OC MB for E8400?? ddr2 1066 or 800?

[FwoGiZ]

computer mainly for online FPS and home theater
i wanna OC my E8400 as much as i can on my mb..
is it possible to get it to 4ghz (450fsb i think?) and then use some 2x2gb ddr2 1066mhz in dual channel?
also, does that make sens or should i be aware of anything else??
x38? p35? 780i?
MORE INFO
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/249490-30-780i-e8400

Tx a lot in advance for your opinions/expertise
fWo

 

[Evilonigiri]

If you're not going for SLI, I'd stay away from those boards. A good P35, like the ASUS P5k-e, is much better in OCing. Intel and Nvidia hates each other

 

[mihirkula]

^...As he said..... there are a lot of horror stories regarding Nvidia boards/drivers .... i suggest you stay away from SLI. ............ASUS P5k-E or Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L are better options.

Which GPU do you have in mind though?

 

[FwoGiZ]

im gonna use the new gf9900 when they re out...
and the reason i wanna get 780i is that i will buy another gf9900 in like a year or two (when the price drops) so i can have something pretty nice for a bit longer
i have indeed read a some horror stories but i read a few good stories too... i know i can reach 4ghz but what im wondering is if i can use some 1066mhz dual channel ddr2 with that.. any idea?

 

[Perp]

4ghz at what multiplier and FSB?

 

[hughyhunter]

If you're not going for SLI, I'd stay away from those boards. A good P35, like the ASUS P5k-e, is much better in OCing. Intel and Nvidia hates each other

^...As he said..... there are a lot of horror stories regarding Nvidia boards/drivers .... i suggest you stay away from SLI. ............ASUS P5k-E or Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L are better options.

Which GPU do you have in mind though?

You guy's haven't been over to xtremesystems have you!? I have had my FSB at 500mhz stable for weeks. Only dropped it down to stay cool for the summer. My E8400 has ran 4.05ghz on a 450FSB with very little voltage for months. It runs at 3.6ghz without touching voltages on anything. Only thing I do is drop vcore below the auto setting because I dont need 1.325v for 3.6ghz. I use 1.225. These 780i boards rock for overclocking. Much better than the older 680i, the FSB max I've seen comes very close to X38... obviously not as high but who runs a 550mhz FSB anyway? Only for benchmarking!

 

[hughyhunter]

im gonna use the new gf9900 when they re out...
and the reason i wanna get 780i is that i will buy another gf9900 in like a year or two (when the price drops) so i can have something pretty nice for a bit longer
i have indeed read a some horror stories but i read a few good stories too... i know i can reach 4ghz but what im wondering is if i can use some 1066mhz dual channel ddr2 with that.. any idea?

You can use whatever memory you want... 1066, 1000, or 800. Just make sure it's EPP memory. It performs for stably on the 780i. My choice would be the reaper from OCZ. Get the 800mhz or 1066 kit.
My 800mhz I run unlinked at 800mhz with a 1800mhz FSB. Runs super smooth and crisp in windows! Prime blend stable for over 24hours. Gives you a 9:8 multi unlinked. I've found this to be super efficient. Anything above 1800mhz and memory wont be stable. I've also linked it @ 1:1 and loosened up timings for 900mhz and it ran stable as well. I like the lower timings however.
1066mhz memory you can link and sync it or unlink it and run it at 1000mhz while you are running a 1800mhz FSB. That will give you a 8:9 ratio I believe.
I dont know... I've found by sticking with whole number ratios even on "unlinked" gives more stability. Linked I have a hard time with... It's fine at 1800mhz but anything above that I have to run higher timings and dont really like that.

 

[Evilonigiri]

You guy's haven't been over to xtremesystems have you!? I have had my FSB at 500mhz stable for weeks. Only dropped it down to stay cool for the summer. My E8400 has ran 4.05ghz on a 450FSB with very little voltage for months. It runs at 3.6ghz without touching voltages on anything. Only thing I do is drop vcore below the auto setting because I dont need 1.325v for 3.6ghz. I use 1.225. These 780i boards rock for overclocking. Much better than the older 680i, the FSB max I've seen comes very close to X38... obviously not as high but who runs a 550mhz FSB anyway? Only for benchmarking!

Nope, I haven't been to xtremesystems. But I have been here on TH. Read quite a few issues with the board.

Perhaps they got unlucky. Or you got lucky.

 

[FwoGiZ]

tx a lot hughyhunter for the tips and info!
but i am unsure about what u meant!! im not very knowledgeable bout those things... what do u mean by "linked and unlinked" memory?
i wanna get around 4ghz on my E8400 so as you said, i ll prolly put my FSB to 450mhz... so if i understand well, the best RAM i could get would be 2x2gb 900mhz and that would be in dual channel right? or would i have to play with some other settings??
also, its gonna be alright if im planning to add another 2x2gb to end up with 4x2gb eventually, righT?

 

[hughyhunter]

Linked simply is a setting in the bios that means that your memory is linked to your cpu frequency or FSB.

So stock settings of an E8400 are 333mhz, most Intel boards by default link your memory and the ratio is set to sync or 1:1. So 1:1 would give you 333mhz on the memory. Simply multiply that number times 2 (dual channel or double data makes it twice the value... I think it's on of those) and you have 667 rounded up.

Now since it's "linked" when you adjust the 333mhz FSB of the cpu (in my case for my 780i it's quad pumped motherboard FSB... meaning 1333 by default... same thing though) to say 400mhz for a 3.6ghz overclock on E8400 (assuming you left multiplier to 9) you now will have 800mhz on the memory. All the way up to a maximum motherboard overclock of low to mid 500's.

So theoretically if all you wanted was 4.05ghz of 450mhz FSB you should get some low latency 800mhz memory... it should overclock to 900 no problem as long as you "loosen" the timings. Say your timings are 4-4-4-12 normally. You can loosen them to 5-5-5-15 and typically it should run without error at 900mhz. Or you can do it the other way which is get faster 1066+ memory and run it at the lower 900mhz frequency and "tighten" timings. I have seen some get some very low timings doing this which IMHO is better than the high frequency.

When you unlink and adjust the FSB it will leave the memory alone. Simple as that. There are stability issues that you have to tweak around with in the unlinked territory. For example.... I have 800mhz memory. I leave it at 800mhz unlinked with a 450mhz overclock. It is smooth and stable, but if I adjust it higher to an odd number like 453mhz it looses it's stability quickly. I think this is due to it's multiplier even though it's unlinked... but not positive. Also some say "linked" provides more stability. I have yet to see that on my motherboard above 4.05ghz.

In order to run 8GB memory you must have 64 bit OS. That's all!

 

[Evilonigiri]

You may want to read this: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3279&p=4

I don't think this applies to all 790i motherboards, however some threads here had similar problems posted.

 

[FwoGiZ]

woah tx a lot man!!!!!!!
so basically; put 780i fsb to 450mhz instead of 333mhz
OC E8400 up to 4ghz
and run the 1066mhz memory at 900mhz so it can run in dual channel
right?
if yes, im all set for my order??!

and yup i will have vista64 with those jewels^^

 

[lucuis]

For SLI if you plan on waiting 1-2 years before buying the second car i wouldn't bother. By the time you wanna buy the second card there will be single card solutions that'll out perform the duel cards you have.

Either way, i wish you luck

 

[hughyhunter]

For SLI if you plan on waiting 1-2 years before buying the second car i wouldn't bother. By the time you wanna buy the second card there will be single card solutions that'll out perform the duel cards you have.

Either way, i wish you luck

I totally agree. Say in a year you want to buy another card. But the cheapest one you can find is for around $100 used. Now by then you'll be able to get a single card that will beat your dual card system for about the same price. I remember last September I wanted a new card very bad. I had a 6600GT. I was about to buy the 7950GT. Very close to buying this sucker... in fact I ordered it. I paid $199 on tigerdirect... I wanted this card because I needed an upgrade and didnt want to spend the $299 for the 320mb GTS card, and this was only one month before G92. Now the 8800GT performs about 2.1 times faster than the 7950GT on average (according to TH charts) so by waiting one month I only paid $279 for a card that was twice as fast as a card that I was about to pay $199 for. Now let's say I already had a 7950GT. I wanted SLI... same difference. Instead of getting another one I should opt for the 8800GT instead for only $79 more because it will be faster than two 7950GT in SLI.

Bottom line is: If you want SLI you should only opt for it if you want the performance that's better than the fastest card. The only reason I would do SLI is if you want something that is faster than let's say the 9800GX2. So you would get two of those.

 

[FwoGiZ]

yeah i guess... so 780i is quite useless for me!!
which board would fit me?? x38, p35? wut r the differences?? :X

 

[Evilonigiri]

X38s are basically better OCers than the P35s and also costs more. The P5K-E from ASUS is one of the best P35 mobos out there. It has a wide array of options with tons of voltage settings to pin point your exact needs. It also has the famous Load Line Calibration which reduces Vdroop. You can also hit 500MHz FSB with em! Not guaranteed though.

 

[hughyhunter]

^^ agreed. Just a bit better on the overclocking an also has support for Crossfire. So essentially the X38 will be useless to you also. I would stick with P35 or if you are patient get P45 in a few weeks.

 

[FwoGiZ]

woah tx a lot for that help!!
only got one last question!!!!
its bout the RAM with p35... is it possible to dual channel DDR2 1066mhz??? do i need to buy "EPP" ram??
im not too willing to OC RAm cuz i dont think its worth it, for the price, id rather just get some higher ram for 20$more !
also, im lookin at 2 dif p35 boards and they re pretty much the same but i was wondering which one has the best onboard sound...
ADI® AD1988B on the p5k-e
or Realtek ALC 883 on the p5k
tx a lot once again both of u specially!!;3

 

[Evilonigiri]

Erm...Pretty much all ram out there these days are dual channel.

Just buy a set of ram which includes 2 sticks of ram, they are most definitely dual channel and P35 mobos will support it. EPP isn't necessary, it's more advertising then anything imo.

Stick with the P5k-e. I'm not too confident in the OCing ability of the P5k. Besides, you can always buy a sound card instead, which is much better than onboard.

If you're interested in the best sound card for the best price, here it is: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132006

And you're welcome, mate, anytime.

 

[hughyhunter]

In regards to memory stick with 800mhz for a P35 board. Remember: 1066mhz memory has to be optimized in the bios to run at 1066mhz. It wont run those speeds at default.

 

[Evilonigiri]

In regards to memory stick with 800mhz for a P35 board. Remember: 1066mhz memory has to be optimized in the bios to run at 1066mhz. It wont run those speeds at default.

While you do have a point, it's probably better to go with 1066MHz ram. In order to get into the realms of 4GHz, you'll need at least a 444MHz FSB, which equates to 888MHz. I'm sure most 800MHz ram could do this, but FwoGiZ stated he's not too keen on OCing ram. With the falling prices of ram, why not spend a little extra for 1066MHz?

 

[hughyhunter]

While you do have a point, it's probably better to go with 1066MHz ram. In order to get into the realms of 4GHz, you'll need at least a 444MHz FSB, which equates to 888MHz. I'm sure most 800MHz ram could do this, but FwoGiZ stated he's not too keen on OCing ram. With the falling prices of ram, why not spend a little extra for 1066MHz?

Your right... perfect selection here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231145

 

[FwoGiZ]

wow.. this rams seems pretty nice indeed for its price!! ;P but i sadly cannot buy from newegg since its USA only and they wont even ship ta canada...... so im stuck with ncix.com ; nice thing is that RIGHT now they re having a mega sale for their 12th anniversary and the prices r ridiculously low... and no shipping fee if u buy vista!!
id prolly get this one
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=28032&vpn=OCZ2P10004GK&manufacture=OCZ%20Technology
or this one
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=29797&vpn=F2-8000CL5D-4GBPI&manufacture=G.SKILL

if im OCing the FSB to 2000, then 1000mhz ram would be perfect right?

 

[hughyhunter]

Awesome... go with the OCZ. And yes... It will be perfect for a 2000mhz FSB overclock.

 

[Shadow703793]

@OP:

If you are planing on getting RAM natively higher than DDR2 800 be aware that there will be compatibility issues. Many users reports and my personal testing has shown that there is a very good chance you will run in to issues with RAM higher than DDR2 800, such as DDR2 1066. I recommend you get quality DDR2 800 RAM and run them at 1:1 ratio or overclock the RAM. This issue dose not apply to DDR2 800 RAM that has been overclocked.