Should I be able to go to 400MHz on a E8400

[DJ-phYre]

Overclocking n00b, and I haven't even built my system just yet... I need to order a motherboard to make it complete.

Right now I have a E8400 w/ 2GB OCZ DDR2-800.

I think clocking the FSB of the E8400 from 333 to 400 should be easy, even at stock voltages to reach a ration of 1:1 with my RAM... This would put the speed @ 3.6GHz with stock voltages...

This is really all I want as I wasn't planning on overclocking in the first place, but I didn't realize the speed differences between FSB and RAM until I did some reading on overclocking...

I also would have to order a cooler and since I just started figuring all of this out I am going to do some research.

 

[BlueWeasel]

You should have no problems running the E8400 at 3.6Ghz and the MB/RAM at 800mhz. With exception of the C2D, the MB and RAM are running at stock speeds.

Besides, only a minimal voltage bump (or possibly none at all) will be needed to run the E8400 stable at 3.6Ghz. It's a very simple overclock -- go for it!

 

[DJ-phYre]

I don't believe any voltage bump will be necessary (most things I have read say that pushing it to 400mhz doesn't require it). I guess if it does it won't be that much so heat will not be that big of an issue...

 

[StarvinMarvin22]

If your cooling and the rest of your hardware is decent your e8400 will hit 3.6 Ghz @ stock voltage in its sleep.

I only planned on a 3.6Ghz overclock myself - Thats what I run 24/7 - but with just a few voltage tweaks I was able to get my dd2 800 ram and e8400 24hours prime stable @ 9x445fsb

I don't know what motherboards you have been looking at but I've really liked my PQ5 Pro

 

[solog]

what motherboard do you plan on getting?

 

[rgallant]

Originally posted by: kick3r
Overclocking n00b, and I haven't even built my system just yet... I need to order a motherboard to make it complete.

Right now I have a E8400 w/ 2GB OCZ DDR2-800.

I think clocking the FSB of the E8400 from 333 to 400 should be easy, even at stock voltages to reach a ration of 1:1 with my RAM... This would put the speed @ 3.6GHz with stock voltages...

This is really all I want as I wasn't planning on overclocking in the first place, but I didn't realize the speed differences between FSB and RAM until I did some reading on overclocking...

I also would have to order a cooler and since I just started figuring all of this out I am going to do some research.

-can you send it back if you haven't opened the retail box
if you don't know , the old E8400-E8500 have C0 stepping if you can , get a new one with E0
-if you can't no big deal but I thought I'd mention it as they are the same price

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: kick3r
I think clocking the FSB of the E8400 from 333 to 400 should be easy, even at stock voltages to reach a ration of 1:1 with my RAM... This would put the speed @ 3.6GHz with stock voltages...

3.6GHz should be attainable with Wolfdales, but I wouldn't call it guaranteed (just very likely). As for doing it on default voltages... that's luck of the draw. Overclocking is always YMMV. Your plan to use an aftermarket cooler is a good one as the cooler which comes with the E8400 is rather anemic.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: kick3r
I think clocking the FSB of the E8400 from 333 to 400 should be easy, even at stock voltages to reach a ration of 1:1 with my RAM... This would put the speed @ 3.6GHz with stock voltages...

3.6GHz should be attainable with Wolfdales, but I wouldn't call it guaranteed (just very likely). As for doing it on default voltages... that's luck of the draw. Overclocking is always YMMV. Your plan to use an aftermarket cooler is a good one as the cooler which comes with the E8400 is rather anemic.

I think Zap's probably correct. Some of us didn't get truly stellar E8400's. I've had to tweak up the VCORE to get it stable at 3.6, and I'm stressing to fine-tune it as we speak.

It will depend on the luck of your E8400-draw, your motherboard and the RAM. I've got good RAM, my mobo is a bit dated. I had it up to 3.82Ghz, but I had to twist the VCORE to 1.35V. Of course, this showed up as an idle value of 1.32-something, and there's a 0.02V droop under load with this board. I think the "set" value is about 5%+ over the retail box max-spec of 1.25V; the reported value within half that percentage.

I still have to set the VCORE at roughly 1.32V just to get to 3.6Ghz. And I've had to tweak the CPU_VTT to its safe limit, and I'm stress-testing it now. [How is it I find the time to post all my poop here? . . . . sitting around to watch the PRIME95 iterations scroll past on the other monitor. . . ] I'd be interested where rgallant put his settings with that E8600 and the Striker Formula.

 

[DJ-phYre]

EDIT: forgot to quote

But I am probably getting one of the P5Q flavors...

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I think that's a popular board. Intel chipset.

I've seen board and processor combinations where you could get a 60% over-clock from stock without changing the vcore from "auto."

On this board, an aging 680i, the "auto" setting shows up in a sensor reading of 1.20V. Bumping it up to 1.32 leaves it at idle of 1.29, and I think there's an inherent 0.02V droop.

I may investigate the "pencil-mod" to eliminate the droop, but don't know if it's really worth the trouble.

I may go higher with this E8400 than 3.6, but it gets trickier. I had it passing the small-FFTs test at 3.82 Ghz, with some more voltage headroom to spare. I'm just not sure if it's really worth it, despite the low price of this model. I'm tempted, though, because the E8600 is available for a few dollars --- well, nearly $100 -- more.

 

[DJ-phYre]

Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
I think that's a popular board. Intel chipset.

I've seen board and processor combinations where you could get a 60% over-clock from stock without changing the vcore from "auto."

On this board, an aging 680i, the "auto" setting shows up in a sensor reading of 1.20V. Bumping it up to 1.32 leaves it at idle of 1.29, and I think there's an inherent 0.02V droop.

I may investigate the "pencil-mod" to eliminate the droop, but don't know if it's really worth the trouble.

I may go higher with this E8400 than 3.6, but it gets trickier. I had it passing the small-FFTs test at 3.82 Ghz, with some more voltage headroom to spare. I'm just not sure if it's really worth it, despite the low price of this model. I'm tempted, though, because the E8600 is available for a few dollars --- well, nearly $100 -- more.

$100 more is more than a few... lol

Only reason I settled for a E8400 is b/c of the deal at NewEgg. I got:

$170 - E8400
$100 - Thermaltake 750W PSU
-$50 - Combo Discount
-$50 - TT PSU Rebate

So basically I paid for the processor and got the PSU for free... I am going to get a mobo that also supports Quads as that is what I will eventually move to, but I am in no hurry so I will wait for prices to drop more and support for 4 cores to become mainstream...

I am just trying to get away from my Thinkpad + Dock setup I have been using for about 8 months... Getting rid of my desktop was a bad idea, but it let me make this upgrade eventually...

 

[BonzaiDuck]

"$100 more is more than a few . . . "

I'm glad to hear you think so. I'm a fixed-income retiree, and I've watched certain prices for certain things over the last decade go up, and then the brewing crisis we face at the moment. I was beginning to think that a Franklin to me seemed a lot, while others in the economy were beginning to think it was chump-change.

Be careful, but it seems the key to opening the bottleneck with the E8400 beyond -- say -- 390 Mhz to 400 and beyond that, is the CPU_VTT termination voltage. I posted somewhere here in the last day or two a blog or article by an Anandtech guy showing how they burned out a $1,000 QX9650 by pushing the CPU_VTT to around 1.5V. They cite a section 2.2 of the Intel spec and update document that suggests anything beyond 1.45V is "at your own risk." Graysky's Guide has a link to that post, also.

I had to push my setting to exactly 1.45V, although the BIOS monitor reports a measured voltage of 1.39V.

But newer or Intel motherboards may not have any "bottleneck."

I'm "Blend-ing" at 3.69 Ghz now, or FSB=1640 / DDR=820. I didn't change the VCORE or any of the voltages after last night's 15-hour PRIME95 run at 3.645 Ghz. Last night's RealTemp core Blend-Test load temperatures @ 74+F room-ambient were something like 41C/39C. Like I said in a PM to one of our fellows here: "Can YOU Ba-LEEV DIS SHEE-IT??!!!" [I'm using the Noctua NH-U12P cooler, and diamond thermal paste with the IHS and heatsink base lapped down to bare copper.]