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Intel Overclocking on the cheap?

S

silky

Golden Member
I haven't done any Intel overclocking in years (AMD past five years) and would like play around with an Intel setup on the cheap. All I need is a good motherboard and cheap CPU, your suggestions would be most helpful.
 
All Intel Core 2 Duo's and Quad's are good overclockers, how much do you want to spend, and what do you do with your PC.
 
Question-
Originally posted by: Cutthroat
All Intel Core 2 Duo's and Quad's are good overclockers, how much do you want to spend, and what do you do with your PC.
Click to expand...

Answer-
Originally posted by: silky
I haven't done any Intel overclocking in years (AMD past five years) and would like play around with an Intel setup on the cheap. All I need is a good motherboard and cheap CPU, your suggestions would be most helpful.
Click to expand...

@silky- IMO you should look at the 4300, I haven't played with it but I have read of many good OCs, There are pin mods for voltage and fsb, sounds like fun. Search Asus support for compatible boards in your price range, I like Asus for many reasons but the fact that you don't need to reset the cmos as often for failed overclocks makes them a winner in my book. Check the manuals for OC options before you buy and google " E4300 overclock or pin mod " before you buy.
If you were willing to stretch your budget a bit I would get a board that will handle the quads for the upgrade path. You'll love the new intel, I have the E6600 and a quad is on the way.
 
Newegg has the celeron L core duo starting at $44. It's a single core, but only uses 35 watts. Even comes with a heatsink. Mwave has an abit p35-e on backorder for $70 after $20 rebate. It should overclock pretty well.
 
Originally posted by: silky
I haven't done any Intel overclocking in years (AMD past five years) and would like play around with an Intel setup on the cheap. All I need is a good motherboard and cheap CPU, your suggestions would be most helpful.
Click to expand...

how cheap and how much OC are you willing to go for?

do you want an upgrade path to penryn and the 45 nm QC CPUs?

Air cooling or water cooling?

e4X00 series? the recently discontinued e4300 was $70 at Frys and it OCs nicely in my current system in sig.

or e2140 for less than $70 ... half the cache of e4300
 
4300 & cheap mobo gigabyte ds3
thats what im runin, you can hit 3.4ghz its faster than anything out there, i keep it at about 3.2ghz

its faster or on par with the 999 dollar quad core
 
I'm running an E4300 @ 3GHz on a Gigabyte DDR2 P35 MB.
The E4300's are a huge bang for the buck if you're OCing them. :thumbsup::laugh:

jaredpace,
What BIOS CPU voltage does your E4300 need to run 3.2GHz?
 
I have to agree with the e43/e4400 recommendations.
Just put together a HTPC comprising of e4400, gigabyte p35-ds3r and 2gb of corsair c4 memory $330 after $40 corsair rebate at newegg.
On the first attempt 2.8Ghz 8X350
I'm sure I could get more out of this chip but I don't want to generate too much heat being this is my HTPC.

To tell you the truth I'm tempted to swap this chip with the e6600 @ 3.2GHz 8X410 in my main rig and really push it to it's full potential.

 
Originally posted by: o1die
Newegg has the celeron L core duo starting at $44. It's a single core, but only uses 35 watts. Even comes with a heatsink. Mwave has an abit p35-e on backorder for $70 after $20 rebate. It should overclock pretty well.
Click to expand...

Even overclocked, those Celeron Conroe-L chips still lack "oomph". He would be much better served by getting at least an E2140. Not to mention that the tiny stock heatsink on the Celeron 440 isn't good for overclocking either, requiring purchase of an additional heatsink, compared to using the stock E2140 regular heatsink.

 
If you have a Frys near you, you can do what I did which was buy a Core2 e4x00 combo and pad mod it.

I overclocked an e4300 from 1.8Ghz to 2.4Ghz. And overclocked an e4500 from 2.2Ghz. to 2.93Ghz. A good thing about it is that you can use the crappy board that came with the combo to save money, because the padmod tricks the CPU to run the CPU natively at 266FSB instead of 200FSB, thus not overclocking the AGP/PCI-express and other ports which are normally locked on more expensive boards. Though if you go this route, be careful which board comes with the combo. My recent e4500 combo came with a board that can only support up to 800FSB.

The e4300 combo cost me $100 and the e4500 $140.

If you don't have a Frys, then i would suggest buying a minimum of e2x00 series or e4x00 series depending on your budget. These chips are good/easy overclockers because they have lower FSB and high multipliers and thus you can overclock higher but still use lower speed memory (which is usually cheaper). As for a board, I would get one of the newer P35 or G33 boards that can support the new 45nm penryn chips if and when you want to upgrade later.
 
I like E4300/E4400 with L2 stepping. 50% of these chips should break 3.2GHz with a capable MB. Abit IP35-E is on sale at NewEgg for $62 after $20 Paypal promo and $40 rebate.
 
For dual core the E4300 will get you some overclocking happiness. I have one running at 3.05Ghz without any voltage tweaks & I'm 100% sure it can go higher before I have to tweak the voltage. Not too bad for a stock 1.8ghz chip which is also cheap.

You should be seeing ots of "combo" deal for the E4xx series appearing real soon as these chips seem to be on their way out but usually they are paired with an overclocking unfriendly cheap ECS board.
 
I have an E2140 (~$100 Cdn.) on a Gigabyte 965-DS3. Overclocking to 2.67 from 1.60 isn't difficult, and it keeps the DDR2-667 memory at 1:1. Stays in the low 60C range under load, and below 40C when idle and used with an OS that can lower the multiplier and voltage when idle.
 
Jaredpace,

I have the P965-DQ6 with an E4300 and can't get past 3.0 GHz. What is your Vcore set to? What HSF are you using and what are your cpu temps under load? I really would appreciate more of your bios numbers (like memory clock multiplier, memory overvoltage, timings & FSB overvoltage)

Thanks!
Vlip
 
Originally posted by: Vlip
Jaredpace,

I have the P965-DQ6 with an E4300 and can't get past 3.0 GHz. What is your Vcore set to? What HSF are you using and what are your cpu temps under load? I really would appreciate more of your bios numbers (like memory clock multiplier, memory overvoltage, timings & FSB overvoltage)

Thanks!
Vlip
Click to expand...
Vlip

there is a good chance Jared may not see this old post ... of course others will probably answer - but use the 'private message' function of this forum to get a more likely response directly from him 😉

 
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