lowest multi best for oc'ing?

[SwedishChef]

I notice most people seem to get the slowest processor in any given range if they plan to oc it. Is that because of heat? For ex, would you in general expect to have the same ceiling on a 3.2gig processor (16x200) as you would on a 3.6gig (18x200), so might as well save a few dollars? usually when they realease a range of processors, a lot of people seem to get the lower speed ones - like the celeron D's @ 2.4, and I see a lot of people with 3.2 gig p4 prescotts in their sigs

[Rondog]

I think all CPU's would do about 220mhz FSB.
So on a 3.2ghz CPU (16x200) when you increse the FSB to 220 (16x220) = 3.52ghz. An increase of 320mhz.
But on a 3.6ghz CPU (18x200) when you increase the FSB to 220mhz (18x220) = 3.96ghz. An increase of 360mhz.

IMO this is a small overclock.

Some AMD chips, such as a 3500+ San Diego, 2.2ghz, 512kb L2 cache, (3700+ has 1mb L2 cache) @ stock, a member of this forum, brandmax57 got one to 3ghz with Koolance Exos.

Another member of this forum (Weldzilla) has a Pentium 4 3.0ghz 'C' (Stock is 15x200)overclocked to 4037mhz. My calculations indicate its more likely to be 4035mhz which is (269x15), cooled with water. As you see, with propper cooling, anything is possible.

[GrahamGarside]

The reason most people go for the slowest is because they are cheaper, and often give just as good a result as the higher models, or if they don't then the differance doesn't warrant te price increase.

With intel it's also because you stand more chance of making the next fsb jump with the overclock. Take the celeron d for example. It's on a 533mhz fsb, and the next step is 800mhz, a 50% increase, so to stand the most chance of making that leap, a lower multiplier is best, such as the 2.4ghz chip which would be 3.6ghz overclocked.
This isn't an issue with AMD for two reasons, firstly lower multipliers are unlocked, and secondly AMD boards are more versatile in terms of bus speed overclocking

[SwedishChef]

wow, so according to some other post people have got their celeron D's going at upwards of 200 mhz? that's a pretty mean oc

[GrahamGarside]

I've built 2 systems with Celeron D 2.4ghz chips that both did 3.6ghz

[SwedishChef]

well that's what I need then, a processor that's like a "woman of the night" - fast and cheap!

was looking at some 6600's online last night too, thanks for the tip. That's some pretty impressive hardware in my opinion. Are all the prices on newegg in U.S. $? I couldn't find any info.

[GrahamGarside]

Be warned though, even at 3.6ghz they aren't the best performers, about on par with a P4 3ghz and no where near the performance of an overclocked sempron.

The 6600 is a good perfomer, though the 9800pro has been falling in price a lot lately, they're about the same price now so it may be worth looking into one of those, yu loose SM3 support but the memory bandwidth really helps, you won't get the peak frame rates of a 6600 but the minimum frame rate will likely be higher

[SwedishChef]

that's what I figured, that they wouldn't be on par with a p4 at the same speed... safe to say I'd be seeing a major gain on a p4 1.6ghz williamette? May go as high as the 2.8, not too sure.

Yeah, framerates are my biggest concern. Just looking to enhance my gaming experience as much as possible, and maybe get some video capture ability also. I initially thought the 9800 pro would provide me the most bandwidth for my price range, and that seemed like a good place to start. Considered teh AIW version, then saw there weren't many aftermarket coolers around for it.

[GrahamGarside]

It should be more than twice as fast as that williamette, as well as the clock speed there are a good few architechtural advances to boot. I'd go for the lowest clocked chip you can find, like I said the best scenario is to bump straight to the 800mhz fsb and the lower clocked chips have the best chance of this, to get a 2.8ghz to that would mean running it at 4.2ghz, a speed a celeron d won't reach without crazy cooling.

I'd recomend a standard 9800pro over the AIW unless space is tight and to go for a seperate tv tuner, with the AIW you loose a vga port and you are putting other hot components on the board.

As for after market cooling, the Arctic cooling VGA silencer is a cheap and very effective cooler for 9800's, at stock it can be run passively, and overclocked the fan is very quiet.

[SwedishChef]

I thought I saw an AIW, with two vga outs, but i couldn't really get it clear... think they were probably talking about vga with a DVI adapter, not vga and dvi. But yeah, a radeon 9800 pro is about 100$ (or more) less than the All in wonder (around here, anyhow) and you can get an ATI tv card for about that much.

Thinking about picking up this cooler --> http://www.greenlyph.com/index.php?cPath=79 for my FX5200 in the meantime. Mine has this black metal grid on it, i don't even think you could really call it a heatsink. I don't think it's aluminum or any kind of composite... i honestly wonder if it wouldn't run cooler with nothing at all on it.

[GrahamGarside]

I'd leave the 5200 as is for now, they don't get hot and overclocking doesn't help all that much, it's not worth spending money on to try and gain anything from it.

I believe the AIW9800's only have a dvi port and come bundled with a dvi->vga convertor. There are AIW9600's that come with a proprietory dvi out port capable of two displays but I don't think the 9800's have this ability, I think the only way to have two displays is using a tv

[SwedishChef]

this retail ati one says it comes packaged with hydravision, but that could be for use with a tv i guess (http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pro...gon=&langid=EN)
I'm sure I saw one that had 1 port on the card, with an adapter that connected to it with vga and/or dvi, vidio in/out, tv out etc... I saw a photo somewhere, I'll post teh link when I find it...

Edit - ok, this is what I was talking about - http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?im...JfM18zX2wuanBn but I see now that that's just the component out. My mistake.

[GrahamGarside]

Unfortunately, like previous ALL-IN-WONDER cards, the ALL-IN-WONDER 9800 PRO doesn’t support dual displays.

Taken from the firingsquad review

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ew/default.asp

I think hydravision is just used for the tvout display, which can have either a desktop or overlay on it.

[bradmax57]

[QUOTE=Rondog]
Some AMD chips, such as a 3500+ San Diego, 2.2ghz, 512kb L2 cache, (3700+ has 1mb L2 cache) @ stock, a member of this forum, brandmax57 got one to 3ghz with Koolance Exos.
QUOTE]

was Dangerden not Koolance even had it to 3.1ghz but wasnt stable waiting for some dosh to buy a Lightspeed Vapochill

[SwedishChef]

- edit - I had another question, but just found the answer

[Rondog]

Originally Posted by bradmax57

was Dangerden not Koolance even had it to 3.1ghz but wasnt stable waiting for some dosh to buy a Lightspeed Vapochill

Ohh whoops, my bad!

[SwedishChef]

Ok, if anyone was wondering it's the 2.4 Celeron d currently at 3.0ghz, temps 38 idle, 48-49 load. I'm going to run some benchmarks, see if I can find a heavier load for it (haven't seen it over 50 yet), then do the same at 3.6 or when I hit my limit, whichever comes first. (if you're wondering about the delay, it was my first time assembling a pc and took some time to work out the bugs. damn case lights still don't work right )