Quote: Originally Posted by reflux that's absolutely free extra performance.

Not absolutely free... you pay in extra heat output, which in summer is a killer. Extra on the electricity bill (albeit small...) and reduced chip lifespan...

I shall be keeping tabs on this thread since I wanna upgrade to a quaddie and newer mobo too. Not sure if its worth the money at the moment though. Does the Q6600 have a 1333mhz bus?

Quote: Originally Posted by Dex I shall be keeping tabs on this thread since I wanna upgrade to a quaddie and newer mobo too. Not sure if its worth the money at the moment though. Does the Q6600 have a 1333mhz bus?

Well here's the current list of multithreaded games I can think of (current and yet to be released):

-Unreal Tournament 3
-Bioshock
-Crysis
-Supreme Commander
-Alan Wake
-World In Conflict

I just thought it made sense, since I could afford an upgrade, to get something that would be nicely futureproofed. The Q6600 still runs at 1066, but at 3.3ghz which seems to be what most B3s top out at, you're looking at a 1650mhz FSB x8 multi.

That said, there's certainly nothing wrong with your E4300, that to a Q6600 is hardly like A64 to Core 2 Duo.

I've just blown £40 on my 4th heatsink...decided the Scythe Mine (which replaced the Noctua 90mm, which replaced the Artic Cooling Freezer 7) wasn't cutting it and got a Tuniq Tower. You'll probably need to upgrade your cooling if you go quaddie, these chips put out serious heat.

*As a side note, if anyone is interested in any of the above coolers, PM me

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux I've just blown £40 on my 4th heatsink...decided the Scythe Mine (which replaced the Noctua 90mm, which replaced the Artic Cooling Freezer 7) wasn't cutting it and got a Tuniq Tower. You'll probably need to upgrade your cooling if you go quaddie, these chips put out serious heat.

Why not a ThermalRight 120, they've been proven to be better and only £1 more.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dex Not absolutely free... you pay in extra heat output, which in summer is a killer. Extra on the electricity bill (albeit small...) and reduced chip lifespan... I shall be keeping tabs on this thread since I wanna upgrade to a quaddie and newer mobo too. Not sure if its worth the money at the moment though. Does the Q6600 have a 1333mhz bus?

These are very minor drawbacks in the larger picture, when you add the cost of a new 3ghz CPU to the mix...Intel charges around 1k for that privealge (At least before the recent price drops)

Most 200$ E6600 series CPU's will run that at or near default voltage, and therefore, near stock temps!

It's when you start pushing for 3.4-3.8ghz and puoring in 1.5v or moer that heat becomes a real issue.

The reduced lifespan on a properly cooled OC'd chip is not realy an issue when you consider they are desgined to last 10+ years of everyday use, most CPU's that are 5+ years old are only fit for a keychain typically

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux I just thought it made sense, since I could afford an upgrade, to get something that would be nicely futureproofed. The Q6600 still runs at 1066, but at 3.3ghz which seems to be what most B3s top out at, you're looking at a 1650mhz FSB x8 multi. That said, there's certainly nothing wrong with your E4300, that to a Q6600 is hardly like A64 to Core 2 Duo. I've just blown £40 on my 4th heatsink...decided the Scythe Mine (which replaced the Noctua 90mm, which replaced the Artic Cooling Freezer 7) wasn't cutting it and got a Tuniq Tower. You'll probably need to upgrade your cooling if you go quaddie, these chips put out serious heat.

The new GO stepping Q6600's are doing a bit better then the B-3's, Killert has been running his at 3.8GHZ with water cooling, I'd bet 3.6GHZ is easily done with high end air cooling.

They are curretnly getting over 300$ for them, but prices should drop to Intel's target of 266$ in a month or two as the initial high demand goes down.

If your happy with your rig as is for the games you play now, I'd wait a bit to go Quad, especially if you can make it to 08, the next gen 45NM CPU's are going to be a very nice jump in performance...or you can todays chips at a bargain price!

It's not a terrible time to upgrade though, so if you feel the need to splurge, you won't be wasting your money either.

Quote: Originally Posted by Zaltan Why not a ThermalRight 120, they've been proven to be better and only £1 more.

I had a look at that, and it performed pretty badly in Hexus.net's 25 cooler megatest and I wanted something with a fan control. Also, the ThermalRight 120 was £10 more than the Tower on OCUK, and seems to only better it by 1 or 2 degrees, so I didn't judge it worth the cost.

Quote: Originally Posted by $Solids Necro$ The new GO stepping Q6600's are doing a bit better then the B-3's, Killert has been running his at 3.8GHZ with water cooling, I'd bet 3.6GHZ is easily done with high end air cooling.

That's odd, he told me he had a B3 stepping and was running it for benchmarks at 3.7ghz, with everyday use at 3.4ghz. My B3 will do 3.5 Pi stable, and I've just b0rked the Tuniq on to it so let's see if it'll do 3.4 or 5 everyday stable.

Yeah, I got to 3.8Ghz on chilled water, 3.7Ghz on water and 3.4-3.5Ghz 24/7 @ 1.46v

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux I had a look at that, and it performed pretty badly in Hexus.net's 25 cooler megatest and I wanted something with a fan control. Also, the ThermalRight 120 was £10 more than the Tower on OCUK, and seems to only better it by 1 or 2 degrees, so I didn't judge it worth the cost.

The thermalright ultra 20 extreme blow the pants off of the tuniq tower, it has 6 heatpipes, and is the best air cooler on the market.

Read anandtech when you go to read reviews...

And frostytech has a list of there sinks, from best sounding to best temp. They use the somewhat same fans on each, at least however big the cooler hold, a average case fan is used. I don't care for there testing so much, they take lots of pictures, but i like there chart.

the 120 extreme has been on top for some time.

Interesting, but FrostyTech haven't reviewed the Tower, and they also rate the Zalman 9700 very highly which seems rather erroneous as I haven't heard much good about that. Meh, the difference between the ThermalRight and Tower is only about 3c average, and that isn't an extra £10 imo.

Interesting, you just paid £180 for an extra 3 seconds in SuperPi

Quote: Originally Posted by Dex Interesting, you just paid £180 for an extra 3 seconds in SuperPi

It would be twice as fast as the E6300 in WPrime, if that isn't worth £180 I don't know what is.

Heh, thats not worth £180 in my books, having never used WPrime

So any news on when the X-38 boards will hit the UK?

Quote: Originally Posted by Dex Interesting, you just paid £180 for an extra 3 seconds in SuperPi

Yeah, and quad core support, so I can run multithreaded games (which happen to be all the games I want to play) better than you mere mortals with dual-core CPUs

Oh, and I overclocked my memory to 1.2ghz today, 5-5-5-12, so even if the CPU isn't a massive performance upgrade, the P35 northbridge sure is.

O great I just spent $309 on a Striker Extreme (680i based) and you guys are telling me I blew my cash....awsome.

Quote: Originally Posted by Spatha O great I just spent $309 on a Striker Extreme (680i based) and you guys are telling me I blew my cash....awsome.

Not really. That's the best AM2/SLI board out there. Period.

The P35 boards do not support SLI, and the X38 boards... well, nobody is 100% sure if they will support SLI.

Quote: Originally Posted by DickNervous Not really. That's the best AM2/SLI board out there. Period. The P35 boards do not support SLI, and the X38 boards... well, nobody is 100% sure if they will support SLI.

Thank god, I don't get it though dose everything in your system have to support SLI, like take the ram for instance I was totally going to arm this thing with 4 dims of OCZ Reaper HPC Edition (mentioned earily but it dosn't say sli support but the Corsair mentioned earlier dose say it supports SLI is that something that needs to be taken into account. I fugured every new motherboard would at least support some sort of SLI / Crossfire by now.

I'll also say I'm getting a quad core very very soon. Ya the next chips are coming out in 08 but then in 09 theirs even going to be better ones, its the same argument I'm just sick of machines that don't push hard enough. I might not get a QX6850 though and just get a Q6700 aparently its $500 bucks for them to add a X to the name. QX6700 is $1059 (agreeing with reflux)

Quote: Originally Posted by Spatha Thank god, I don't get it though dose everything in your system have to support SLI, like take the ram for instance I was totally going to arm this thing with 4 dims of OCZ Reaper HPC Edition (mentioned earily but it dosn't say sli support but the Corsair mentioned earlier dose say it supports SLI is that something that needs to be taken into account. I fugured every new motherboard would at least support some sort of SLI / Crossfire by now.

The key to SLI is that the motherboard must have a chipset that supports it and your power supply must have the juice and connectors that are required. And of course the video cards must support it. The whole thing with the SLI Memory is a marketing ploy. It just means that Corasir and nVidia tested the RAM in SLI systems (ie: with the nVidia chipsets) and found that it works very well.

And so far, there are no motherboards that support SLI and Crossfire. SLI is currently only supported by nVidia chipsets, though there is rumors of that changing with the X38 from Intel. Crossfire is supported by Intel and AMD/ATI chipsets. If nVidia licesnes the tech to Intel to make SLI chipsets, than Intel will have the ability to make a chipset that support both. However, I am not sure if a motherboard can be built to support both. I don't know how they work at the electrical level.

Quote: Originally Posted by Spatha I'll also say I'm getting a quad core very very soon. Ya the next chips are coming out in 08 but then in 09 theirs even going to be better ones, its the same argument I'm just sick of machines that don't push hard enough. I might not get a QX6850 though and just get a Q6700 aparently its $500 bucks for them to add a X to the name. QX6700 is $1059 (agreeing with reflux)

Just keep in mind that the Striker is a 680i chipset that supports the AMD CPUs, not Intel. The QX6850 and the others you mentioned are all Intel chips.

Quote: Originally Posted by DickNervous The key to SLI is that the motherboard must have a chipset that supports it and your power supply must have the juice and connectors that are required. And of course the video cards must support it. The whole thing with the SLI Memory is a marketing ploy. It just means that Corasir and nVidia tested the RAM in SLI systems (ie: with the nVidia chipsets) and found that it works very well. And so far, there are no motherboards that support SLI and Crossfire. SLI is currently only supported by nVidia chipsets, though there is rumors of that changing with the X38 from Intel. Crossfire is supported by Intel and AMD/ATI chipsets. If nVidia licesnes the tech to Intel to make SLI chipsets, than Intel will have the ability to make a chipset that support both. However, I am not sure if a motherboard can be built to support both. I don't know how they work at the electrical level. Just keep in mind that the Striker is a 680i chipset that supports the AMD CPUs, not Intel. The QX6850 and the others you mentioned are all Intel chips.

Actually the Asus Striker Extreme I bought dose support intel processors. Thanks for the clarification on the ram, I thought only the chipset, PSU and graphics cards needed to support multi graphics cards. I just wasn't sure if they came up with more crap.

I guess one would think most motherboards support SLI if one was looking specifically for one.

Quote: Originally Posted by DickNervous Just keep in mind that the Striker is a 680i chipset that supports the AMD CPUs, not Intel. The QX6850 and the others you mentioned are all Intel chips.

The Striker is an nForce 680i board, hence it supports Intel CPUs. Are you thinking of the other Asus Republic of Gamers SLi board, the Crosshair nForce 590 ?

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux The Striker is an nForce 680i board, hence it supports Intel CPUs. Are you thinking of the other Asus Republic of Gamers SLi board, the Crosshair nForce 590 ?

No, I was just not thinking. Had a brain fart, sorry 'bout that.

Quote: Originally Posted by DickNervous SLI is currently only supported by nVidia chipsets, though there is rumors of that changing with the X38 from Intel. Crossfire is supported by Intel and AMD/ATI chipsets. If nVidia licesnes the tech to Intel to make SLI chipsets, than Intel will have the ability to make a chipset that support both. However, I am not sure if a motherboard can be built to support both. I don't know how they work at the electrical level.

It's not just a complete rumor though... there are bits and peices that have been leaked, such as boards with SLI support shown at Computex!




Intel gets a desktop SLI licence from Nvidia

Even more surprising after doing some deep digging..you can have your cake and eat it too..SLI and X-fire support on one board!?!?!?!



Arrival of X38 boards - Page 2 - VR-Zone IT & Lifestyle Forum!


Now one has to read between the lines here...it shows "Official" X-Fire logos, but not SLI's official Logo, merely dual 16x NVIDIA support, the NDA"s are supposed to be lifted in August, so we shall see then for sure one way or another.

NVIDIA looks to have finally broke down and gave them an official liscence to do it, or that first pic would not exist...they want to sell lots of high end video cards, and keep people from going to ATI/Crossfire...but doing so may hurt sales of there own motherboard chipsets.

More below:

X38 will do SLI

Nvidia denies SLI to Intel

Nvidia seen cosying up to Intel

What Nvidia got from Intel

The moment ATI and AMD got in to bed together, Intel/NVIDIA SLI was a done deal...it was just a matter of figuring out who got the top and who got stuck on the bottom at first.

I think they finally agreed on standing up and facing each other, now the only thing left to do is for them to publicly admit they did the dirty deed

Other X-38 news:

Quote: Two new technologies are named Extreme Memory and Extreme Tuning Utility. Both new marketing lead architectures will be introduced along with the X38 chipset in October this year, according to motherboard makers

Intel to push two new technologies with X38 chipset



DickNervous...on other minor thing, just to set the record straight for ya'

SLI "Memory" technology is a bit more than it appears, it is not the simple explination you gave.

I have that on my Stryker Intel board..and what it does when enabled is it allows aggressive pre-set OC profiles for the memory.

When enabled in the bios using OCZ Reaper PC9200, it sets the ram at 5-5-5-15 with 2.3volts, and operates at 1150MHZ, wich is quite a bit tighter timings than if left at default (5-6-6-6-18 at DDR 800 or 1066..I will have to double check the default settings again)

This is prety much the same as what you will be finding on the X-38 under Intel's new marketing name of "Extreme Memory and Extreme Tuning Utility" previously mentioned.


Now..is it a big deal? Not to someone who allready knows how to OC, but for someone who is "Nervous" about playing with ram settings to find a stable OC, it might be