Are the Intel P3 800E's good o/cers

[Madcowz]

I'm looking to buy one of these over the 700 or 750 even though I hear the 700's o/c really well. I just want to know if the 800's can o/c equally as well or even better keeping in mind that all 800 versions are CB0 stepping? Please post any ideas and suggestions you may have. Or e-mail me at http://mikekao@hotmail.com if you have any experiences with these 800E's.

 

[Coki]

goto overclockers.com and check their CPU Database.

I think the 700E cB0 is a safer bet at 933 almost guarantee.

 

[Phatswalla]

And they're cheaper!

 

[Ulysses]

I don't quite agree with the preceding posts. The anecdotal reports at overclockers.com, or elsewhere, are just that. What I mean is that there is always a significant chance that any chip you buy will not o'clock very well, no matter how well others have done with it. So while many 700/100 or 750/100 P3 cB0's may do from 933/133 to perhaps even 1000/133, the particular 700 or 750 chip you buy may not get anywhere close to that.

So if your budget can stand it, I would recommend that you get one of the faster P3 cB0 chips designed for the 100 MHz bus, like a 750 or 800E (but probably not an 850, that is maybe going too far), just for insurance. It all depends on what you can afford and how disappointed you'll be if you don't hit that overclock goal you had. And there is always the chance that you might really score with that 800E, getting one that will really be relatively better than the typical 750 - an 800E/100 @ 133 is 1067 !! At least we can dream.

As has been said elsewhere in these forums, "your mileage may vary" and "they don't all do the dance."

 

[Phatswalla]

However, the PIII core does have it's limits and it hovers around 1Gig. I think a 933mhz speed is a safer bet than 1Gig or 1.06Gigs. If you buy a higher multiplier cpu there'll be the same risks as going with a cheaper and lower clocked cpu.

 

[Eug]

An 800E is a not really a good choice for overclocking, despite the fact they're cB0. While a 700E MIGHT not hit as high an absolute speed, it is much more likely to hit a higher FSB speed (133) than an 800E. A more realistic speed for an 800 is about FSB 120 or 124. Unfortunately, at these FSB speeds, you're either underclocking both the AGP bus and PCI, or you're severely overclocking the PCI bus. Lots of systems have problems with a PCI bus at 40+ MHz. And running at 30-31 MHz PCI just doesn't seem right.

With a 700E you have a reasonable chance of hitting 933, so you can run both the PCI bus in spec or close to spec. The 800E chips cost a lot more too.

Or you could just buy a guaranteed 700E for less than an 800E and get as good overclocked speeds.

Also, don't forget (assuming your memory is capable) a 133 FSB is much faster than a 124 FSB, so the loss in CPU speed is partially offset by the gain in memory bandwidth, etc.

 

[Ulysses]

I might agree with Eug, at least from the point of pure overclocking. OTOH in the real world I wonder if with a 700 you may not end up also with a too high an AGP or PCI speed for certain components. I guess I feel it may be better to be a little conservative and have a really stable system than to have a superficially great overclock but risk becoming one of those in the forums asking "Now what do I do" when they start having strange problems.

Maybe a 750 would be a good compromise or the guaranteed 700's mentioned. But my own comfort zone is 750/100 > 930/124 with PCI @ 40 and AGP @ 82, rather than 700/100 > 933/133 & PCI @ 44 & AGP @ 89.

I've made the assumption in this that you're using a BX board, BTW.

 

[Eug]

Good point. For 133 I was assuming VIA Apollo Pro. That way both AGP and PCI are kept in spec at 133 MHz.

As for the PCI bus, the vast majority of newer name-brand BX boards do PCI 33 at 133 MHz FSB,, and many older boards do as well. However, AGP is still way overclocked at 89 as you said.

Or if you're going with a brand new setup, I'd get an Asus i815 board. Best of both worlds.

 

[Madcowz]

Anyone have any personal experience? My thinking is that there is a large favoring towards the 700E's b/c that's what everyone has been buying; hence no support and not much backing on how well the 800E's can o/cing. I heard someone say that the 700-850's all have the same core... just set at different multiplier settings. Is this true? If so then I suppose the 700 would be the clear choice. At overclockers.com there was an average hovering a little over 900 on the o/cability of the 700 p3's and an average somewhere around 1GHz for the 800's; interesting... Also, referring to EUG's post about PCI and AGP bus speed problems, I don't think that will be a concern with the Asus CUSL2 815E board I'm looking at. I believe this mobo automatically sets the AGP and PCI bus to default no matter how you o/c the CPU. Keep the input rolling guys! FEED ME WITH INFORMATION!!!

 

[blcjr]

Some personal experience...

I ordered a P3 800 100FSB/Slot 1 from Onvia over the weekend, and it arrived this morning. I just dropped it into my Soyo 6ba IV+, and have spent the past half hour testing various combinations.

Right now, I have it at 976 Mhz, with the FSB at 122. I've had to step the voltage up 5%. Motherboard Monitor reports the voltage as 1.71 v. I'm going to leave there for a burnin, and then see if I can drop it to +2.5%, or back to the default voltage. I tried 124 FSB = 992 Mhz, and had to step the voltage up to +7.5% to get into Win 98SE, only to have it crash shortly thereafter. So I dropped back to 122/976. I'll keep it here for now, while I do some stability testing.

So, I have 976 Mhz, using a Slot 1 with retail cooling. I'm kind of lazy, never having gotten into esoteric or do it yourself cooling solutions. I do have a Tornado 1000 case, though, with pretty good ventilation.

I'm happy (so far). I went with the 800, rather than a 700, hoping that the higher multiplier would help me get close to the gigahertz mark without having to push the FSB to 133.

Now for a video card upgrade. (The present video card is a Voodoo3 2000 PCI.)

-Baz

 

[blcjr]

Some personal experience...

I ordered a P3 800 100FSB/Slot 1 from Onvia over the weekend, and it arrived this morning. I just dropped it into my Soyo 6ba IV+, and have spent the past half hour testing various combinations.

Right now, I have it at 976 Mhz, with the FSB at 122. I've had to step the voltage up 5%. Motherboard Monitor reports the voltage as 1.71 v. I'm going to leave there for a burnin, and then see if I can drop it to +2.5%, or back to the default voltage. I tried 124 FSB = 992 Mhz, and had to step the voltage up to +7.5% to get into Win 98SE, only to have it crash shortly thereafter. So I dropped back to 122/976. I'll keep it here for now, while I do some stability testing.

So, I have 976 Mhz, using a Slot 1 with retail cooling. I'm kind of lazy, never having gotten into esoteric or do it yourself cooling solutions. I do have a Tornado 1000 case, though, with pretty good ventilation.

I'm happy (so far). I went with the 800, rather than a 700, hoping that the higher multiplier would help me get close to the gigahertz mark without having to push the FSB to 133.

Now for a video card upgrade. (The present video card is a Voodoo3 2000 PCI.)

-Baz

 

[Ulysses]

Madcowz:

I think we've beaten this to death, but I'd just mention one last thing. I believe it is true that all P3 Coppermines in the cB0 stepping have the same core, but that does not mean that they will all perform the same or be equally overclockable - it just means they spring from the same lithograph or whatever they use as a template and are manufactured using the same process - each chip is still different.

So Intel tests each CPU under stress and then marks their speed at what meets their standards. They may also understate the speed of some CPU's to meet market demand for slower chips - but the exact sorting procedures they employ at any given time are not made public, I don't believe. For some time they seem to be having trouble with the yield of 1 GB chips so the ones that fail at that level get marked down as slower. This may explain why there is this great window of opportunity for overclockers.

Blcjr's experience goes to the heart of the matter. He is very happy at 976/122 and I would be too, as long as it's really stable. I think Eug was pointing out that at 700/100 > 933/133, and depending on the quality of your RAM and all the other settings available with a great tweaker's board like the ASUS CUSL2, you might actually get better performance with 933/133 than 976/122 'cause the 122 bus is slower. Only benchmarks can tell.

So you're really back where you started - there's no correct answer because you can't tell what the chip will max out at before you install it.