Joining the Quad Club
Leonardo
Wake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, Alaska Icrontian
Well, it was time.
Today I moved into the next phase of cyclical upgrades on my home computers. Quad is on the way. I'll be upgrading one computer at a time, looking for bargains on processors and motherboards through online sales, forums, and maybe even Craigslist (mainly overpriced junk here in Alaska).
For starters, No. 1 (in signature) will be receiving a Q6600 and Abit IP35-E. I found the Q6600 used at a steep discount at another forum's trading section and the IP35-E is coming from Newegg. The IP35-E seems perfect for me: good overclocker; no unnecessary frills like Firewire, RAID, and SLI; and very inexpensive. In other words, it's a high performance board with a decent track record but lacking expensive luxuries that I wouldn't use anyway.
The Q6600 I purchased is a G0 stepping. The rest of the computer will essentially retain the components in that are in it now, which are proven and are quite capable. I will be swapping out the OS drive for an 80GB WD SATA. The DVD burner will run off the Abit's onboard IDE port and my second drive (IDE) will be connected to a PCI-IDE adapter.
I had been waiting for the technology - quad core and corresponding chipsets to mature and for prices to fall. Both conditions have been fulfilled in my opinion. (Additionally, I've also recovered from some awfully big household expenses this year.) I skipped the second generation dual core technology and am now jumping into quad.
I'll be migrating the other three computers over to quad as well. As this upgrading cycle will happen in stages relatively slowly, who know, Intel 45nm quad core or AMD Phenom might enter the mix as well. I'm not holding my breath for AMD. I have to say though, I'd love to build another AMD machine! Some nostalgia involved.
Wish me luck!
Comments on pros and cons of my parts choice are welcomed.
Today I moved into the next phase of cyclical upgrades on my home computers. Quad is on the way. I'll be upgrading one computer at a time, looking for bargains on processors and motherboards through online sales, forums, and maybe even Craigslist (mainly overpriced junk here in Alaska).
For starters, No. 1 (in signature) will be receiving a Q6600 and Abit IP35-E. I found the Q6600 used at a steep discount at another forum's trading section and the IP35-E is coming from Newegg. The IP35-E seems perfect for me: good overclocker; no unnecessary frills like Firewire, RAID, and SLI; and very inexpensive. In other words, it's a high performance board with a decent track record but lacking expensive luxuries that I wouldn't use anyway.
The Q6600 I purchased is a G0 stepping. The rest of the computer will essentially retain the components in that are in it now, which are proven and are quite capable. I will be swapping out the OS drive for an 80GB WD SATA. The DVD burner will run off the Abit's onboard IDE port and my second drive (IDE) will be connected to a PCI-IDE adapter.
I had been waiting for the technology - quad core and corresponding chipsets to mature and for prices to fall. Both conditions have been fulfilled in my opinion. (Additionally, I've also recovered from some awfully big household expenses this year.) I skipped the second generation dual core technology and am now jumping into quad.
I'll be migrating the other three computers over to quad as well. As this upgrading cycle will happen in stages relatively slowly, who know, Intel 45nm quad core or AMD Phenom might enter the mix as well. I'm not holding my breath for AMD. I have to say though, I'd love to build another AMD machine! Some nostalgia involved.
Wish me luck!
Comments on pros and cons of my parts choice are welcomed.
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Comments
If you plan on buying DDR2, now is the time sir. Prices are at the lowest point ever. Remember, these chipsets do not have a divider backwards meaning your can get totally gimped by ram unless you have good clocking ram. As long as they do 400mhz (DDR2800) in 1:1, you shouldn't have any problems.
I just recieved a nice DD3 board yesterday, and i am just waiting for DDR3 to arrive. I so look forward to that.
Got a Q6600 G0 the other day as well. Can't wait to see how it does!
Keep waiting. DRAM spot prices have been falling for a long time and for the consumer the future looks good.
Market is approaching the <$1 mark for 512Mb 667MHz DDR2 ICs with new 300mm fabs opening regularly. I know its now what most of us buy but the trend follows that standard.
I'll be stuck with my dual Xeons forever.....by the time I upgrade my desktop pc again quad's will probably be extinct.
The time was right, I tell you!
Getting Windows running was an absolute pain.
As far as monitoring tools, you probably know more than I do- however, despite your Alaskan clime, these Kentsfields and likely their siblings need to be watched pretty closely. Core Temp has proved itself more than once. Just today I noticed that the temps were getting pretty high and it turned out to be a fan with a poor connection. But you probably know this one and I'm probably not addressing what you have in mind.
However, I did want to take the opportunity to say that it's good to have you in the club and hope you enjoy these powerful babies
Update: Maybe I spoke too soon.
The board is listed as only $75 AR now so it might be a good time to jump on it.
Excellent value for the money if you don't need the frills such as onboard SATA RAID and Firewire.
The board is designed for overclocking - nice heatsinks on MOSFETs and Northbridge, and the excellent Abit Soft Menu BIOS.
So far, voltage regulation is not quite what I'd like to see. Seems to be a bit of a droop between CPU core BIOS set and actual. Most boards will have some droop, but I haven't observed much droop before at default CPU clock. There is a little bit here. I did have some minor instability and bumped up voltages across the board (no pun intended). Undervoltage is OK as long as there is a constant ratio between BIOS settings and actual voltage output. One can adjust for that. If it's not a linear relationship, then things get difficult. I have not started overclocking yet so I can't address that.
There is an annoying "double boot," meaning that upon startup the fans spin and components start to synchronize, to be followed by the computer shutting down and restarting. No harm is done, it's just annoying. Apparently subsequent BIOS revision(s) have cured that. I'll be updating the BIOS today. I'll probably also start overclocking.
Blackhawk, for your system, what CPU heatsink are you using? Also, which core of the four is the 60C reading from. For my testing for full load, I am using four instances of Prime95. Orthos or Folding@Home probably would be better, but I don't want to risk ruining SMP units in Folding. For your system, what constitutes a full load?
Full load for me was letting FAH SMP run for a few mins till the temps stabilized. Can't try it now since FAH is giving me file IO errors (google tells me it's due to hw instability).
At this moment, core 0 is giving the highest temp at 55°C (regular load) with the lowest reading being from core 2 (51°C).
A couple people have posted on the forums, stating Core Temp is better. I have no reason to disbelieve them, but where does this opinion come from?
What are some good rules of thumb for operating this beast with respect to heat? Yes, I've read here and there, including Intel's Q6600 specification page, but they never specify if it's overall "CPU" temperature or hottest single core.
I also ran four instances of Prime95 before I got SMP running, and my Prime95 temps were always 3-4 degrees higher than my SMP folding temps.
Hey, take a look here. I've hit a stability wall that may be PCI bus-related. Would appreciate your opinion.