And so it begins again, this time with Intel's new Core2Duo

[Polizei]

I noticed that you are using ddr2 1000. Is that what you would recommend for building a new conroe system, or would a slower ram like ddr2 800 be okay?

 

Ive got some Corsair XMS2 DDR2-675 that, as far as I know, is rated at 4-4-4-12. Ive got it running on a 5:4 (DRAM:FSB) divider at 865MHz, 190MHz over spec. Im just saying that when you get quality RAM, you can push it pretty darn far before it hits its limit.

 

I would say that DDR2-800 would be fine, but if youve got the cash, what the hell, grab some DDR2-1000. I dont think you would ever get close to the limit of that RAM unless youre running something like a 550MHz FSB on one of these Core 2 processors, which would probably take liquid nitrogen or something else extreme.

 

I would save my money, but maybe thats because Im on a college budget.

[fmc_boss]

I've just spent my last 3 hours at work & then an hour here at home reading this entire thread, & i'm kinda numb...lol

All i can say is-

 

Hi all,

i need to use more cpu voltage,

i need better cpu cooling,

i need a drink.

 

Good intro, good info. I think i'll spend this sunday watching Bathurst & installing a new cpu cooler, & then ringing the 'round 2' bell to o/c this sucker

[Guest Neezer]

Ive got some Corsair XMS2 DDR2-675 that, as far as I know, is rated at 4-4-4-12. Ive got it running on a 5:4 (DRAM:FSB) divider at 865MHz, 190MHz over spec. Im just saying that when you get quality RAM, you can push it pretty darn far before it hits its limit.

 

I would say that DDR2-800 would be fine, but if youve got the cash, what the hell, grab some DDR2-1000. I dont think you would ever get close to the limit of that RAM unless youre running something like a 550MHz FSB on one of these Core 2 processors, which would probably take liquid nitrogen or something else extreme.

 

I would save my money, but maybe thats because Im on a college budget.

 

Thanks. I also am on a college budget, but will be off of one and onto a real persons salary in May. So I am thinking I am going to want to go conroe for my next upgrade. Should be a big step from whats in the old sig right now.

[red930]

Thanks. I also am on a college budget, but will be off of one and onto a real persons salary in May. So I am thinking I am going to want to go conroe for my next upgrade. Should be a big step from whats in the old sig right now.

 

Yeah...you'd probably notice the difference in about....oh...0.0074 seconds.

 

Roughly

[raju]

ive hit a point where I dont know if i can complete all of my benchmarking because my CFX3200-DR (socket 939 Crossfire) now refuses to do anything but reboot during heavy 3d benching while Crossfire is enabled...

 

 

strange indeed, any ideas what may have changed?

 

Are you on water with the cards or back on the stock coolers??

 

regards

Raja

[OldGuy]

Current prime session... 406 X 9. Failed immediately this morning with memory divider at 667 so I dropped to 533 and away she went. No increase to voltage and my temps are floating around from 63c to 70c which is much better than the pushing 82c during my OCDB run Flipped my blowhole fan around for intake and mounted a shroud to it to direct air onto my freezone unit. That and keeping my ambient around 80F look to be paying off.

 

 

If she's still going when I get home tonight I'll bump it to 412 and see how she fares...

[Angry_Games]

strange indeed, any ideas what may have changed?

 

Are you on water with the cards or back on the stock coolers??

 

regards

Raja

i think my CFX3200-DR is on it's last leg...I've abused it heavily in it's time and I am sure it is going to fail (as it already won't boot the first 3 or 6 times you power it on, and now crossfire reboots it on any heavy 3d)

[red930]

Current prime session... 406 X 9. Failed immediately this morning with memory divider at 667 so I dropped to 533 and away she went. No increase to voltage and my temps are floating around from 63c to 70c which is much better than the pushing 82c during my OCDB run Flipped my blowhole fan around for intake and mounted a shroud to it to direct air onto my freezone unit. That and keeping my ambient around 80F look to be paying off.

 

 

If she's still going when I get home tonight I'll bump it to 412 and see how she fares...

 

Looking good man!

 

You better hit 3700....or else.

 

Are you still using the Freezone cooler?

[OldGuy]

Looking good man!

 

You better hit 3700....or else.

 

Are you still using the Freezone cooler?

 

Yup..re-read I'm just "helping" it a little by giving it fresh air to breathe. I also decided why wait another 3 hours so I bumped it to 412 already...30 minutes and counting So it's back to work with fingers crossed...

[Edzard]

i think my CFX3200-DR is on it's last leg...I've abused it heavily in it's time and I am sure it is going to fail (as it already won't boot the first 3 or 6 times you power it on, and now crossfire reboots it on any heavy 3d)

 

Have you tried a power supply swap? Both of the scenarios associated with the failures you report correspond to heavy load conditions. Maybe your power supply is failing - perhaps being killed by the demands of the crossfire setup. Shouldn't take much time to do a quick swap and test, assuming you've got a second PS that will handle the power demands (and of course particularly the 12V rail demand) of your sytem.

 

Different subject but still extremely appropriate to this thread

Please refer to the review of the SI-120 heatsink at this URL:

 

http://www.pcmoddingmy.com/e107_plugins/co...p?content.307.4

 

Pay particular attention to the last chart on that page. That chart shows that for a P4 520 clocked at 3.5GHz, the RPM (and implicitly the CFM) of the fan used on the SI-120 can make a difference of 15 degrees C under load.

 

Your own analysis essentially states that a substantial percentage of your audience here at DFI-Street are mild overclockers. That implies that most of your readers are likely using air cooling. Given that the Core 2 Duos are apparently not entirely free from the "nuclear reactor syndrome" of their Prescott predessors, and given that you are not using the Thermalright-recommended Panaflo FBA12G12L1A fan on the SI-120 (for which it is easy to find specs), please either (1) post all the specs from the label on the fan you're using on the SI-120, including the manufacturer name and model designation; or (2) probably better - just take a crisp photo of the label on the fan, post it in this thread, and identify the photo as the label on the fan used on the SI-120.

 

The info requested above, from which the CFM rating can hopefully be obtained, should help the air-cooling folks here assess what is an appropriate cooling solution for the Conroe cores.

 

Thank you.

[Angry_Games]

Have you tried a power supply swap? Both of the scenarios associated with the failures you report correspond to heavy load conditions. Maybe your power supply is failing - perhaps being killed by the demands of the crossfire setup. Shouldn't take much time to do a quick swap and test, assuming you've got a second PS that will handle the power demands (and of course particularly the 12V rail demand) of your sytem.

 

uh

 

it ain't the psu

 

it's the board (i hate to sound like a know-it-all...but I'm pretty sure you can agree that I would be the guy to KNOW if the motherboard was the problem or not right?)

 

Your own analysis essentially states that a substantial percentage of your audience here at DFI-Street are mild overclockers. That implies that most of your readers are likely using air cooling. Given that the Core 2 Duos are apparently not entirely free from the "nuclear reactor syndrome" of their Prescott predessors, and given that you are not using the Thermalright-recommended Panaflo FBA12G12L1A fan on the SI-120 (for which it is easy to find specs), please either (1) post all the specs from the label on the fan you're using on the SI-120, including the model designation or (2) probably better - just take a crisp photo of the label on the fan, post it in this thread, and identify the photo as the label on the fan used on the SI-120.

 

um

 

I'm using an Arctic Cooling 120mm fan

 

what else is there that you need to know other than this?

 

I don't give a rat what 'recommended' fan Thermalright claims I should use

 

I grab a 120mm fan and it works

 

whether it's some red generic fan, a Coolermaster silent fan, a Pabst expensive ($24!) fan, an Arctic Cooling fan, a Sunon fan...it's a fan. It cools. It does the job.

 

I don't know nothing about no "recommended" fan since no SI-120 I ever bought came with a fan...if Thermalright or anyone else wants to say I gots to use some fancy-label fan, they best start including the fan right?

 

But see, they don't. I'd think that Thermalright, who has sent me...who knows how many free heatsinks of all kinds, would maybe include that piece of info but they never do because they honestly don't care what fan I use, since they are smart enough to know that any 120mm fan will do the trick (and ANY 120mm fan WILL do the trick).

 

but

 

if you REALLY want the exact specs of the fan...go look it up. I ain't got time to pull the fan off and go looking at labels. I only have time to attach a fan to the SI-120 and go go go go go go go go

 

fan specs bore me

 

overclocking to 3200Mhz on air with the SI-120 excites me

 

I like excitement

 

I don't like boring boredom

 

and I have to admit something to ya

 

I don't really read cooling reviews

 

honestly...I don't really read any reviews

 

I don't like 'em cuz they aren't really what I would term...real.

 

real reviews are guys like me (who, like me, can be real jerks sometimes) who buy the stuff or beg for stuff and then abuse it to death (if it could be killed that is). Then I come here and either praise whatever I tried to kill and couldn't, or I curse it's name until the end of eternity with nasty little insults like "my grandmother has more stable power in her pacemaker than this rotten power supply does!" and then I run away cackling like a cross between an asylum escapee and a traditional witch (the kind burned at the stake or that had the house dropped on 'em!).

 

but

 

hey...you know...that's just me.

 

I find if I get real anal about something, it isn't very much fun and it loses interest real quick. I mean, ain't the point of spending your money on something like a computer or xbox or iPod about using it, enjoying it, having fun with it?

 

All you guys...get so locked up in every last little comma of detail like Big Jeez 2000 cooler does 1.23213 degrees cooler than the Bad Momma XP-1 cooler does when it's exactly 65F in Tasmania on a July night...or some memory setting, or some cpu mhz, or who knows what.

 

I care just enough to know what I'm doing and relate it accurately to others, then I'm busy using the darn thing.

 

Instead of checking fan labels for specs to match up against some other fan (yawn!), I jam a fan on my heatsink and then load up FEAR and go blasting crazy telepathic soldier dudes.

 

I dig blasting crazy telepathic soldier dudes. It's lots of fun, and it exercises the computer (my computer needs it...it's all fat and bloated from too much online pizza ordering and beer forum reading...it could stand to lose a couple pounds for sure).

 

I don't dig trying to measure down to the last milliwatt just how much power exactly the 12u cap at location 190 is losing when I hook up Jimmy's Supa-Powa 600w psu vs my trusty standby DethMusheen GTZR 620w psu.

 

Btw, if you can find DethMusheen psu's in USA, you got to get one man...they are crazy fantastic. Powerful, and they have this eery, undead-green glow that emanates from inside it....pretty trippy stuff

 

 

The info requested above, from which the CFM rating can hopefully be obtained, should help the air-cooling folks here assess what is an appropriate cooling solution for the Conroe cores.

 

Thank you.

 

here's what is appropriate cooling for any Conroe:

 

1. the crappy stock cooler that comes with it which ain't so bad until you go overclocking then you want to punch Intel right in the mouth for still being cheap when you just spent $360-$580 for a cpu they made.

 

2. Any decent aftermarket heatsink...but before ya ask, lemme list the ones that I've tried (though if you ask me for all the fan specs I'll refer you back to my earlier text about how I like to have fun, not spend half the night tracking fan spec stats like some bad fantasy football league nightmare I can't wake up from)

 

Thermalright....you name it, it works. Remember to put a fan on it though. Yes...any fan will work. Go ahead, try those two you have in that old box...bet they work real nice.

 

Zalman....hey, if Zalman makes it, it works. Pretty darn good too. Can't put your own fan on these ones though, sorry.

 

Thermaltake Big and Mini Typhoon....heck yeah, they work. Like a champ, which is usually not heard in the same sentence as TT coolers...but they are quite good.

 

Ok well those are the ones I have.

 

They all work.

 

I'm pretty sure we can all agree that I know they work and I can be trusted to tell you guys that they work. I'm pretty sure also that I'd not tell ya they worked when I knew secretly they didn't work just so I could have a good laugh when you came back raging that the Ice-Cube X99 (ie: an empty tuna can and you drop an ice cube in it and it cools your cpu!) caused an electrical short, burned down your house, and how could I be so weak and lame as to recommend such a crap cooler that I obviously never tested myself (I did, and it burned my house down too, but I thought it might be fun to see if anyone else was dumb enough to use it after I already told everyone it burned my house down when I used it!).

 

 

 

so

 

 

the whole point of my post really is just a light-hearted way to say...

 

go look it up yourself...I'm sure any retailer that carries the Arctic Cooling fan has it's specs.

 

oh wait that wasn't my point

 

my point was/is...

 

if you find yourself being angry at my post, it means you take things just a little too seriously...and you should lighten up (oh and don't be so anal about what kind of fan someone is using....everyone has different results even using teh same exact hardware).

 

If I say "This Thermalright SI-120 took me to 3200Mhz on an E6600 and hit about 70C to 75C at full dual-core load while using an Arctic Silencer fan" then you can be 100% sure that I used an SI-120 + Arctic Cooling 120mm fan to take my E6600 to 3200Mhz while ranging around 70C to 75C on full load of both cores.

 

You might get 3755Mhz

 

Jimbo after you might only get 2750Mhz

 

Mikey might get 3Ghz even

 

Booger might only be able to do 2500Mhz but actually hit 2900Mhz with Intel's stock cooler

 

 

(you get where I am going with this....EVERYONE HAS DIFFERENT RESULTS...which is another reason I don't read cooling reviews because I ain't never gonna hit the same temp that Billy The 12-year Old Reviewer at BillsBadAssReviews.com did...even if I busted into his room, kicked his butt, and took his entire setup (heck, even stole his house just so I could test in his ambient temps!), and ran the test for myself.

 

(besides, everyone knows Billy couldn't attach a heatsink correctly if his life depended on it...neither can I for that matter but that is another story for another day)

 

 

 

 

 

on a side note, today the CFX3200-DR has decided to play nicely. After two days of constant rebooting or crashing out (which was preceded by a week of no problems, which was preceded by 4 days of me being very pissed off at it's shenannigans, which was yet again preceded by 12 days of me happily gaming without any issue), today it started running the benchmarks again.

 

How did I solve such an unsolvable equation!??? you might exclaim...if we lived in Literary Land.

 

EASY I would shout loudly, thumping my artificially hairy computer-gladiator-of-doom chest

 

I called it some colorful names that would make your gramma fall down dead and your dirty-mouthed brother even blanche at, threatened to kill it in many colorful and inventive ways (some that even gave myself the creeps bad and had to sleep with the night light on last night), and then shut it off and gave it the silent treatment until this afternoon.

 

 

Ya see, you got to have a plan of action, and stick to it.

 

Normally I'd be crying like a woman and begging it to PLEASE JUST WORK I'LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING YOU WANT

 

but sometimes, you gotta pity da fool like Mr T would do and

 

hrmmm...Mr T doesn't really have anything to do with anything in this but I do love me some Mr T booyah!

 

PITY DA FOO....FOO!

 

anyway

 

sometimes begging just don't work, and you have to resort to threatened violence.

 

not just ordinary violence...I mean, any wanna-be tough guy can threaten to "kick your butt" or "whip you good" but you got to know that any dirty computer that has busted you up this good this fast ain't gonna be intimidated by such girly threats.

 

No my friend, you must go for the big guns sometime.

 

I think the CFX3200-DR finally snapped when I delivered the threat to it that basically, in a nutshell, meant that it wouldn't have a shell left to protect it's nuts, in which I would begin to gleefully (and while singing classic Disney songs as loud as i could muster in a truly joyful voice) smash said nuts until smoke came out of it's orifices. Did I mention using the dull-end of an axe head as my smasher-weapon of choice?

 

I might not have in my insane glee of relating to you just how angry such a thing can make a person (I mean, you got to be TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY raging to be singing classic tunes such as....well any stupid classic disney tune honestly).

 

but anyway, to make a short story long, like I just have, the answer is "yellow + blue makes green".

[KimTjik]

Is this a new version of or a glimpse of a new coming "Overclocking Guide"?

 

I'm already preparing myself for a totally new approach! Every piece of hardware will beg on its knees for mercy.