New Gaming PC?

To keep costs down, I was just going to replace the mb, proc and ram keeping case, psu and hdd's, I have an ssd 64gb which supports trim as the main hard drive for the operating system.

I currently have gigabyte ga-ep45-ud3r, along with 8gb ram (4x2gb OCZ reaper pc6400) and e8400 overclocked from 3ghz to 3.8ghz with no added voltage and has been running best part of 9 months now without crashing and running a full 24hrs on prime and other cpu stressers.

I also have a GTX275 inno 3d gpu, which I am happy with I don't think it's worth replacing that.

I was looking at getting this combo.

Just wanted to hear anyone elses opinions on what they have got or are looking at getting perhaps in the near future, I have had a look on a few forums, but not found anything conclusive.

The main gaming use will be cod mw2 and l4d etc, which run fine on my current set up, I also love my flying though and like FSX with all the add ons you can get for that, the airports really eat into your fps and it can be incredibly cpu hungry.

Current monitors are 2x23"lcds both samsung one at 1680*1050 and the primary one at 2048x1152.

I have tried tweaking fsx as much as I can with all the tips and tutorials that are about to try and maximise my fps, but it still takes a hit near larger airports.

Edited by deleted (Sun 07-Mar-10 13:01:51)

tbh i can think of better things to do with £577, considering your existing setup appears to be already quite highly spec'd. i know fsx is cpu intensive but in real-world performance i doubt you would see much of an improvement, at least not 577 quids worth.

Thanks, that was I was wondering on whether I would see a large enough jump to warrant the spend, any other things you could think of that may really help it so it's better?

*Bump*

Can anyone else think of anything that may be benficial to the perfomance to my current set up, or would it really need to be a full overhaul?

I think if you want to go for i7 you are better off with the 930 and not the 920 as the 930 is replacing the 920 But then theres the fact that the D0 stepping 920 is one hell of a overclocker.

If you want to save even more money just get a Q9550 For your current mobo. That will give a nice boost.

Thanks for the input Sean, Do you think getting a quad core, would be overly beneficial? I dont know if FSX supports quad core any more than it does dual core, but certainly worth looking into, I could get some £ for my old processor, don't know how well the quads overclock though? Have you had any experience on this.

The 45nm quads will OC just as good as the dual core counterparts.

The dual core wolfdale will oc to 4ghz with ease and since the quads (Q8XXXQ9XXX) are a yorkfield core (2 wolfdales in one chip) they to will oc well.

Even if the game being played wont take advantage of extra cores its all about if your CPU can feed the GPU with that it needs.

With my old wolfdale chip @ 3.8Ghz i was getting 120 ish fps in guild wars. With the new quad at just 2.7Ghz im now gettng 300+ fps xD

At the end of the day its up to you what money you spend.

But the core i7 upgrade is still worth it and youll get a nice boost in performance as well

Thanks again, I have had a look between the quad and dual and although fsx now supports quad by editing the config, I am unsure whether the performance increase will warrant getting a new processor, I am currently on an alsaka heat sync getting 3.8ghz o/c from 3ghz comfortably.

Idle temps vary from summer to winter but around about the 40 degrees mark, I have tried to increase my fsb from 422, to 450 to give me 4.05ghz, but for some reason windows starts crashing, i have tried tweaking voltages&changing memory mutiplier but to no success. Current mobo is a ga-ep45-ud3r.

If I could get it overclocking a little bit more and still staying stable, I would be happy, but don't seem to quite be able to get there.

That mobo has an fsb of 1600 and your 422 OC is pusing the chipset past its stock speed.(422*4=1688) and with 450 fsb *4 that 1800FSB.

Try adding +0.1V to the MCH even try +0.2 but no more

PS Did you get my PM?

Edited by Seansmit17 (Tue 09-Mar-10 11:50:09)

MCH is northbridge? I don't know where that is in the voltages, but will have a look, also do you think i am pushing it too far then going to 450? What memory multiplier would be best 2.00D?

I read up loads ages ago on overclocking with my e6600 and got that from 2.4 to i think 3.2ghz faily ok, if I go anything over 4ghz with this e8400 without changing any voltages i get a bsod.

I have had a read on other user experiences in this forum but it does seem faily inconclusive on exactly which way I should be heading, obviously I know every chip has its own characteristics and should be increased a little at a time, so not to fry it

Replying to your pm now.

Edited by deleted (Tue 09-Mar-10 12:44:43)

MCH is the northbridge yes, and ICH is the south bridge xD

I have the GA-EP45-UD3LR witch is similar to yours but the bios may be different.

Its best to set the RAM divider to something that will not OC your ram or as little as possible.

If you can find the MCH volt settings then set it to 1.200V or 1.220 if it will let you. as the default is 1.100v This is sometimes called FSB Voltage.

Try these settings..

Robust Graphics Buster - Auto
CPU Clock Ratio - 9 X
CPU Host Frequency - 450
PCI Express Frequency - 100 or Auto
Performance Enhance - Standard
Sytem Memory Multiplier - (witch ever gets you as close to 800 as possible)
DRAM Timing Selectable - Auto
System Voltage Control - Manual
DDR2 OverVoltage Control - +0.2 or +0.3
FSB OverVoltage Contril - +0.1 or +0.2
CPU Voltage Control - 1.3 to 1.35

Am out tonight, but will definately give it a go and use u for advice if ok, sounds like u know a bit more than me about o/cing, i wud love to get a stable 4.2 or even 4ghz, but at the min my threshold seems to be 3.8.

Ok ^^

3.8 May well be the limit of your mobo/cpu but can only try.

4ghz is doable with a nice big mug of tea and a night sat in front of the screen messing in the bios lol..

4.2... thats going to be hard to do.. and id be surprised if you get it to 4.2 AND stable xD

if its true these are hard to beat then

Will try a bit of overclocking tomorrow nite see how i get on, what stress test do you use? I've got prime95 and occt.

Edited by deleted (Thu 11-Mar-10 00:47:01)

Its not that, its that you have 800mhz ram and its going to limit you.

If you had 1066mhz ddr2 then 4ghz would be easy

I will have to have a look, I don't think the amount I spend on bringing the ram up to 1066 is going to warrant the performance increase, even with sellling the old 8gb (4x2gb) of OCZ reaper I've got in it.

So in essence with me running at a 2.00d ram timing on the mobo and the cpu at 422x9 giving me 3.8, the ram is running at 844 which it is handling, but anything over that, is what is causing me errors?

Forgot what ram i had in there, please see this pic, it does state that it needs 2.2v at 5-5-5 timing, so should i manually increase this on the mobo voltage control, it is up to 1066mhz, so realistically running 445 on the cpu that should easily acheive it on a 2;00D multiplier don't ya think?

Some of my settings atm just in case you need any of them:

MB Intelligent Tweaker(M.I.T.)
Robust Graphics Booster ...............: Auto
CPU Clock Ratio ..........................: 9x
Fine CPU Clock Ratio.....................:.0.0
CPU Frequency ...........................: 3.80ghz (423x9)


Clock Chip Control
Standard Clock Control
CPU Host Clock Control..................: [Enabled]
CPU Host Frequency (Mhz) ............: 423Mhz
PCI Express Frequency (Mhz) .........: Auto
C.I.A.2 .................................:[Disabled]


Advanced Clock Control [Press Enter]
CPU Clock Drive...........................: <<<700
PCI Express Clock Drive.................: <<<700
CPU Clock Skew (ps)....................: <<<
MCH Clock Skew (ps)...................: <<<


DRAM Performance Control
Performance Enhance...................: [STANDARD]
Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.).....: [Auto]
(G)MCH Frequency Latch...............: [Auto]
System Memory Multiplier ..............: 2.00D
Memory Frequency (Mhz) ..............: 844
DRAM Timing Selectable ................: [Auto]

Standard Timing Control
CAS Latency Time........................5
tRCD .........................................5
tRP'...........................................5
tRAS..........................................15


Motherboard Voltage Control

CPU
CPU Vcore�.���.........................:Auto
CPU Termination�.......................: Auto
CPU PLL�������.........................: Auto
CPU Referen.����.......................: Auto

MCH/ICH
MCH Core�����........................: Auto
MCH Reference�.��....................; Auto
MCH/DRAM Ref.�.......................: Auto
ICH I/O������........................: Auto
ICH Core����...��....................: Auto

DRAM
DRAM Voltage ��....1.800V............: Auto
DRAM Termination .�0.900V............: Auto
Channel A Reference 0.900V............: Auto
Channel B Reference 0.900V............: Auto

Advanced Settings
Limit CPUID Max. to 3.....................: [Disabled]
No-Execute Memory Protect............: [Enabled]
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E)................: [Disabled]
C2/C2E State Support....................: [Disabled]
x C4/C4E State Support..................: [Disabled]
CPU Thermal Monitor 2(TM2) ...........: [Enabled]
CPU EIST Function.........................: [Disabled]
Virtualization Technology................: [Disabled]

Integrated Peripherals
Legacy USB Storage Detect ..............[Disabled]



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** CPU Details ***
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Physical Processors: 1
Logical Processors: 2
Processor Vendor: Intel(R) Corporation
Processor Name: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
Additional Name: x86 Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 10
Popular Name: Core 2 Duo E8400
Frequency: 3800 MHz
Serial Number: 0001-067A-BFEB-&#&#-0C08-E3FD

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** CPU Cache Details ***
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cache Level I: 64 KB

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** BIOS Details ***
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BIOS Vendor: Award Software International, Inc.
BIOS Type: AT/AT COMPATIBLE
BIOS Version: F8
Copyright: GBT - 42302e31
Date: 03/25/2009
Size: 1,024 KB

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** Motherboard Details ***
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Motherboard Vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Motherboard Model: EP45-UD3R
Version: x.x
Ports: 10
System Slots: 2

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*** Memory Modules ***
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Memory Devices Present: 4
Memory Device # 0
Device Locator: A0
Bank Locator: Bank0/1
Memoty Device Type: Unknown
Total Width: 64 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 2048 MB
Speed: 1 ns
Form Factor: DIMM
Memory Device # 1
Device Locator: A1
Bank Locator: Bank2/3
Memoty Device Type: Unknown
Total Width: 64 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 2048 MB
Speed: 1 ns
Form Factor: DIMM
Memory Device # 2
Device Locator: A2
Bank Locator: Bank4/5
Memoty Device Type: Unknown
Total Width: 64 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 2048 MB
Speed: 1 ns
Form Factor: DIMM
Memory Device # 3
Device Locator: A3
Bank Locator: Bank6/7
Memoty Device Type: Unknown
Total Width: 64 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 2048 MB
Speed: 1 ns
Form Factor: DIMM
Total Installed: 8192 MB

Hope this helps?

Edited by deleted (Thu 11-Mar-10 20:09:37)

Ill have a read though that in a bit..

but since your ram can do 1066mhz just set that 2.2v in the bios (make it 2.24 if you can to compensate for vdroop)

and see if that will then let you put the fsb a bit higher to get the cpu to 4Ghz

If I set my fsb to run at 467mhz, to try and give me 4.2ghz on the processor, won't the ram be running at 934mhz, therefore running 132mhz lower than it's designed maximum therefore would I would of thought that I won't need to push more juice through it?

Also in relation to the CPU what is the

CPU Termination�.......................: Auto
CPU PLL�������.........................: Auto
CPU Referen.����.......................: Auto

and

MCH Reference�.��....................; Auto
MCH/DRAM Ref.�.......................: Auto
ICH I/O������........................: Auto
ICH Core����...��....................: Auto

Thanks Sean.

Edited by deleted (Fri 12-Mar-10 10:30:24)

Hi, yes it would be 137mhz less but the ram still needs the 2.2v as per its specs since we are approaching 1066Mhz

Go for 4ghz on the cpu first and if it works and its stable then go for 4.2Ghz

CPU ref im not sure what that is but CPU termination can help with stabilty on the vcore when overclocking, If im right it probaky only goes to a max of about 1v.

CPU PPL, the PLL chip is the clock generater chip on your motherboard. Id set this manually to between 1.550 (default) and 1.650 as the MAX. If to miuch power goes though this you can kill your CPU.

For the ICH core and I/O.. the ICH core is the voltage that the southbridge chip gets. and the I/O is the voltage the link between that and the MCH (northbridge) gets.

When overclocking these settings dont need to be changed as we are not overclocking the ICH. just the MCH and CPU.

Again i dont know what the MCH/DRAM Ref is.

Thanks very much for that , I will have a go and see how i get on what stress tester do you think it best and how long does this need to run for? 24hrs? If it is it can take ages to identify whether the overclock you've done is actually stable.

An hour will do fine. Its not going to get any hotter if it runs for 1 hour or 24.

even an hour is ott, 20 to 30 mins is enough

If after 20mins of say, prime95 or IBT then its still going with no errors or chrashes then its stable

imo i7 is still overpriced but i have a q6600 so the difference isnt as large, seems like you changed your mind anyway. if your still considering it i would suggest waiting until the i9 gulftown is released that should drop i7 prices and maybe even the ridiculous prices of socket1366 motherboards

ya tis a lot of £££

I build up an i7 rig for a mate a year ago and the price of the mobo and cpu and ram has not changed a penny in that time