Differences in FSB or Multipliers!!!

[Mango1970]

OK I had asked this before a few months ago but I never really got it stragight. It was a long time ago believed that on older CPUs that if you increased the FSB it would be MORE beneficial than just increasing the multiplier. Do you all remember the good old days with Intels and older Bartons?? heck you would crank up the FSB and those things would sing.

So now I have 3 CPUs... an X2 3800, X2 4800 and a Conroe coming soon. Now I want to concentrate on the X2 4800+. Stock it's 12X200. Everyone tells me it makes no diff... for the AMD 64 it''s just total MHz that matter at the end of the day. Thus if I can get 2700 Mhz with 12X225 then it's the same performance as if I clock it at 11X245 or 10x270. However I have noted over and over again different benchmarks that give me BETTER results with a higher FSB and lower multipliers. In fact my boards have been better able to deal with the higher FSB and lower multipliers.... so what gives??? Like I said everyone is telling me forget the combos... just go for whatever gives you the highest total MHz... but does the higher FSB help at all? this is all keeping in mind various RAM timings and dividers and keeping it all stable and well within my RAM's ability (CHEAP OCZ value RAM or AZEM RAM).

Any ideas or input would be much appreciated.

PS is it LESS stress on the CPU to go higher FSB and lower divider to achive the same total MHZ?? does the CPU temp seem lower to any of you if you go with a lower divider?I dont have a FX CPU to test the higher divider so I am kinda limited to what I can test personally. Why do I keep getting better scores for the same total Mhz with higher FSB and lower Dividers? Am I stoned and drunk all at once???

 

[stevty2889]

X2's and conroes aren't really bandwidth limitied. You might see a minor performance differance with a higher FSB, but it's not going to be a huge differance. Now if the memory speed is differant(which it very likely would be), that can make more of a differance in a lot of applications. As for the cpu overclock..3ghz is 3ghz, the transistors in the cpu are running at that speed weather you use a low FSB and high multi or low multi and high FSB..it's not going to affect the cpu temps differantly.

 

[Mango1970]

Thanks Stevty2889 -- I think you might have helped me out with a few other questions I had in the past. Just as a side note how do you find that new e6600 you have compared to your X2 4200? I am still trying to figure out if AMD X2s are just as fast clock per clock to the Core2 but the only dif is that the Core2 OC so much more than essentially will give way better performance just do to the higher clock rate. I recently got a hold of a new X2 4800+ and I really had to think about it before going for that instead of the e6300 or e6400. I did it since I did not want to drop my insanely costly DDR RAM and mobo.

So what say you about the dif in those two systems?

 

[stevty2889]

Clock for clock the core 2 is faster, and has higher potential than the X2 when it comes to overclocking as well. I need 1.475v for my X2 to hit 2.6ghz, and my core 2 hits 2.8 on stock voltage, 3ghz needs 1.35v, 3.1ghz needs 1.4v. At 3.2ghz it needs 1.45 but the temps get a little high for my liking. The 4800+ X2 is still a very good cpu, and while there would be some noticable differances in many applications(such as video encoding and 3D rendering). I have a crappy video card in my core 2 system right now, so can't compare gaming. But basicly I'm happy with both my X2 and my Core 2, they are both fast and cool running.

 

[BassBomb]

after i examined the benchmarks for conroe that anand did

i notice that... the ~.2+ ghz between 6300 and 6400 meant like .4+ ghz from AMD perspective