives (In RAID 0)
Zalman CNPS9500LED-CU
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Music
Antec NeoHE 550 High Efficiency 550W Power Supply Unit
Antec P180 Advanced Super Mid-Tower Case
Windows XP Professional SP2
ASUS E616AG/A5 16X DVD-ROM
NEC 1.44MB Floppy Drive (Black)

 

[kbukres]

I found it at Frys in Indiana for $160 is there a cheaper place than Frys

 

[Tom_Shaftoe]

there are a few online places that are cheaper, eWiz would be my first choice Pentium D 805 OEM for $104, I've done business with them on several occasions and they are very reliable and quick. Other Places I can suggest are ZipZoomFly, Mwave, and ChiefValue. These prices are all reasonable, and less than what I paid.

My System Specs:
Intel Pentium D 805 (BX80551PE2666FNSL8ZH) @ 3.795GHz
OCZ OCZ28002048ELDCGE-K 2GB Kit DDR2-800 PC2-6400 (running in Dual Channel) @ 813MHz
ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe
eVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT CO SUPERCLOCKED
2 x Western Digital WD800JD 80G SATA 7200RPM 8MB Hard Drives (In RAID 0)
Zalman CNPS9500LED-CU
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Music
Antec NeoHE 550 High Efficiency 550W Power Supply Unit
Antec P180 Advanced Super Mid-Tower Case
Windows XP Professional SP2
ASUS E616AG/A5 16X DVD-ROM
NEC 1.44MB Floppy Drive (Black)

 

[kbukres]

I know online are cheaper but there is no time for online buying as traveling overseas, so any guys in Indiana that can tell me where to buy and what about OEM are they that good, as have heard that they are as good as the box CPU.

there are a few online places that are cheaper, eWiz would be my first choice Pentium D 805 OEM for $104, I've done business with them on several occasions and they are very reliable and quick. Other Places I can suggest are ZipZoomFly, Mwave, and ChiefValue. These prices are all reasonable, and less than what I paid.

My System Specs:
Intel Pentium D 805 (BX80551PE2666FNSL8ZH) @ 3.795GHz
OCZ OCZ28002048ELDCGE-K 2GB Kit DDR2-800 PC2-6400 (running in Dual Channel) @ 813MHz
ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe
eVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT CO SUPERCLOCKED
2 x Western Digital WD800JD 80G SATA 7200RPM 8MB Hard Drives (In RAID 0)
Zalman CNPS9500LED-CU
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Music
Antec NeoHE 550 High Efficiency 550W Power Supply Unit
Antec P180 Advanced Super Mid-Tower Case
Windows XP Professional SP2
ASUS E616AG/A5 16X DVD-ROM
NEC 1.44MB Floppy Drive (Black)

 

[graeme_7799]

Hi everyone, just to let you know i'm a complete idiot when it comes to overclocking lol. all i need to know is what to do in the bios to overclock it. i've put it all together (i used to build computer for people, but never dabbled in overclocking :roll: ) and just need a bit of help.

so, what would i edit in the bios to get my system to be 4.1 ghz? do i need some software as well? any help with this is greatly appreciated.

 

[fourstar77]

I would suggest steering clear of the P5N32-SLI Deluxe. I have one right now and am about to RMA it.

I have the same RAM, proc and MB as you. Also, I was using an Aquagate Mini, so the proc was definitely staying cool.

It took me forever to even load windows. Had to set the RAM down to 533 from 800 just to get windows to install. Then, I OC'ed up to 3.33, but could not keep the thing from rebooting during Prime95 testing. It would run for a while, but eventually it would crash. I kept boosting my vcore values, and was up to about 1.48 or so actual voltage, but the thing still was not stable, even for 3.33 Ghz. This board drastically undersets the vcore. For instance, to get the vcore up to 1.43, I had to set the vcore value to 1.5 or greater.

This board is very quirky, and the NB and SB's get VERY hot. Therefore unless you can somehow cool those as well, it will be almost impossible to OC this guy to anywhere near the levels in Tom's story.

I was really hoping this board would work because I have an Nvidia card and wanted to do a SLI configuration eventually. However the board runs too hot and too unstable to be a real candidate for this project. I have seen people on the ASUS forums that claim they have their board at 3.33 or 3.8 or whatever, but they usually don't say anything about torture testing their board. So if you want something that may crash during gaming, or heavy loads, use that board. Otherwise, stick with one of the 975X boards that Tom's lists.

That is my suggestion speaking from real experience. I am going to be packing up my board today and sending it back to newegg. And I don't think it is just me. Just take a look at the ASUS forums for this board. There are a LOT of people out there who have problems with that board. Also, there is a pretty knowledgable guy, Sodapop, who is admantly against doing this project on that board.

Hope everything goes well.

fourstar77

 

[DexMan]

I happen to have a P5N32-SLI motherboard (not the deluxe). I have had no stability issues whatsoever. One of the first things I did with the board was to flash the bios to the latest available. For an under $100 motherboard, I was a bit leary of stability issues, but I have had absolutely no problems at all.
I was either going to go with this Asus board or a Gigabyte since I have owned both, and decided to go with the Asus for it's overclocking heritage.
I too have read post and articles about people having issues with this board, however, I built my system around quality components that would be just as appropriate for a $225 motherboard.
As a recap, here's what I put together for under 1200 USD

CoolerMaster Centurion 532 Aluminum case
Fortron Source FX600-GLN Power Supply
Samsung Sata 250Gb and 160GB Hard Drives
NEC 3550A DVD/RW
Asus P5ND2-SLI motherboard
OCZ Gold Series 2x1GB DDR2 667 (PC5400)
Connect3d X1800GTO 256 vid card
Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro7 CPU cooler
Arctic Silver 5 paste
Silverstone FM121 Fan (modded onto the Freezer Pro7)
Thermaltake A2368 120mm Case fan

It took me two XP Pro installs before I had a stable operating system/driver enviornment. Once that hurdle was cleared, I started
stability testing and benchmarking.

Going through the whole step by step up method, my first fun benchmark was 3.6Ghz. I ran stable at stock core voltage.

Going to 3.8Ghz involved raising the memory voltage by .5 volts, the PCIe voltage by .5 volts, and raising the CPU Vcore to somewhere around 1.4V.
I increased the core voltages until it would run the 3dmark cpu test without crashing the program.
Then I ran a couple of Stress tests overnight to check for stability and heat.
I ended up having to up the CPU voltage a little more before finding complete stability.
I currently run my computer for 12 hours on end, and play Rise of Legends, Oblivion, Battlefield and Half Life 2 on this system with no glitches, crashes or other unexpected issues.

I do plan on getting a new motherboard and videocard during Q1 2007, but in the meantime I can play all my games, get my Video Encoding done in far less time, and at least for now, my CPU is not holding back.

I may for fun try to go to 3.9, 4.0 and 4.1, but frankly 3.8 is faster than my previous system and I'm happy as it is now.

Don't discount the Asus P5ND2-SLI just yet. I'm a very happy user so far.

 

[fourstar77]

I guess I am confused. You mention a P5ND2 board.... I was referring to the P5N32 board, but perhaps that was just a typo.

Perhaps I just don't have as good of a chip for OC'ing, or maybe I have a bum board, or maybe I am just not doing it right. But from what I have been hearing, it is not surprising that I am getting shaky results from the board. There may be a lot of good ones, but there may be bad ones out there too. I think I have pretty solid components too, but I can't get Prime95 to run at 3.33 Ghz, even w/ my vcore set to like 1.575 (which translates into 1.47-1.49 at full load in CPU-Z).

Maybe I just got a lemon.

I am tempted to return this one and wait for the new boards that will also support Conroe. Then I will have an upgrade path.

I am glad to hear your OC project has been going well. Wish my experience was that smooth.

Regards,

fourstar77

 

[Chupacabra90]

I am trying to build a decent system for around 1200$. SO far this is what I got:

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=3448968

If you could please point out any problems with it or anything thing that could make it better id apreciate it as im new to the whole building PC's. I only want to overclock the cpu to around 3.6 maybe 3.8.

One thing im not sure aboutis the RAM if you could give some suggestions there that would be great. I want atleats a gig.

Thanx

 

[AngryClown]

http://www.ultramaxcc.com.au/intro.htm

Kind of disappointed that I haven't gotten any feedback about this. Let me know what you guys think. Any links that are broken or incorrect, how it loads on dialup (I'm spoiled with ADSL2), if its legible, etc.. The idea is to be able to set your systems up with virtually the same settings. Benchmarks should also be in the ballpark for any given setup with similar hardware. We should be able to get an idea of which MB chipsets work and which don't, or which require drastic changes, etc.. There should be variances according to video cards (which translate into more or less heat), PSUs, etc..

3.6, 3.8 and 4.0 on air are now valid links, as well as 4.0 and 4.1 on water. 🙂

http://ultramaxcc.com.au/intro.htm

darklife: your link is great! loads fast; clear; concise- Thank you. It helped me choose my build path (3.8 on air). You put a lot of time and energy into your research, and we all benefit from it. I read all 24 pages of this thread, re-read the THG article about 7 times, read and re-read the $700 build on THG, but your link says it all in a fraction of the text. /end praise

 

[Tom_Shaftoe]

Gosh, I think that would make you the default expert on the subject at this point. So what components you are choosing, I'm sure everyone else looking in to this subject would be interested to find out as well.

 

[rambuswolf]

ok, this has been bugging me for like a week and a half, so I'm just going to air it. My ultimate objective is to arrive at some sort of incontrovertible understanding/concensus about the facts as they relate to this topic.

That having been said, I have a couple questions for darklife41. I am asking from the point of view of a fellow system builder who would like to spec out several iterations of a system, for the purpose of retail production, based on the 805 D.

FWIW, yes, I have read the entire article around which this forum thread revolves, and yes, I have the read the entire thread (parts of it numerous times). So if I'm missing something, it's not for lack of scrutinizing the details.

The thing that is really getting under my skin is the whole memory clock/speed issue. DARKLIFE41: after reading all your posts numerous times and after examining all your links to your screenshots and your qualitative analysis of the results of your benches, several things remain unclear.

First of all, the image size of your (mainly CPU-Z) screenshots is a little too small or lo-res to read properly, so forgive me if I missed a detail that I should have gleaned from those screenshots.

But, to the point: what do you mean by "ASUS chooses a X:Y divider", or more specifically, could you describe how you set your, say, CPU, fsb, memory clocks speeds? Was it in the BIOS? Was it with an automatic setting? Was it completely manually? was it software/non BIOS-based?

What were your BIOS settings when the Asus board forced your DDR2-800 memory to run asynchronously (in this case, half speed) with your (quad-pumped) 200mhz CPU fsb? Was it that you selected 200mhz fsb and DDR2 800 in the bios, and then it was reporting that your memory was effectively only running at ddr(2) 400 speeds?

Looking at THG's BIOS screenshots of their testbed P5WD2-E premium shows that, for instance, when running a 200mhz (x4) FSB, DDR2 800 is selectable. This would imply a 1:1 "divider". It surprises me that a board with native ddr2-800 support won't allow you to utilize a 4x memory multiplier and a 1:1 divider.


It seems the conclusions you reached about the disappointing performance of the DDR2-800 and the DDR2-667 (compared to the DDR2-533) were largely predicated upon the implementation of the memory divider by the Asus board.

So the questions I am trying to answer are:

1) what are your BIOS settings, why does this result in a divider, and is there a way to configure your board to run the memory at its full potential (1:1 in the case of 200mhz fsb and real PC2-6400/ddr2-800 memory),

2) if not with the Asus board, then with another 955x or 975x board?

3) if not with any board, then wtf, ddr2-800 and ddr2-667 can not be made to run at full speed?

4) if there IS a board that doesn't impose a divider and allows the 805 to run at 20 x 400mhz fsb with a memory clock of DDR2-800, (4x memory mutiplier), and no memory divider (all of this assumes a system that of course can hit 4.0ghz anyway), then what would darklife41's memory benches look like on THAT system? Wouldn't that be the real comparison of memory performance/bandwidth between the ddr2-533, ddr2-667 and ddr2-800?

Thank you for taking the time to read this post.

-Rambuswolf aka khennsu aka bok bok

 

[Flyindoc]

After reading the article I had to try this. I am amazed at how well this little chip performs. After getting everything connected, I was able to easily OC to a FSB of 200. I had to increase the core voltage to 1.4625 and it is extremely stable. Not one crash. I was able to run 3DMark2005 at the default setting and got a score of 7828. My memory is running at DDR 800. My system specs are below.

ASUS P5WD2-Premium mobo
805D B0 stepping
Stock core voltage was 1.3625
Raptor 74GB drives RAID 0
7900 GT video card
Danger Den watercooling TDX CPU Block
Thermochill 3X120 radiator
G.Skill DDR2-6400 4-4-4-12 mem 2GB
OCZ 630 watt PSU

Temp max after Sandra 10 run burnin was 52C
Temp at idle is 38C with occasional spikes to 42C

Pretty good perfomance for such an inexpensive chip.

Doc

 

[hella-d]

Nah, Just Wait Till Turion X2s Become Available.
Rumor Has It They Will Work On Socket 939 (Laptop Motherboards Will Be Migrating That Way (Tempting), And Due To The Slightly Shorter Pipelines (Athlon 64s Have 14 Stages, Turions Have 12 Stages Like The Good Old Athlon XP)
Use Less Wattage And Rumored 256MB L1s And 2MB L2s Will Be Interesting

Note: Possible Core Improvments Will Be .65nm Construction Using SOI AND! Silicon Straining. And Possibly, The Rumored "Inverse-Hyperthreading" (Basically Turning Two Cores Into One Single Virtual One For Single Core Apps) And Some Sort Of (AMD Style ) Macro Fusion And Memory Disambiguation.

These CPU May Eventually End Up In Socket AM2 Form To To Replace The Current AM2s (Even Socket F Dual And Quad Core Opterons Will Likely Have Simular Archetectures)

They Would Likely Have "Conhoe" (Conroe) Rivaling Power Consumption And Performance And Good Overclackiblity

Hmmmm?..... Does This Remind Anyone Of The Pentium M (Witch Conroe "Evolved" From)?

 

[graeme_7799]

can anyone help me? please? i have the asus p5wd2 premium motherboard, can someone please tell me what to enter into the bios to achieve 4.1 ghz? cooling is not a problem, i have that covered.

 

[icbluscrn]

can anyone help me? please? i have the asus p5wd2 premium motherboard, can someone please tell me what to enter into the bios to achieve 4.1 ghz? cooling is not a problem, i have that covered.

Thats easy here you go

click here

Now do your part READ
Its like a playboy they got pics too.

If you still can't figure it out just maybe overclocking is not for you

 

[dagator74]

I'm currently running the 805 @ 4.2Ghz Memory at 840Mhz
I have my CPU Voltage @ 1.6125 and my memmory at 2.25V
My memory is OCZ2P8001GK timings are 4-5-4-15
Motherboard is an ASUS P5WD2-E Premium
My idle temp is 43C and at 100 load it reaches 51C


I'm able to but @ 4.3 Ghz, I just need to keep things a little cooler at this speed.

 

[BoostedVR4]

Here is a quick summary of my story. I've had AMD cpu's since my 1ghz Thunderbird (which I overclocked). My last big project was watercooled, it was an Athlon 1800+.
My latest setup was an AMD 3500+, but I only had an AGP card (6800GT) and decided it was time to upgrade. All I knew is that I wanted a dual core chip. So I happend to read Tom's article on the 805, and decided to give it a shot. (like many others)

So, here is my setup:
Asus P5N32-SLI-deluxe
Pentium D 805
2gb Patriot DDR2 667
BFG 7900GTX oc ed
Thermaltake BigWater

All I have done is turned up the FSB and VCore a bit. Thats it. So far I'm upto 3.8ghz. Temps look awesome. I stopped to post here and get some advice.
Here are some of my questions:
Why is my VCore so much lower than others? It was actually lower, I've bumped it up a bit. (started at like 1.217)
I don't know anything about what to do with the RAM.. I haven't even touched it. Any help would be great.
I am having problems with the onboard audio. I have an older Audigy 2 card, will putting that in effect my overclocking? (I'm thinking back to the old days of turning up the FSB, all your weaker pci cards were affected)

These 2 screen shots should give you all the info you need. Any help would be great. Thanx.

 

[dagator74]

I see you are running a BigWater 745. I have the same setup. I actually going to change the pump it currently a 400L/h to a 1200 L/h. Also The Fans on the larger radiator are only like 60 CFM, the one on the small radiator is rated at 120CFM.

You are only running at 3.8, each step beyond that will take more and more Voltage. I'm not sure what you memory is rated for. I did some research on the OCZ I was running to figure out a safe voltage but in general DDR2 requires less then DDR. I used both Pie and PCmark06. One thing to note, you would need to lauch 2 instances of Pie to work both cores, since it is not a multi threaded app. PC Mark05 with use both cores in some of the tests. You will really see your Temps go up and well as the Core Voltage when both core's are at 100%.

I would start by getting the CPU stable at higher speeds then going back to the memory. You can run the memory slower then crank it up once everything is stable. You may need to increase the Voltage and decrease your timings. This really depends on the quality of your RAM.

for example

4-4-4
4-5-4
4-5-5
5-5-5

 

[BoostedVR4]

Thanx for the tips. I started a new thread under the overclocking section:

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/805D-amp-Asus-P5N32-2ghz-tips-ftopict189513.html

Also, I haven't gotten a screen shot up yet, but I'm at 4.2ghz. I'm running Prime95 on each core also, seeing about 43c at full load. Trying to get it stable now, like you said it was easy to 3.8, but now I have to keep ramping the vcore up to get it to run Prime95 for more than a couple minutes. Still working with it. I've managed to get Prime95 to go for about 4 minutes before one (on one core) halts. Once I can get it stable, I'll play with the RAM.