My New E8600

[Tempered81]

5.1ghz 8 Hours Prime. 1.47 volts.

http://ocidb.com/albums/userpi...Orthos-5_1ghz-3d01.JPG

 

[scheibler1]

do you guys think it's a worth while upgrade from a e2180 @ 3ghz to a E8400/E8500/E8600 @ 3.6 ghz for nothing but gaming? Would it raise my fps even though no game has maxed out the cpu past 80%.

The only RTS games I play are COH, C&C, and WiC

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
Just installed my E8600 under my Tuniq.....here are the results (enlarge picture):


Batch: Q820A597

VID: 1.25

Pack Date 7/24/08


Disclaimer: This is 1 hour Orthos small FFTs stable, may take more Vcore to make it 8 hours Orthos stable, which seems to be the consensus around here:



http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/8711/e8600lz0.jpg


Validation:

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=403071

4.3 ghz @ 32C idle......im in heaven. For those that say there is no difference in 2.6-4.0+, you are mistaken. This is one fast chip.

10X multi is awesome, about as close as I plan on getting to an unlocked as far as the Intel lineup is concerned.

It's a lot of pages to search through to see if you mentioned it later.

What mobo and chipset are you using? I found 4.1 Ghz easy in my preliminary searches for minimum VCORE (1.29+ set, 1.25V idle and 1.24V load.) So I'm guessing you're spot-on about VCORE needs rising exponentially as you get to 4.3.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: Dadofamunky

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: Dadofamunky
I think part of my issue is that I need to use a better thermal paste on my cooler

Honestly, it's not the TIM, it's the heatsink. You need heatpipes and a taller heatsink for 4 Ghz. Well, the heatsink and the µATX case.

45nm chips appear to run hot. But I'm also not happy with the performance of the cooler.

45nm chips run cooler than 65nm's, but they also have less surface area making contact with the heatsink's base, so they're not really any easier to keep cool.

I'm also wondering if the 8 GB of RAM is the issue.

There's only one way to find out. Okay, there's two. You can also crank up your timings to 6-6-6-24, and while it isn't as easy on the northbridge as two sticks, it's much easier on it than four sticks with 5-5-5-15 timings.

Yeah, I think you're right. My choices are limited though; I can't use the Tuniq Towers and such because of my case. I think a couple more options are availble that use heatpipes, though. Swapping the HSF isn't that big a deal.

I am DEFINITELY trying out the timings tweak as soon as I finish typing this

Did I see your handle with a review at the Egg for the eVGA 780i NF78-A1 board?

 

[Thor86]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
5.1ghz 8 Hours Prime. 1.47 volts.

http://ocidb.com/albums/userpi...Orthos-5_1ghz-3d01.JPG

That is sick, sick, SICK!

Arrrgh, wanted to upgrade to Intel SSDs before a new CPU, but this is making me itch!

 

[Dadofamunky]

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck

Did I see your handle with a review at the Egg for the eVGA 780i NF78-A1 board?

Nope, ain't me, although I have been plastering them with reviews every time I buy something. I gave up on towers and ATX boards a while back because of space issues. I have a feeling my MicroATX mobo is being pushed way beyond its expected limits...

Gotten to 4.1 GHz now without any issues of temps or stability (after 8 hours of Orthos I had to use the darn computer). Man, these processors kick. I'm amazed I can do this at all on this platform.

This is a Golden Age.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Not sure how a board would be that limiting just for being mATX. Except for one thing: cooling features, like the high-end copper-heatpipe-necklaces you see on the upper-end boards.

We got these two $70 Gigabyte GA-73VM-S2 boards -- mATX boards. They're rated at "1,333 FSB (OC)." With the E2140, we had it OC'd to 60% above stock, until I finally kicked it down to a more reasonable level. Both of them seemed to top out at 2.67 Ghz, because you couldn't set the RAM voltage -- only the timings. So we OC'd each one just far enough that the DDR2-667 RAMs would run at spec -- a 4:5 ratio, I think it was.

Like I said on another thread a half-hour ago -- I think I found your review under "Dadofamunky" for the E8600.

 

[GnomeCop]

damn I wish my Striker Extreme officially supported the E8600, I have one installed right now and I fear the bios is what is holding me back from a higher overclock

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: scheibler1
do you guys think it's a worth while upgrade from a e2180 @ 3ghz to a E8400/E8500/E8600 @ 3.6 ghz for nothing but gaming? Would it raise my fps even though no game has maxed out the cpu past 80%.

The only RTS games I play are COH, C&C, and WiC

If you overclock an E8500 to 3.8 or an E8600 to 4Ghz then you would be in a worthwhile spot. The 8800gt will limit you more than anything else then.

Personally I have been contemplating a CPU upgrade. Torn between an E8500 or so, running 3.8Ghz vs a Q6600 running 3.2ghz.

I can see more benefit immediately for the clock speed however, I also see some apps that can, do, and will take advantage of a quad. That may be something to think about as well.

My final decision is to go with a q6600 @ 3.2 and hold on to that for another year (give or take) at which point I will do a full system upgrade to i7 which is all quad anyway. 3.2Ghz isn't slow and with a single 4870 my card will limit me before cpu to be honest. an extra 2 cores can't hurt for various other things I do day to day.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: scheibler1
do you guys think it's a worth while upgrade from a e2180 @ 3ghz to a E8400/E8500/E8600 @ 3.6 ghz for nothing but gaming? Would it raise my fps even though no game has maxed out the cpu past 80%.

The only RTS games I play are COH, C&C, and WiC

If you overclock an E8500 to 3.8 or an E8600 to 4Ghz then you would be in a worthwhile spot.

http://www.pcgameshardware.com...4&page=1&show=original
CPU speed : Min Framerates

2ghz --> 53 FPS
3ghz --> 63 FPS
4ghz --> 73 FPS
5ghz --> 83 FPS??

Looks like once you get above 3.6-3.8G, Average FPS isn't increasing that much. However, minimum FPS always goes up linearly when cpu speed increases.

 

[PlanetX]

Can I join in?

Been enjoying my E8600 since a few weeks ago. I got a week 20 (Q820A670), 4.25GHz Prime stable using 1.372V (load) and 1.360 (idle). That's my 24/7 OC. Very nice chip, but it seems I got an average one compared to some I've seen. I'm reluctant to take it past 1.4V. Did get up to 1.392 (load) at 4.3GHz but it errored out in Prime after 2 hours. Maybe with a few tweaks to the various (read: hundreds) of BIOS options the P5Q-E offers I can get it stable. I'll keep messing with it.

Core temps are 25/29 idle, and 54/57 load. This is in a Wave Master case, apparently the airflow isn't good.

I'm on an Asus P5Q-E board with modified BIOS (m1306), and using a TR Ultima-90 with a Scythe fan strapped to it. RAM is Ballistix (single sided modules that nobody wants) DDR800 @ DDR1021 on 1.8V.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
Not sure how a board would be that limiting just for being mATX. Except for one thing: cooling features, like the high-end copper-heatpipe-necklaces you see on the upper-end boards.

We got these two $70 Gigabyte GA-73VM-S2 boards -- mATX boards. They're rated at "1,333 FSB (OC)." With the E2140, we had it OC'd to 60% above stock, until I finally kicked it down to a more reasonable level. Both of them seemed to top out at 2.67 Ghz, because you couldn't set the RAM voltage -- only the timings. So we OC'd each one just far enough that the DDR2-667 RAMs would run at spec -- a 4:5 ratio, I think it was.

Like I said on another thread a half-hour ago -- I think I found your review under "Dadofamunky" for the E8600.

Oh yeah, that's right.

The cooling's the biggest issue for me. The Scythe Zipang works fine up to a point. It has a 140mm fan!

 

[Diogenes2]

Originally posted by: classy
Nice overclock. But even at 4.3ghz, it is still a toss up against an overclocked quad core processor.
New Wolfdale

It's not even a toss up for some applications...

I have an HDV render test that I run in Vegas Pro ... It Takes about 90 seconds for my Q6600 @ 3.6 and 2 minutes 53 seconds for an E8600 @ 4.3 ...

Of course stuff like SuperPi run a bit faster on the E86000 ..

 

[Dadofamunky]

Originally posted by: Diogenes2

Originally posted by: classy
Nice overclock. But even at 4.3ghz, it is still a toss up against an overclocked quad core processor.
New Wolfdale

It's not even a toss up for some applications...

I have an HDV render test that I run in Vegas Pro ... It Takes about 90 seconds for my Q6600 @ 3.6 and 2 minutes 53 seconds for an E8600 @ 4.3 ...

Of course stuff like SuperPi run a bit faster on the E86000 ..

That makes sense, given it's a true multithreaded app. Good OC on the Q6600 too.

For me, the faster dual-core made more sense. It will be a long time before any of the apps I run benefit from more than two cores.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: GnomeCop
damn I wish my Striker Extreme officially supported the E8600, I have one installed right now and I fear the bios is what is holding me back from a higher overclock

There's no reason it shouldn't.

I"ve posted many comments over months about BIOS revisions to the Striker Extreme.

For the B3 Conroes and Kentsfields, BIOS revisions up to v.1301 and v.1303 were optimal. So it is interesting, that as soon as the G0 steppings arrived, they produced v.1305.

v.1305 gave everyone (and even me, briefly . . ) some trouble. Its fix-list said "improve over-clocking for 1,333 FSB processors." But we were all using 1,066 processors -- even G0 stepping. People who had Q6600's couldn't reset to their over-clocks using the earlier BIOS -- all hell broke loose. I saw it firsthand, myself. I advised several people to re-flash their PLCC's to BIOS v.1301 or 1303. And there were forum posts with people saying that they couldn't go back from 1305.

When I ordered my E8400 (C0), I cautiously ordered two PLCC chips from BIOSMan, for v.1305 and v.1504. v.1305 would post with the message "Update your BIOS to take advantage of this new processor's features." It would also show idle TCASE in BIOS as 10C when room ambient was above 20C.

I popped in the PLCC with v.1504. This time, it recognized the E8400 succinctly (v.1305 only showed it as Core 2 Duo -- nothing else). But it reported TCASE as 50C when the room ambient was between 20 and 25C.

Around August 5, 2008, ASUS posted BIOS v.1603 for the STriker Extreme, and I flashed the chip that had contained v. 1504. Suddenly, all was wonderful. TCASE was "in the ballpark" for what you'd expect, the E8400 is explicitly identified upon post.

Now -- I cannot be sure what happens when you go from E8400 (C0) to E8600 (E0). I don't see why v.1603 would have trouble with it. And since the E0 steppings are the final Intel regurgitation, I'm pretty sure they'd post a BIOS revision again if they needed to.

I am willing to bet, and quite sure, you are using an old, pre-Penryn BIOS with your Striker Extreme. Go for version v.1603.

EDIT: I had my E8400 OC'd to 3.6 with the Striker -- ref.freq.= 400Mhz.

Be careful going beyond 400. It's doable, but especially, be careful with an 2x gfx SLI configuration. If the NBCore is on "Auto" -- it bumps the voltage up to 1.52V-something. Maybe that's safe, but then you should pay special attention to chipset cooling. I'm paying special attention to getting a response on my RMA request.

I replaced the Striker with an eVGA 780i board in the meantime. Much easier to clock beyond 400 Mhz. Also -- one more thing. Before you clock up to 400 Mhz, you'll have to set CPU_VTT (FSB) to 1.45V. This is at the threshold of risk for the Wolfdales and Yorkfields (but you can't use a Yorkfield in that board). With BIOS 1603, my voltage monitor showed 1.39V with that setting.