My Upgrade to Quad Core.....

Ivan · Mar 2009

Krazeyivan · Apr 2009

Right just a quick update - my Rig is fully stable in Prime95 (all tests) and Intel BurnTest and LinX (based on the linpack test) they fully completed with max stress.

Scary with Linpack - temps went to 79c when doing max stress test using full memory settings. PWM temps touched 80c - thats warm!

Planned testing - Next up is follow Leonardo's 3.5Ghz suggestion - test that, then hopefully get a nice 3.6Ghz.
Then assuming I can get 3.4Ghz-3.6Ghz stable I'll work on voltages to CPU,NBridge,RAM at each level to get it as lean as possible.

To be honest at my current 3.4Ghz this CPU is very strong I suspect it will not need much beyond stock voltage.

Here is the super stable 3.4Ghz test settings (mentioned above)

CPU - BIOS (1.39v) idle (1.36v) load (1.30v) LinpackLoad (1.27v)
DDR2 - 2.0v
CPU VTT - Stock is 1.2v, Currently (1.27v)
MCH - Stock (1.25v) Currently (1.41v)
ICHIO - Stock (1.5v) Currently (1.55v)
ICH - Stock (1.05v) Currently (1.09v)

Idle System temp - 29c
Idle PWM temp - 36c

Krazeyivan · Apr 2009

I'm going for most replys to self...... :P
Its hopefully a useful guide for others following my brain dump!

Same settings straight to 389x9 (3.5Ghz - 3510 exact) no problem
Booted Windows XP fine (dual boot config here)
Straight to Prime95 - CPU stress first - FAIL after 7 mins on core 4

So 1.39v in BIOS = Fail 7mins core 4
Upped 1 step to 1.40v and currently retesting.......
RESULT - 1.40v in BIOS = Fail 11mins core 4

Love me a challenge! :)

BuddyJ · Apr 2009

1.45v? I hate Prime95 core failures. They're so disheartening. Especially the "rounding error" ones.

Your load voltages seem low. Maybe a PSU upgrade is in order? Then again, your PSU is pretty awesome. :confused2

Krazeyivan · Apr 2009

Hi Buddy J

This board does not have the vdroop mod - its a top quality board but she suffers from the droop - still very happy with this processor mind

I went for 1.43v and its priming away as I type :)

load temps have gone to 70c with prime95 and PWM temps are high 70s which is not good but hey its stressful!

Krazeyivan · Apr 2009

PS - SuperPI at 3.5ghz was 14.891 secs

BuddyJ · Apr 2009

Nice!

Krazeyivan · Apr 2009

Thanks!

Anyway seems 1.43v did the job its over 1.5hours stable now.... Temps all round are at the comfortable limit (I dare not run linpack if prime is hitting 70c!) - I think this may be my winter setup to keep the house warm! - but 3.4Ghz is a very easy clock all round with my rig, its a lazy sweetspot!

Donut · Apr 2009

Good job! Time and patience are the keys.

Krazeyivan · Apr 2009

Yes its often a battle of wanting to use it straight away and getting it running perfectly which takes a lot of time testing!

djmonsta · Jul 2009

Hey.. Nice work, i'm reading your thread with lots of interest.

First question... Having used and OC'ed both duo and quad, which overall would you say is better? I know i'm gonna have a flood of people say quad but i wanna hear it from someone who has used both. I have a E8600 and have had it stable at 3.85GHz, but really don't need that much speed, and don't wanna shorten the life of my very expensive CPU..

Secondly... Your SuperPi time seems quite high for an OC'd Quad, my first one was 13.840 (i think) when everything was stock, and i got it down to 12.047 while at 3.85GHz (proof on this site), is there anything you can do to get the time down like close all programs etc. etc..

Thirdly.. Well done on building a nice rig!!

MAGIC · Jul 2009

It depends on your goals. With duo you will get higher FSB which is better for some things.

lordbean · Jul 2009

For gaming (and after having used both for a decent while) I have to say I prefer duo's. The potential max speed you can hit on them is usually higher than a quad, and there are quite a few games out there that actually have compatibility problems with CPUs that have more than 2 cores. I'm currently running a core 2 quad Q9450 @ 3.6GHz and it's nice, but I don't think it honestly warranted the extra money it took to upgrade over my old core 2 duo.

Incidentally, I use a thermaltake big typhoon CPU cooler with arctic silver thermal paste. With room ambient 24c (hot because it's fairly enclosed) and running prime95 small FFTs my CPU maxes out at 65,65,65,65. Arctic silver's amazing at balancing heat.

djmonsta · Jul 2009

Yeah i heard that a lot of stuff is being developed to use 2 cores, not 4, therefore rendering the extra 2 pointless!!

Snarkasm · Jul 2009

If anybody's moving into parallel computations and isn't optimizing it to scale across as many cores are available, they're doing it wrong.

_k_ · Jul 2009

lordbean what vcore you at underload with that clock

lordbean · Jul 2009

@ Snarkasm: Agreed. However, an irritating number of apps seem to have more trouble on a quad-core CPU.

@ _k_: 1.280vcore at full load. At idle as well, actually. The vdroop control on this board is amazingly good.

Krazeyivan · Sep 2009

djmonsta said:
Hey.. Nice work, i'm reading your thread with lots of interest.

First question... Having used and OC'ed both duo and quad, which overall would you say is better? I know i'm gonna have a flood of people say quad but i wanna hear it from someone who has used both. I have a E8600 and have had it stable at 3.85GHz, but really don't need that much speed, and don't wanna shorten the life of my very expensive CPU..

Secondly... Your SuperPi time seems quite high for an OC'd Quad, my first one was 13.840 (i think) when everything was stock, and i got it down to 12.047 while at 3.85GHz (proof on this site), is there anything you can do to get the time down like close all programs etc. etc..

Thirdly.. Well done on building a nice rig!!

Very sorry for the delay in some sort of response - been busy with other things
My 6300 was never the best chip to be honest it was fine to 2.9Ghz and then would not budge over that it was a very early Core 2 Duo.
I love my quad I utilise the cores a lot with encoding and its WAY faster I'll never be going back to dual core - next upgrade will be at 32nm and 12 threads or even AMD's 12 core processor.

My SuperPi I'm not too concerned with - its memory sensitive and I've 8Gb so its stressful for the board if you wind it tight.

Thanks for the feedback on the rig!

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