Ok, I've read all the AT articles about Lynnfield, but I'm still a bit foggy on what I need to buy to build my system. I am planningo on getting an i7/860 chip, and primarily want good performance in Photoshop and to keep idle power consumption low.
As I understand it, Turbo Mode (which I want to keep enabled for when I'm running single-threaded applications) stays active as long as the processor is kept cool enough. I've seen the benches for OC'd Lynnfields, which make it appear that Turbo Mode is turned off to keep max performance (running at 3.4+). Is it possible to keep Turbo Mode AND do a minor OC? Could I go from 2.8 to 3.0 and still have the chip Turbo up 4 bins, or is it either/or? And does that let me set the bclk independently so I can keep it to a multiple of 133 for stability? This used to make sense to me when all you had to do was multiply your FSB to get your OC, now you have bclk, more voltages, more CAS latency choices, turbo mode, etc.
Also, how does that impact memory selection? If I want 8gb (4 2gb dimms) of RAM, I can get cheaper memory that is rated for CAS7 at 1333 than if I want CAS7 at 1600, of course. If I'm not OC'ing, I can probably go with less expensive memory, but if I can run at 1600, it may be worth some (small?) performance gain.
Thanks for any help! Sorry for the n00b questions, but I haven't really been thinking about OCing since I was first buying a C2D...
As I understand it, Turbo Mode (which I want to keep enabled for when I'm running single-threaded applications) stays active as long as the processor is kept cool enough. I've seen the benches for OC'd Lynnfields, which make it appear that Turbo Mode is turned off to keep max performance (running at 3.4+). Is it possible to keep Turbo Mode AND do a minor OC? Could I go from 2.8 to 3.0 and still have the chip Turbo up 4 bins, or is it either/or? And does that let me set the bclk independently so I can keep it to a multiple of 133 for stability? This used to make sense to me when all you had to do was multiply your FSB to get your OC, now you have bclk, more voltages, more CAS latency choices, turbo mode, etc.
Also, how does that impact memory selection? If I want 8gb (4 2gb dimms) of RAM, I can get cheaper memory that is rated for CAS7 at 1333 than if I want CAS7 at 1600, of course. If I'm not OC'ing, I can probably go with less expensive memory, but if I can run at 1600, it may be worth some (small?) performance gain.
Thanks for any help! Sorry for the n00b questions, but I haven't really been thinking about OCing since I was first buying a C2D...
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