Please Help...final decision.

[cliffa3]

I'm purchasing my processor and motherboard in a few weeks and I need one last recommendation?preferably from someone who has one of these. I'm getting the new ASUS i815E motherboard and I want to know if I should buy the 800/133 and try to juice a little extra out of that, or if I should go with the 700/100 and go from there. I will be getting the cB0 stepping one...and I have pc-133 RAM, so I'd really like the FSB to be close to or greater than 133. If I push the 700/100 to 930/133, will it be stable? I've never really overclocked that much before?is there any way that my processor will not work again if that is too much for it?. I have a Tornado 1000 case from 3DCOOL.COM, so cooling is taken care of. Please give me some suggestions because I'm about to make my final decision, and 930mhz makes my mouth water, but I want to know if it's safe to do that and what will happen if it doesn't work?and if it'll be stable or not. I know it's tough to guess b/c every processor is different, but anyone with experience or insight, advice is very very much appreciated?thanks for any help.
Cliff

 

[Ulysses]

You didn't say exactly what you'ld be using this system for most of the time. But here goes ...

815E boards are barely available yet and so there have been no real comparative tests reported yet that I've seen - I don't know if you can buy the ASUS CUSL2 at this time.

Of course you can't tell beforehand whether any o'clocked CPU wil be stable at a given speed, although with cB0 your odds are better (there's a new stepping c00 coming soon, BTW). OTOH, the fastest widely available P3 is the 933, and if that's the practical best Intel can do, then your chances of hitting 933 have to be much smaller (or that 700 chip you bought would have been marketed as a 850-933). Remember that Intel and AMD are already 'overclocking' their highest speed CPU's in the sense that they boost their voltage to help stabilize them. And other components may not tolerate the o'clock too - like the graphics card. Lastly, instability is not always so obvious either. This is why some sites, like AnandTech or Tom's HW, usually don't recommend o'clocked systems in their buyer's guides, or at least not without warnings.

Getting CAS 2 SDRAM instead of CAS 3 can be worth the equivalent of maybe 20 MHz on benchmarks.

Overclocking should not damage the CPU as long as you don't jack the voltage more than 15%.

Maybe you should assume a conservative 115-125% o'clock max instead of 133 and then make your choice. I think that points toward the 815E. And while the potential overclocked performance of a BX board is appealing, to my eye the 815E looks like the mobo to grow with, with all its up to date and forward looking features. People who can't do 133 on their BX's don't trumpet that in the forums.

You've probably seen these:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1265
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1250
http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/00q2/000611/index.html

Cooling the case is one thing, but the fan/heatsink on the CPU is another.

Just before you order your CPU check the prices again - often there's a MHz 'sweet spot' above which the prices jump substantially. Right now that's about at 800 MHz, but by the time your 815E board is available (if that's the way you go) it will be higher.

HTH