Whats a good OCing chip to put on a P3V4X?

[Believe]

My P2B just died. the secondary IDE channel started to fail. I was running a PII 300 @ 504 with 256mb of generic PC100 memory at CAS 2, 143mhz. I bought a P3V4X but cant take advantage of the 133fsb as my old chip tops out at 112mhz. Whats a good OCing chip for that board? im thinking about an 866 but dont know if a slower chip would actually OC better.
thanks,
believe

 

[hkssupra69]

p3 700e

 

[lifeguard1999]

In short, a 100 MHz CPU, say the 700E.

The P3V4X allows you to clock the memory at +/-PCI at the 100 MHz setting. Thus a 100 MHz CPU could have the memory running at 133 MHz (or 100 MHz or 66 MHz). Running the CPU at 112 MHz would let the memory run at 112 + ~33 = 145 MHz.

At the 133 MHz, you can either leave the memory clock alone, or clock it -PCI.

Thus I would say you need to get a 100 MHz CPU as it gives you greater leeway in o/c. A 700E most, but not all, of the time will hit 933 MHz. If it doesn't, then the +PCI feature is of benefit.

Personally, I run a 300A o/c to 450 with the memory set at +PCI, or double the memory bandwidth the 300A was suppossed to have.

Issue to remember: If you have an older P3V4X with the ICS clock generator chip, be sure to cool it when o/c. You will know that you have that chip if you have 32 FSB speeds. If you have only 16, you have the newer chip.

 

[hkssupra69]

hey lifeguard, are your temp readings accurate on your p3v?

 

[Believe]

LG,
thanks for the info. checked and ive got the newer mb. but plse help me understand why it makes sense to get a 100mhz chip. i understand what you said about the greater flexability with ram settings, but isnt that negated by the slower fsb? i can o/c a 133mhz chip to ~150. wouldnt a 100mhz chip which can be o/c'd to only 133 or so be slower?
Believe

 

[hkssupra69]

you answered your own question there, with a 100fsb going to 133, that's an increase of 33 percent so a 700 goes to 933, and potential to go even higher, that's how some people are getting it up to 1ghz. with a 133fsb oc'ed to 150, that's only an increase of 17, about a 13 percent increase, so a 733 will be oc'ed to 826. plus its harder to overclock cpu's with a 133fsb and you have to get really good quality ram or the 150 stuff, basically its more expensive. a plus to the p3v4x is you can set the system to memory ratio to 4:3, so you don't necessarily need pc133 or anything like that, just pc100 but that limits you. hope this helps.

 

[Believe]

69,
yea, that does make sense. i was looking at overclockers.com data base for results with 700's and 800's. looks like with a p3 800 ide have a shot at 1ghz+. seems to me that for an extra $30 that would be worth it. do you have the same opinion of the 800? i couldnt see any specific country/codes which looked more stable than others. do you know anything about that? and, what do you think about about coolers; is it worth getting a peltier?
thanks again,
Believe

 

[techwanabe]

Do some research on the Pentium 700 vs 740 vs 800 CPUs. Yes, definitely get the 100 mhz variety and OC up from there. Totally avoid the 133 mhz Pentiums as mentioned above.

I've seen some threads discussing that the 800s don't OC as well as the 700s. The gist I gleened from those messages was that the end result of either is about the same, either 700 or 800 end up in the mid-900 mhz OC speed at best... Results vary depending on whether you get the CBO stepping or even the newer CCO stepping, both of which OC better than the older variety.

You might be just as well off getting the 700E, since it may get you the same OC speed ultimately as the 800, AND it costs less. Read up on it, you may come to the same conclusion I did.

 

[kponds]

One thing that is not being discussed in the 700/800 debate is the performance effect of the ram speed. From what I have seen the 700 and 800 generally overclock to about the same level as far as Mhz and if I have to guess at an average speed (throwing out the duds) I would say its probably in the range of 960 mhz or so. The 800 may have an edge her but if so by an insignficant amount.

What bothersme here is the ram speed issue. If we assume that you had both a 700 and a 800 that could go to 960 Mhz, which would perform better. By calculating the FSB speed, you would have 137 Mhz for the 700e and 120 Mhz for the 800e. In a motherboard where you do not have the ability to overclock the memory (BX) the 700e is a better performer by a relatively significant amount as the FSB and the memory bus are running 14% faster than the 800e. If you have a VIA or an i815e chipset board where you can overclock the memory you possibly could overclock the memory in the 800 e application if your memory will run at 150 Mhz or more as the memory overclock would be running at FSB (120Mhz) + the PCI bus (30 Mhz minimum with a 1/4 divider).

With all that considered and the price factor between the two - the 700e is to me the better CPU to overclock.

 

[Believe]

wanabe, congrats on the MCSE. im studying for it myself
and kponds, thanks to you too.

everyone seems to agree the p3 700 is a better deal and i can see the merit in your thoughts. but one thing is bothering me. assuming i could get to 960mhz with the 700e, i believe that the PCI divider for a 100mhz chip is 1/3, which would mean my PCI bus would be running at 45.7mhz. and the divider for AGP is 2/3 so my AGP would be at 91.8. that sounds high to me, and im not sure my devices could handle it. theyve been fine at 37.3 (112/3 for PCI) but dont know how much they can stretch.
on the other hand, even with the limitations of a 133mhz bus, the PCI divider is 1/4, i believe, and the AGP is 1/2. with an 800eb running at 960mhz that would put the PCI at 40 and the AGP at 80mhz, more reasonable numbers for my devices. am i missing the boat here?
Believe

 

[kponds]

the PCI and AGP dividers have nothing to do with the CPU but with the FSB you are running on the motherboard. Keep in mind that when you OC a PIII 700e to 133 Mhz FSB (933 Mhz) there is no difference whatsoever to the motherboard with that CPU versus a PIII933eb (133 Mhz FSB) CPU. With the 700e overclocked to 933, the motherboard will kick in the 1/4 PCI and the 1/2 AGP dividers (assuming you have the MB set to auto). You can control this manually on this MB also I believe but who needs to.

 

[Believe]

kponds,
thanks. its been a long time since i thought about 0/cing and i forgot that. i think im set on the 700e. do you think it need any elaborate cooling?
believe

 

[thermite88]

The best overclock chip for the Asus P3V4X is any of the Celeron 2 CPU's. The Celeron-2 633 is probably the best value now. It is well under $100 and the chance of overclocking to 9.5x100 FSB is very good. If you also have good quality, PC133/CAS2 SDRAM, you can run the momory at 133 MHz frequency using the 100FSB/133memory setting. I found this to be the fastest. In fact, it runs faster than the BX board which only allows 100FSB and 100 memory.

If you buy a PIII-700 and plan to run at 133 FSB or above, the P3V4X will not be the optimal board. The BX or 815E boards beat the P3V4X hands down at 133FSB/133memory setting. I would recommend the Asus CUSL2 or CUSL2-C.

The Intel Coppermine CPU is a well designed chip that consumes 17-22 watts full load, dependent on model. With such low power consumption, almost any retail heatsink and fan combination should work fine.

For best value for the money, I recommend the Thermaltake Golden Orb. The cooling capacity is more than adequate and the latch design is extremely well done. It is almost impossible to mount the Golden Orb unevenly against the Coppermine. I cannot say the same for other HSF, including the Alpha.

For the same price, the Thermaltake Chrome Orb has a faster fan, but a conventional spring clip latch. It will cool a little better than the Golden Orb, but it is too big (interfer with the capacitors) to mount in some motherboards, such as Asus CUSL2. It will ideal for the P3V4X with a slotket.

The Alpha heat sink is a piece of engineering art, but expensive. It costs more than twice of the Golden Orb and usually cools no more than 2 degrees C lower than the Golden Orb. If you use a slotket, the Alpha will block some of the SIMM slots due to its height.

 

[Believe]

thermite,
good info, thanks. i COULD return the P3V4X up until tomorrow but am reluctant to do so w/o understanding what it is about the CUSL2 that is superior. are you saying that you just cant o/c as high or the board itself is just faster? how much of a difference are you talking about?
thanks for the info on the heatsinks too. ill go check them out
miles

 

[thermite88]

Clock for clock, the VIA Apollo 133A chip is not as fast as the Intel BX or 815E. Tom's hardware has the following assessment:



<< In the past VIA chipsets didn't enjoy the good reputation that Intel chipsets used to have. Most derivatives of the Apollo family lacked performance for generations, some of them were stillbirths and others suffered from bugs. Finally however, with the introduction of the Apollo Pro 133A, VIA has been offering the most competitive chipset ever - partly thanks to Intel's i820 disaster. The 440BX chipset may still be faster at the same FSB clock, but it was never designed for 133 MHz FSB. Thus it is missing the required multiplier in order to run the AGP within specs when running the FAB?(FSB?) at 133 MHz. So far, VIA is the only company offering a Pentium III chipset for 133 MHz FSB and PC133 SDRAM support, which will change in a few days however, when Intel officially releases i815/Solano. >>



See more detail at Tom's Hardware.

 

[damocles]

P3 700e cb0 stepped.

 

[Garster]

Allthough the P3V4X is getting a little old,it is still a very good board for tweeking.With the right hardware and bios settings this board is every bit as fast as a BX board.I've had 5 or 6 at one time or the other and all were very overclocker friendly.I think the only thing to watch out for with this board is memory,it doesn't take to kindly to low grade memory.But using high quality memory it is very stable and able to run high fsb settings.

 

[err]

I got 2 P3V4X running P3 700e. both hit 933 without a problem. Haven't tried higher.

If you haven't get any board, I would suggest CUSL over P3V4X. But don't despair if you are stuck with P3V4X, it is a super stable board.

eRr

 

[thermite88]

For the budget minded, I recommend a <$300 upgrade.

(1) Asus P3V4X, <$100
(2) Intel Celeron2 633@950, <$90
(3) KingMax PC-150, 128MB, <$80

For better performance and the next step up, a <$500 upgrade will do.

(1) Asus CUSL2-C, <120
(2) Intel P3-700@933, <$200
(3) KingMax PC-150, 256MB, <$170

Above that, the sky is the limit.

 

[Marine]

Believe,
If you're hard over on a VIA chipset, keep what you have. Remember it is now based on a chipset two years old. If you just don't want to return the board you have, I'd reconsider. I have systems built on VIA 133a(Tyan Trinity), BX, HX, and 815E chips. The 815E boards are so much more stable, easier to O/C, and forgiving of RAM, PCI cards and NICs that they are a pleasure to work with. My personal favorite is the CUSL2 and I have a 500E running Win2K at 750 on one that I haven't had to reboot in five months, including gaming, CD burning and graphics design.

 

[Marine]

Believe,
If you're hard over on a VIA chipset, keep what you have. Remember it is now based on a chipset two years old. If you just don't want to return the board you have, I'd reconsider. I have systems built on VIA 133a(Tyan Trinity), BX, HX, and 815E chips. The 815E boards are so much more stable, easier to O/C, and forgiving of RAM, PCI cards and NICs that they are a pleasure to work with. My personal favorite is the CUSL2 and I have a 500E running Win2K at 750 on one that I haven't had to reboot in five months, including gaming, CD burning and graphics design.