8800GT Bottleneck, how fast is fast enough

[Angerisagift]

I'm going to be building a gaming rig around a single XFX 8800GT 512MB Alpha Dog Edition,

will also have q6600 @2.4Ghz stock
2GB OCZ DDR2 800 PC6400

does anyone know what the minimum clock speed you need to get the best performace out of an 8800GT

if not best, at least good.

what should I expect at 2.4Ghz,

 

[Pacfanweb]

I currently have that exact setup and have only overclocked to 2.7ghz so far. That made a difference in two different synthetic benchmarks, but haven't compared it in games yet.

I'm running at 2.7 with no other changes...stock voltage, etc. Hope this one will go right on past 3ghz without a problem.

I've played the Crysis demo a little and without actually doing a timedemo, I see my frame rate anywhere from the high 20's to the 60's on "high" quality.

 

[MTDEW]

Ive tested plenty of games with an 8800gt and its 3ghz, anything after that your fps dont scale up along with the cpu speed.
(thats current games of course, who knows what future games will do)

And a Q6600 will do 3ghz EASILY.

 

[terencek]

Originally posted by: MTDEW
Ive tested plenty of games with an 8800gt and its 3ghz, anything after that your fps dont scale up along with the cpu speed.
(thats current games of course, who knows what future games will do)

And a Q6600 will do 3ghz EASILY.

He's right. I have mine at 3.0GHz and voltage at 1.21v and temps are upper 30s. I have a Zalman HSF, but I've heard that 3.0GHz on stock HSF isn't unreasonable. Check the Stepping, though. The B3 will run hotter and has a lower temp ceiling (it runs at 105W and the temp ceiling is 62C). The G0 runs at 95W and has a ceiling of 70C, so just download CPU-Z and find out the stepping.

Hope it helps.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Originally posted by: terencek

Originally posted by: MTDEW
Ive tested plenty of games with an 8800gt and its 3ghz, anything after that your fps dont scale up along with the cpu speed.
(thats current games of course, who knows what future games will do)

And a Q6600 will do 3ghz EASILY.

He's right. I have mine at 3.0GHz and voltage at 1.21v and temps are upper 30s. I have a Zalman HSF, but I've heard that 3.0GHz on stock HSF isn't unreasonable. Check the Stepping, though. The B3 will run hotter and has a lower temp ceiling (it runs at 105W and the temp ceiling is 62C). The G0 runs at 95W and has a ceiling of 70C, so just download CPU-Z and find out the stepping.

Hope it helps.

CPU-Z says mine is Stepping B and Revision G0.

I messed with mine a bit last night, and it's at 2.74ghz with 1.16v. I couldn't get 1300mhz FSB, even raising the voltage up to over 1.3.
It was late and I didn't feel like figuring it out at that point. I would like to get this thing to at least 3.0 though. I have a big Thermaltake cooler, can't remember the name of it. Has a speed knob actually on the cooler itself. Should be enough to cool my cpu, I'd think, but it was running a bit on the hot side. 60-ish.

 

[TC91]

@Pacfanweb, you may have to raise your motherboard voltages to get any higher fsb values. probably + 0.1v will do. sounds like you may have a big typhoon VX cpu cooler.

 

[spinejam]

Originally posted by: Angerisagift
I'm going to be building a gaming rig around a single XFX 8800GT 512MB Alpha Dog Edition,

will also have q6600 @2.4Ghz stock
2GB OCZ DDR2 800 PC6400

does anyone know what the minimum clock speed you need to get the best performace out of an 8800GT

if not best, at least good.

what should I expect at 2.4Ghz,

here ya go: rig in sig!

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=3898074

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=3738002