Intel X38 Tango - Is High FSB Overclocking Worth It?
by Rajinder Gill on February 26, 2008 3:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Two-Stepping with the Test Bed…
| ASUS Maximus Extreme Dual-Core Overclocking / Benchmark Testbed |
|
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Intel Core 2 Duo - E8500 |
| CPU Voltage | Various |
| Cooling | Swiftech Apogee GTX, Thermochill PA120.3 radiator, dual Laing DDC Ultra pumps in series, 1/2" ID (3/4" OD) Tygon tubing, 3x Panaflo 120x38mm fans @ 7-12v in push configuration for CPU, 1x Panaflo 120x25mm fan for cooling the MCH |
| Power Supply | OCZ Pro Xstream 1000w |
| Memory | OCZ DDR3 PC3-14400 (DDR-1800) Platinum Edition (2G/4GB) |
| Memory Settings | Various |
| Video Cards | MSI 8800GTS-512 |
| Video Drivers | NVIDIA 169.28 |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital 7200RPM 250GB - WD2500KS |
| Optical Drives | Plextor PX-755A |
| Case | Lian Li 75 |
| BIOS | 0803 |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional SP2, Vista 64-Ultimate |
| . | |
[Ed:While I'm here, let me apologize for all the ballroom dance references; I strike a pretty impressive pose in a tail suit, but even I wouldn't go so far as to do ballroom and overclocking analogies. ;-)]
Our review of the ASUS Maximus Extreme is located here, while jumping here will provide details about the P5E3 Premium for those needing further details on these boards.
We started our testing using a 65nm E6850 - a processor that is capable of reaching high FSB speeds with relative ease. Once the groundwork for testing was in place, we moved over to Intel's latest and greatest dual-core, the E8500 based on Penryn technology. Although many users are using or considering quad-core processors currently, we have already covered much of their overclocking ability by using them as the basis for our recent performance motherboard reviews. Dual-core processors allow higher FSB overclocking potential, and as we are concentrating on FSB related performance and VMCH scaling today, using these processors is the logical choice.
The dual-core processors are far easier to overclock and provide a lower overall thermal output when overvolted - not to mention that the dual-core processors are far kinder to PWM voltage supply circuits when overclocked. Although we are using a DDR3-based motherboard here, we should begin to see availability of additional DDR2-based X48 boards in the coming weeks. We may venture into similar testing on the DDR2 boards and quad-core processors in the coming weeks if our readers deem this type of article interesting.
We used a Lian Li 75 case for these particular tests. Northbridge cooling comes from a 120mm fan, which also provides additional airflow to the PWM MOSFETs and memory modules. Passive cooling of the X38 chipset results in system instability with as little as 1.29VMCH (9X400FSB) when its temperature reaches 48C during stress testing, pretty much ruling out any kind of serious overclocking without airflow over the components.
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goinginstyle - Tuesday, February 26, 2008 - link
I really enjoyed it and look forward to another one with Quad Cores if possible. Loved disco Stu and based on the dancing comments it seems as if Gary's humor has rubbed off on you.One thing, is it possible to show a few more applications in the next article, gaming is fine, but would like to see what happens with encoding and Maya/Photoshop when overclocking a system. I barely can get above 400FSB with a Q6600 at 8x and hold steady on a Intel X38 board.
Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, February 26, 2008 - link
Hi,We can take a look at Quad VMCH next up. Along with some different software too...
regards
Raja
enigma1997 - Tuesday, February 26, 2008 - link
A great article - it truely shows how to overclock intelligently - it's based on facts/evidences, not blindly increase the whatever voltage and see what can be achieved. Congrat!!Owls - Tuesday, February 26, 2008 - link
and very informative. thanks!Sylvanas - Tuesday, February 26, 2008 - link
haha nice use of all the dance references, made my day.Great article, I enjoy these articles explaining more about Trd and various other BIOS settings, goes to show intelligent overclocking > max voltage/fsb stupidity.