Originally posted by: oogravyoo
if someone can start me in the right direction.. I have the 4coreDual-Vsta mobo, E400 Core2Duo CPU and 2gb Corsair XMS2 675mhz Ram 4-4-4-12..
anyone with a comparable setup what settings did you use to OC..
I have been holding off on posting till I could do some more extensive testing, but I can throw some quick info up...
Initial configuration (Stable):
CPU: E4400 @ 2.85Ghz Orthos and MemTest86+ Stable w/Stock Cooling
RAM: Patriot 1GB (2@512MB) DDR 2-3-2-5 1T(Running default BIOS settings, set to 400Mhz/2.5-3-2-5 according to CPU-Z)
GPU: nVidia Gainward 6800GT 256MB AGP
The only BIOS settings I changed on the 1st boot were FSB and Memory Voltage...
A snippet from my build log:
BIOS - Well the BIOS is a little strange to me, but it is really quite simple. Hit F2 for BIOS options. As this board is geared to the person wanting to migrate to C2D on a budget, and not the OCing Enthusiast. There are some basic overclocking features that I will get into later. BIOS version was left as shipped, at v1.50. I went straight for 290 FSB for 2.9 Ghz on the E4400 with it 10X multiplier. Initially I left the memory timings at default and bumped the RAM Voltage to "High". Yes, that is really all the control you have over the memory voltages... F10 saves and reboots as usual.
Though I initially set the FSB @ 290 and installed WinXP w/o issue, I have since had to drop the FSB to 285. I have since tightened the timings to 2-2-2-5 1T manually, Orthos stable.
You can find that build log
HERE.
Current Configuration (Stable):
CPU: E4400 @ 2.85Ghz Orthos and MemTest86+ Stable w/Stock Cooling
RAM: OCZ 2GB (2@1GB) DDR2 PC28500 4-4-4-12 1T (PC28500 is OVERKILL, but I had this from another build)
GPU: EVGA 640-P2-N821-AR GeForce 8800GTS 640MB (OCed to 659 Core and 1030/2060 Memory)
I had a terrible time figuring out what I needed to do to get this PCIe card to become stable at the OCed FSB settings (Before overclocking the GPU). It would become rock stable if I dropped to default FSB. To make a VERY long story short, I simply changed the Overclock Mode to SYNCH and it set the PCIe bus to 112. After that no more problems. After testing I overclocked the GPU to the above figures, testing along the way.
Some quick synthetic benchmarks:
3DMark05
E4400@2.85-1GBDDR-6800GT-AGP
Score: 5212
Date: 2007-05-30
CPU: Intel Core 2 2853 MHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
351 MHz / 1002 MHz
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
Res: 1024x768@32 bit
E4400@2.85-2GBDDR2-6800GT-AGP
Score: 5237
Date: 2007-05-30
CPU: Intel Core 2 2853 MHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
351 MHz / 1002 MHz
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
Res: 1024x768@32 bit
E4400@2.85-2GBDDR2-8800GTS640-default
Score: 13394
Date: 2007-05-30
CPU: Intel Core 2 2853 MHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS
108 MHz / 297 MHz
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
Res: 1024x768@32 bit
E4400@2.85-2GBDDR2-8800GTS640-659core1030/2060mem
Score: 14447
Date: 2007-06-01
CPU: Intel Core 2 2853 MHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS
108 MHz / 378 MHz
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
Res: 1024x768@32 bit
3DMark06
E4400@2.85-2GBDDR2-8800GTS640-659core1030/2030mem
Score: 8836
Date: 2007-06-01
CPU: Intel Core 2 2853 MHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS
108 MHz / 378 MHz
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
Res: 1280x1024
PCMark05
E4400@2.85-1GBDDR-6800GT
Score: 5804
Date: 2007-05-30
CPU: Intel Core 2 2853 MHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
E4400@2.85-2GBDDR2-6800GT
Score: 6092
Date: 2007-05-30
CPU: Intel Core 2 2853 MHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
E4400@2.85-2GBDDR2-8800GT-default
Score: 6615
Date: 2007-05-30
CPU: Intel Core 2 2853 MHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS
OS: Microsoft Windows XP
A subjective observation that I posted to my CS:S forum:
Video-
Testing with my nVidia 6800GT AGP 256 MB pulled from my old Intel Netburst P4 2.6 Ghz/AGP Rig. So far, just upgrading my CPU has produced a 2-3X's increase in my FPS in CS:S (With GREATLY increased video settings). This was far better than I was expecting! CS:S is becoming quite bloated, and no longer performs as it did on lesser systems. You can read through the forums at Steam and find many people having very large drops in frame rates this year, after the past several updates. Most began having the largest drops after the update to the chat box and voice codec. I did a fresh install of CS:S on this system, and ONLY CS:S, was a 4 GB download. It seems I was correct in my previous assumption that due to the bloat and poor optimization of this, my favorite game of all time, my CPU had become my bottleneck.
I will be testing with a nVidia 8800GT 640MB in the future. Yes this board accepts many 16x PCIe cards, but it is only electrically 4x, so this will be a very interesting test. As most people will be migrating slowy from old components, this will be an interesting test for further migration. From most of my reading on hardware forums, it seems it actually does pretty well, but does not perform on par with current enthusiast motherboards and chipsets that natively support PCIe 16x. I fully expected this, but for it's price, this board can possibly be a VERY competent stop gap for a nice slow migration as people can afford thier new components.
I know it's corny, but I have a build log started over at
EggXpert. If you decide to check it out, drop a comment and rate it. I'll be updating with some of these figures soon.
Hope this post helps someone out...
Ankh