Is 680i worth an upgrade from the 650i?

[videopho]

I'm currently with an eVGA 650i Ultra mobo.
My dram is Crucial Tech 8500 Ballistix Tracer LED.
The current mobo only allows Vdim of 2.1v which limits the Crucial to its full potential.
I may or may not use the SLI feature, more than unlikely.
I can alway use a couple of extra SATA slots (4 vs 6)
I can get a used 680i for $150 @ AT's FS site.
Is it worth it?


On the event of getting the 680i.
Is the swap between the 650 to 680 a big deal e.g RAID set-up, Vista re-install ?

 

[JustaGeek]

IMHO, you will not see much of a difference. If your RAM works fine at its rated speed at 2.1V, you will not see any performance improvement by changing voltage alone.

650i is the same MCP C55 chip as 680i, but has some features disabled.

I would not complain about a stable OC of 3.4GHz on any MOBO, especially if that motherboard cost me only ~$100. You might not even be able to take it this high on another MB.

 

[Shimmishim]

if you're not going to go sli most likely, then i say stick with teh 650i and do a vmod (if you're into that sort of thing) or get a P35 board as they appear to be very friendly with memory and mem voltages.

I'd recommend the abit ip35, ip35-pro, or ip35-e. the non-pro and -e should be less than the $150 for the 680i board.

the gigabyte, msi, and asus boards all look good too.

if you can wait, i would recommend a x38 board. it'll (rumored to) support sli and crossfire with 2 x 16x (or 2 x 8x) which should make it a sweet sweet board

 

[renethx]

Bumping DRAM voltage from 2.1V to 2.5V may give 30MHz (or 60MHz in effective speed) increase. Practically you won't see much performance difference.

 

[videopho]

The 650i only limits vdim to 2.1v max.
The Crucial's Vdim needs at least 2.2v to get to 1065 or even 1333mhz speed.
Right now memory speed is @ 950mhz.
From all the responses, they sound like a "no, it's not worth it" answer.
Hmm...I may have to cancel the deal with the seller at FS forum.

 

[JustaGeek]

The main factor affecting your bandwidth is the FSB speed.

Changing the memory speed from 950MHz to 1066MHz will improve the overall speed by... maybe 1-2%, if that.

The memory must be able to produce the bandwidth wide enough, so the CPU through the FSB can "push" all the data through it with "ease".

Look at my SANDRA numbers at 800MHz, with FSB of 325MHz. They were around 5400MB/s with the FSB of 266.7MHz. It is about 6500MB/s now...

Instead of spending $150 for the 680i MB, try to tighten the latency to lower than rated numbers, e.g. from 5-5-5-15 to 4-4-4-12 or so. It might have the same effect as higher speed with more relaxed latencies.

 

[videopho]

".... try to tighten the latency to lower than rated numbers, e.g. from 5-5-5-15 to 4-4-4-12 or so. It might have the same effect as higher speed with more relaxed latencies. "

I tried that and Vista would not post.
I may have to change the multiplier and go from there.
Any suggestion?

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: videopho
Any suggestion?

Leave it alone.

You have a fine overclock going. It probably bothers you that you are "not using the full potential of your RAM"... but you are! That RAM allows you to keep your E6600 at 3.4GHz.

That's just my opinion. A stable high performance system is more important that getting an extra 1% in memory bandwidth - test it with SANDRA at 850MHz and your current 950MHz. Run PCMark05 at both memory speeds. Record the scores.

I bet the difference is no more than 100 points - thats your potential gain if you can take it up to 1066.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

I would definitely not spend the extra $ on 680i. 475 to 533 should yield a 2% boost in speed with some benchies but you're not going to notice any improvement with your windows programs. If the 650i board is stable, then stay put.

 

[lopri]

I do understand the frustration on the vDIMM limit, but after dealing with so many Micron D9 chips, I'd be wary of giving too much voltages. Actually 2.10V is the max where I'd be comfortable with, for a long term. And a lot of boards overvolts vDIMM so it's a good idea to measure the actual vDIMM using a multimeter. It might actually be +0.01V of what you set in the BIOS.

 

[lopri]

double post..

 

[videopho]

Originally posted by: JustaGeek

Originally posted by: videopho
Any suggestion?

Leave it alone.

You have a fine overclock going. It probably bothers you that you are "not using the full potential of your RAM"... but you are! That RAM allows you to keep your E6600 at 3.4GHz.

That's just my opinion. A stable high performance system is more important that getting an extra 1% in memory bandwidth - test it with SANDRA at 850MHz and your current 950MHz. Run PCMark05 at both memory speeds. Record the scores.

I bet the difference is no more than 100 points - thats your potential gain if you can take it up to 1066.

You're right.
The e6600 could post Vista @ 3.6ghz (on air) but @ 3.5ghz had passed orthos's small fft torture tests for straight 12 hrs but i decided to back down a bit more @ 3.5ghz.
Thanks all!