E6600 at 400/333mhz fsb?

[Throckmorton]

Specs:
E6600 (stock is 9x266=2.4ghz)
Gigabyte 965P-DS3 rev 3.3
4x1gb OCZ DDR2 800 Platinum

I discovered today that I can lower my multiplier and increase the FSB. I have it set at 7x333 right now and I'm going to run Prim95 overnight. Is there any reason not to run at this speed? What about 6x400? Should it improve real world performance?

 

[Denithor]

UT3 benchmark: 1066 vs 1333

Short answer: not much difference, especially for dual-cores.

There is a drawback to this as well IIRC: if you manually reduce your multiplier, EIST/C1E doesn't work properly so the computer won't go into "power saving mode" when idle (reduces mulitplier and core voltage to run cooler/quieter when you aren't using it heavily).

If you want a real-world performance difference, leave that multiplier at 9x and set the fsb to 333 for 3.0GHz performance. Of course, you may have to play with your voltage a bit to get there but that's an easy target with most C2D chips. If you want more explicit directions just read the stickied guide to C2D/C2Q overclocking.

 

[Throckmorton]

I think I will try for 3ghz. When I got my CPU back in March I made sure to get a good stepping- I had the storeroom guy at Fry's look for the best serial #. I just never overclocked because I haven't had to, but now games like Tabula Rasa are too slow

 

[Denithor]

Well, for gaming an e6600 even at stock should be very adequate (and you have plenty of memory). What resolution do you run and what video card do you use?

Take a look at these articles on the 8800GT and HD3850/HD3870 cards that were recently launched. They pretty much destroy all but the highest end, most expensive cards out there.

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT: The Only Card That Matters
ATI Radeon HD 3870 & 3850: A Return to Competition

It's silly to look at anything below the HD3850 at this point, pages 8+9 of the second article show it destroying the 8600GTS, 7900GTX, and even the X1950XTX at all resolutions. And at a price of $185 shipped you get a lot of performance for a very reasonable price. The other cards cost considerably more (HD3870 averages $250-270 and 8800GT is in the $270-320 range) but do provide even more power if it's needed.

EDIT: The only cards more powerful are the 8800GTX (cheapest are $450 after MIR) and 8800 Ultra (>$600 -- yeah right). And note that these are about 5% and 10% faster than the 8800GT respectively. Not exactly a good buy at this point.

 

[Throckmorton]

I have a 7950gx2 that I got on Craigslist for $200 in March. I game at 1920x1200 on a Dell 2405FPW, with no AA usually. Some games, like Battlefield and TR, use 100% or 50% of CPU though, so I'd think more CPU power would help

 

[Denithor]

Well, the extra cpu power certainly won't hurt but I think more gpu power is going to be necessary also especially for that high resolution.

You could probably resell that card the same way (or eBay/FS forum/etc) and pick up a 3850 for not much more or one of the higher end cards for an extra $100ish.

 

[imported_LoKe]

The CPU is not your bottleneck here, but dropping the multi and beefing the FSB = more heat.