Quad Questions
I can take advantage of a deal on a Q6600 Kentsfield quad-core (likely $350 or less).
This caught me off guard and I’m trying to do some research- so I thought I might throw it out to this community- because I don’t have the gear for it.
- It would Fold for Team 93.
- I’d like to OC it to 3.0GHz on air … ? I’m not going to push it to extreme OC as it will likely also be used by my son.
- (Q6600- the CPU clock is locked to 1066).
I’d like to ask for your thoughts and not spend over $600 on the following- (and would prefer change):
What motherboard would you suggest? Why?
What memory (2x1GB PC8500 or better)?
What cooling (air- please)?
PSU (I don’t expect to load more than more than 2 opticals, 2HDs and 1900AIW video)
Thanks
This caught me off guard and I’m trying to do some research- so I thought I might throw it out to this community- because I don’t have the gear for it.
- It would Fold for Team 93.
- I’d like to OC it to 3.0GHz on air … ? I’m not going to push it to extreme OC as it will likely also be used by my son.
- (Q6600- the CPU clock is locked to 1066).
I’d like to ask for your thoughts and not spend over $600 on the following- (and would prefer change):
What motherboard would you suggest? Why?
What memory (2x1GB PC8500 or better)?
What cooling (air- please)?
PSU (I don’t expect to load more than more than 2 opticals, 2HDs and 1900AIW video)
Thanks
0
Comments
2x1GB PC8000 or PC8500 - stick to the good brands (OCZ, Corsair, G.SKILL, Patriot, Crucial, Kingston...)
Thermalright Ultra-120
650w by HiPer, Thermaltake, Corsair, OCZ, FSP
As for ram, now is the time to buy. I just bought a 2 X 1 GB kit of G. Skill PC6400 HZ's for a little over $110 delivered from the Egg. These sticks use the Micron D9GMH chips that most all the super high overclocking sticks of ram use and there is no damn rebate to fill out either. I've seen some damn good prices on Crucial Ballistix PC8000 and PC8500 but it also involves a rather large rebate, which I despise dealing with. My G. Skills just came in the other day and I dropped them in my P5W DH rig and am presently running them at 370 MHz and 3-3-3-10 timings, no problems and with 2.2 volts vdimm.They will also clock over 500 MHz without too much hassle too, from what I've read and seen.
As for the P35 boards, I have no experience with them yet. I do know that if you are looking for a budget p965 board that kicks ass, the Gigabyte DS3 rev 1.3 I bought from the Egg for $99 will easily go past 500 fsb with just a simple replacement of the stock tim material on northbridge and southbridge with AS5. But I've heard that the quads can be picky about motherboards and high fsb speeds too.
I think Thrax is thinking Penryn support with the P35 boards- and I think he is right because the Kentsfield could be a museum piece this time next year. Too bad we don’t have any Penryns to try the P35s out with yet :?, but I think I may have some time now for more P35 reviews to hit the wire too.
The Thermalright 120 looks like a great cooler in the lab, but it also looks like they’re having some bad Quality Control issues (see Newegg reviews- there are too many to ignore). I also see that both Zalman and Thermaltake have new offerings I’d like to see some more numbers and comparisons on (the CNPS 9700 NT and P0401 V1 respectively).
Because the Q6600 has a locked multiplier my concern is being able to overclock the CPU a bunch without pushing the memory (1066 is about a good as it gets for a reasonable price right now). It also seems to be a power gobbler and heat problem- factors that make me even more willing to wait for prices to drop and look carefully at HSFs. I’ve not played with Intel since Northwood and that’s why I value the input from you all so much right now.
Overall, it looks like my best option is to be patient for a couple more weeks. It’s getting crazier in my life right now with lots of travel (my daughter has qualified for nationals in swimming again, is now eligible for international(!) competition (and is doing so) and they really like me in India and Europe for work. Proud but grrrrrrooooooooaning). So please drop a link here if you see something in the meantime.
Again- thanks everyone.
As for ram, buy you a 2 X 1 GB kit of ram such as the G. Skill PC6400 HZ's or any other sticks that are using the Micron D9GMH chips. They seem to most all be mad overclockers and will do over 500 MHz with enough volts. OCZ also makes ram using these memory chips too, if you want to do OCZ instead. I'm sure Mack or RyderOCZ could tell you the best "bang for the buck" sticks that OCZ sells. I'm also running some older OCZ sticks (Plat SLI PC7200's) in my Gigabyte board and I've had those sticks at 525 MHz with 5-4-4-14 timings at about 2.2 volts. They also use the D9GMH chips.
AS for the U-120 eXtreme, I have one. It's a very nice heatsink but the base finish wasn't the best in the world. It was not flat all the way to the edges of the base and it was also a little concave. It didn't take me more than an hour to lap the base though, so no big problem. The base on the U-120 I bought 3-4 months ago was much worse and took me a good 2 hours of lapping. Another heatsink I would recommend for a C2D or C2Q is the Tuniq Tower 120, which I also own. The base was pretty flat from the factory, it also comes with a fan that has a controller and it is in the same league as the regular U-120 in performance.
EDIT: Add hsf links
Tuniq Tower 120
Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme
Thermalright Ultra 120
Also, if you do decide to go with the Ultra 120 eXtreme, the mount they use lets it twist on top of the processor pretty easily. I put a strip of duct tape across the top of the heatsink base to give a little more holding pressure and to give the clamping mechanism some more grip and it holds well, even with my Frankenfan installed on it. I wouldn't advise the Zalman as it just doesn't perform as well as the U-120's or TT-120. This was also found to be true by testing at Anandtech on their heatsinks tests. They are doing some really good heatsink testing at Anandtech with great methodology being used.
975X will probably not support Penryn.
X38 definitely will support Penryn
P35 definitely will support Penryn.
Links please, Thrax. Is this a vrm issue or what? I know I saw something on some Computex coverage that showed a badaxe2 with a Penryn, but the board had to be modified. And why not p965?
Not being a smartass, just have the need to know and I haven't been following Penryn support.
single post
Thread where post originated.
Furthermore eVGA has publicly stated that their 680i boards will support Penryn.
post 12 in this thread.
So I guess the moral of this story is: "Maybe or Maybe not" with your older 975 or p965 mobo. It all depends on how greedy the mobo manufacturer of your choice is on making you buy a new mobo.
I think this and other things can also be why Penryn has been pushed back so much. Unless I’ve missed something, they’ve also been talking up launching with 1333, even 1600MHz FSBs for quite a while. However, there are currently no DDR2 memory boards I know of that will run at those rates- and 1600s I haven’t even seen on the market in any flavor.
From what I can tell, Penryn is ready to ship today. I’m seeing performance reviews starting to pop up (e.g. ref Maximum PC 7/7). I wonder if Intel is waiting for everything else to catch up with P35 mobos and DDR3 sticks. I’m pretty sure they do it this way so everyone they need to do business with gets a piece of the pie.
Still, the idea of getting a jump with a P35 is certainly tempting- but is it really? I’m just not sure yet that a P35-DDR2 board is a better investment than a good 975- keeping Penryn in mind- but I’m hoping we have some interesting head-to-heads pretty soon.
As far as Penryn goes, I think that Intel probably is working out some last minute bugs in the process shrink. I have read that the Penryn's they are testing now don't overclock real well/not a whole bunch of headroom. Maybe Intel is doing one more stepping change to refine the core further. After all, it's not like AMD is actually pushing them any as far as competition is concerned in either dual core or quad core.
Hope they OC Okay. Understand, I'm not after speed records- I'd be glad if it gets a Q6600 to 3.0GHz.