Core Duo - wow

[tecton3d]

I wonder if that's a result of supply

 

though I'm not all caught up on how the AM2's are overclocking, they still provide a great alternative to core2 (as per lower initial system purchase price) and will allow for quadcore... whenever that happens... for AMD's sake, it should be sooner rather than later : )

 

are the Conroe chipsets ready to go quadcore?

 

edit: Greg, where did you get your 975XBX Badaxe?

[tecton3d]

post #22 updated with system specs:D

[Christopher Nichols]

I actually went with the core duo2 setup BECAUSE amd still hasn't dropped the dual opteron prices. I got a screaming deal on a dual opteron tyan motherboard earlier this year, and have been waiting nearly 8 months for AMD to cut the prices on the dual core opts...I finally gave up and went with the duocore2.

 

Right now my E6600 (2.4 ghz) is running at 3.22 (Would be equiv to a E7000) rock solid, and outputing 1005 cinebench scores, so I'm sitting pretty.

 

Waiting for max9 before I can do the new vray benchmark...the scene won't open in 5.1 properly, and I'm not going to buy 8 when 9 is about to be available!

 

greg.,.. can you give me (us) the specs on your new machine?

[tecton3d]

greg.,.. can you give me (us) the specs on your new machine?

In case it takes Greg a while to get back to us:

from here

975XBX Intel Bad Axe

2.4 E6600 @ 3.01 ghz Core Duo 2

2.0 gb Mushkin DDR2 @ 708 @ 3-3-3-10

2x 4000YR WD's Raid 1

7900GT KO Evga

600 watt FSP EPS12V/ATX2.0

[AJLynn]

So is this the HSF Greg is talking about: http://www.frozencpu.com/cpu-arc-16.html?id=ArcubS9t

 

I'm not up to date on CPU cooling - is that a good one for use with a Core2 Duo? How good can you get without going to liquid cooling? (Liquid seems like a good idea but too expensive and complicated to bother using with midrange chips.) Also, it looks like that HSF comes with pre-applied thermal compound. I had a stock AMD a while back that had that, and it wasn't very high quality and came with way too much of the stuff to work efficiently. Is that still the case? Is it a good idea to use the included swatch of thermal compound, or is it better to clean it off and apply a thin layer of, say, Arctic Silver 5? That's what I ended up doing with the AMD and it was good for maybe 2 degrees C.

[tecton3d]

So is this the HSF Greg is talking about: http://www.frozencpu.com/cpu-arc-16.html?id=ArcubS9t

I'm not up to date on CPU cooling - is that a good one for use with a Core2 Duo? How good can you get without going to liquid cooling? (Liquid seems like a good idea but too expensive and complicated to bother using with midrange chips.) Also, it looks like that HSF comes with pre-applied thermal compound. I had a stock AMD a while back that had that, and it wasn't very high quality and came with way too much of the stuff to work efficiently. Is that still the case? Is it a good idea to use the included swatch of thermal compound, or is it better to clean it off and apply a thin layer of, say, Arctic Silver 5? That's what I ended up doing with the AMD and it was good for maybe 2 degrees C.

yeah, that's the one.

 

From the looks of what Greg has been able to get out of cpu I'd have to say that it is at least good. Generally, once you enter the realm of the heatpipe type of aftermarket cooling the more pipes and area the heatsink has, the better it will cool as there is a more effective transfer of heat from the cpu up through the pipes to the fins where the air, flowing through the case, can carry it away from the heatsink and out the back and into the room.

 

How far can you go with air cooling? You already know the upper limit is initially set by the quality of each component (CPU,RAM,PSU,MOBO, etc.) but an aftermarket piece like the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro or Scythe Ninja may grant you a little more overclock due to them keeping the cpu cooler. Many non-overclocking folks swap the stock cpu hsf for an aftermarket piece to simply reduce system noise due to the larger, and presumably quieter, fans. I already have a pair of the Scythe Ninjas waiting for my dual 940 upgrade so if I go Core2, that's what I'll use but probably swap the stock fan that came with for something a little faster to push more air through the fins as I have a host of Panaflo Ultra High speed 120's and one of these monsters lying around.

 

You're right in thinking that liquid cooling is the best for both: a) cool components and b) a quiet system as the amount of airflow and fan noise is reduced but IMO it's not really worth it unless you're pursuing a truly "silent" pc and/or want to clock the hell out of your components. This is an entertaining read but notice that the guys that are approaching and/or over 4ghz are running phase change systems that are overkill for a workstation

 

Most folks do just as you did and remove the stock gooey stuff and replace it with aftermarket thermal paste... usually AS5. I have done this on the 4 systems I just built and also with my laptop. Though the stock stuff had nearly evaporated, my lappy is now running 5C cooler Idle and around 8C cooler when loaded.

[AJLynn]

Damn, there's one guy there with a Core2 at 4.2GHz! There's got to be some serious downside there.

[tecton3d]

yeah, to the tune of $850 for the phase-change cooling system he used ... basically a freezer bolted to your CPU

[Greg Hess]

I purchased the ram from newegg...you can also purchase it direct from mushkin. It's a bit more expensive from mushkin, but if you have an issue, you deal with them for warranty returns, not newegg. (They'll mail you replacement ram with a box to send yours back...newegg makes you just send it back).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820146093

Bah look what you made me do! Now I just noticed I already lost 40 dollars on the system I just built!

Here's mushkins.

http://www.mushkin.com/doc/products/...ail.asp?id=276

Btw ignore most of the negative reviews of the ram in regards to conroe, many owners are setting the ram to 667 in the bios, which is incorrect. If you run 667 in the bios at 3-3-3-10, you are pushing the ram at over 800 megahertz!! 533 with 3-3-3-10 is the proper setting. (I made this same mistake myself!)

Mines currently running 4-4-4-10 @ 708 megahertz due to the overclock.

I agree on your comments on the 2.4 vs 2.67. Its not worth it. If the prices were at the proper levels (300 vs 500), I'd consider the extra 520 megahertz worth the price of admission.

As far as getting more mileage out of the 2.4. It's definitely possible as long as you have the proper setup and settings. If I remember, I'll post some of the bios changes required to run a 2.4@3.0. Getting to 3.0 seems to be relatively easy for the 2.4 or 2.67, its 3.0+ that takes a bit of work. Crazy people get way way higher though, but I perfer my temps and voltages to be within spec (or just ever so slightly out of spec).

Ya probably overkill on the drives, but drives aren't too expensive now a days, and the last one I bought was 3 years ago, so might as well splurge a little. Figured this was cheaper then buying a bunch of raptors anyway. And yes they're quiet, especially considering their location in the front of the case.

I'm also not running any IDE devices, pure SATA. Just have an SATA dvdrom right now, as the only burner on the market that is SATA costs around 100 bucks, which is just rediculous now a days. I figured for 20 dollars, it was worth a shot to try zero ide!

 

Did you get the memory links?

[tecton3d]

Greg ~ I did and thanks : ) I'll pm you your post that I recieved via e-mail notification and you can plug it back into the thread if you like

 

do post those BIOS settings as I'm thinking about the same mobo you used;)

 

There's a rumor, from an indep. AMD man, that AMD is making some Opteron cuts the 25th of this month. I'll post what I find out... for me the the 280/5's or the 254/6's had better drop an awful lot!

 

yeah, the Raptor hd's are definitely a bit more than what one can get by with but perhaps I'll come to some "rational" conclusion rather than letting my obsession with speedy things make the decision for me:p I still need to read up a bit on the performance of some of the newer (and high capacity) 16mb chache drives in Raid 0 as they're rumored to be not much slower than raptors and if so, are definitely a more practical decision.

 

About the BadAxe D975XBX, I'm interested in perhaps going with more than 4 drives (for purely hedonistic reasons) and wonder how to get the "optional discreet RAID controller" when I purchase the board. Is this a piece that will be purchased in addition to the mobo itself or is it onboard? If it's not onboard should one go with an aftermarket RAID card instead of the Intel?

 

edit: I just read in the tech specs [p. 28] (ftp://download.intel.com/design/motherbd/bx/D3611001US.pdf) that the Discrete SATA Interface is a "manufacturing option"... I bet these boards are rare!

 

all SATA hardware = no annoying IDE cables, which is a very good thing. Where did get your SATA optical drive? The 'Egg has one that's over $100 and out of stock:confused:

____________________________________________________

specs I'm playing with:

 

PSU ~ FSP 700w eps12v

MOBO ~ Intel D975XBX

CPU ~ Intel E6400/E6600 (or maybe 6700... price dependant)

RAM ~ 2 sets of Mushkin 2gb DDR2 667 (PC2 5300)

CASE ~ Antec P180B

CPU HSF ~ Scythe Ninja

HD's ~ ? ... a setup with both redundancy and speed

RAID controller ~ ?

 

Where can I get some 2gb sticks of high performance DDR2? Is there even such a thing?

[Greg Hess]

do post those BIOS settings as I'm thinking about the same mobo you used;)

 

Will do next time I'm hope. At work on my slow 2700+ XP right now. =/

 

There's a rumor, from an indep. AMD man, that AMD is making some Opteron cuts the 25th of this month. I'll post what I find out... for me the the 280/5's or the 254/6's had better drop an awful lot!

 

I'm sure it'll happen now that I bought a new comp. I mean heck, I built my comp a week ago, and now nvidia annouces the 7950GT to go alongside the 7950GX2.

 

drives in Raid 0 as they're rumored to be not much slower than raptors and if so, are definitely a more practical decision.

 

Remember...raid 0 = stripping...or if one drive goes, all the data is lost. I'd only run raid 0 on temporary drives...not OS or data critical ones. You'd be much safer with a Raid 1 (for redundancy), or Raid 5 (if you want to run 4 or more drives).

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks#RAID_5

 

About the BadAxe D975XBX, I'm interested in perhaps going with more than 4 drives (for purely hedonistic reasons) and wonder how to get the "optional discreet RAID controller" when I purchase the board. Is this a piece that will be purchased in addition to the mobo itself or is it onboard? If it's not onboard should one go with an aftermarket RAID card instead of the Intel?

 

My board had two raid controllers. The intel raid controller (integrated into the southbridge), and a silicon image controller. I've disabled the silicon images one, and don't know if thats a good solution or not. I'm sure most hardcore guys will probably tell you to buy a dedicated controller card if you're running a complex raid (like 5). Heck I don't even know if either of the two controllers even supports raid 5.

 

all SATA hardware = no annoying IDE cables, which is a very good thing. Where did get your SATA optical drive? The 'Egg has one that's over $100 and out of stock:confused:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106039

 

It's kinda of loud and really cheap. I'm using it as a stopgap until somebody comes out with a decent SATA optical drive. I refuse to use the IDE slot just for a rom!

 

PSU ~ FSP 700w eps12v

 

The 700w makes noise. My 600 kinda of has a slightly annoying tone I'm probably going to address with a resistor or reohstat...because of that, I'd actually probably push a different psu, like a seatronic (same basic manufacturer).

[tecton3d]

Will do next time I'm hope. At work on my slow 2700+ XP right now. =/

 

I'm sure it'll happen now that I bought a new comp. I mean heck, I built my comp a week ago, and now nvidia annouces the 7950GT to go alongside the 7950GX2.

 

Remember...raid 0 = stripping...or if one drive goes, all the data is lost. I'd only run raid 0 on temporary drives...not OS or data critical ones. You'd be much safer with a Raid 1 (for redundancy), or Raid 5 (if you want to run 4 or more drives).

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks#RAID_5

 

My board had two raid controllers. The intel raid controller (integrated into the southbridge), and a silicon image controller. I've disabled the silicon images one, and don't know if thats a good solution or not. I'm sure most hardcore guys will probably tell you to buy a dedicated controller card if you're running a complex raid (like 5). Heck I don't even know if either of the two controllers even supports raid 5.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106039

 

It's kinda of loud and really cheap. I'm using it as a stopgap until somebody comes out with a decent SATA optical drive. I refuse to use the IDE slot just for a rom!

 

The 700w makes noise. My 600 kinda of has a slightly annoying tone I'm probably going to address with a resistor or reohstat...because of that, I'd actually probably push a different psu, like a seatronic (same basic manufacturer).

 

thanks

 

... Isn't that how it always happens ~ you buy something and the next month something faster (and usually cheaper) is released:p

 

HD's ~ for OS and critical but speedy stuff I'd (ideally) like to run an 0 + 1. For storage, probably just a RAID 1

 

so you do have the optional RAID controller! I've e-mailed tank guys to see if they still have any rev 304 D975XBX's with the raid controller... now it's probably safe to assume they do!

 

I don't believe, from what I can find, that the D975XBX onboard controller supports RAID 5. "5" is ideal, but you have to buy 4 drives and still only get the capacity of a single drive. A good option though and may be worth looking into, though it's too bad decent aftermarket RAID cards are so blasted expensive:(

 

How about the Silverstone EPS750? Aren't they basically rebadged PCP&C? My hopes are that such a PSU will last through a couple gens of hardware upgrades while providing great and stable power for OC'ing.

 

I'm pretty sure that the Scythe Ninja mounted on the Intel mobo will point towards the back of the case for exhaust as would typically be desired. With the P180, the mobo is mounted in the uppermost portion of the case which also has a 120mm blowhole so even if the CPU HSF doesn't point to the rear, I'll be ok.

[tecton3d]

is there any info on the Intel BadAxe D975XBX being able to run kentsfield (quadcore) chips?

 

I haven't been able to dredge up much:confused:

[Greg Hess]

I doubt any 775 motherboard that is currently available will be able to run a quad core chip...same thing with the Socket F AMD's.

 

What they'll say is...

 

"Yes you'll be able to run the quad core cpu on your motherboard"

 

But then you'll read the fine print...

 

"Starting with board revision 3.XX"

 

Which usually means, yes the board supports it, but only if you bought the board around the time the quad cores were available. Best case scenario, it works with a bios update. Medium case? You have to send in the board to get things replaced. Worst? You have to buy a new mboard...still a relatively minimal expense, but a total PITA in terms of downtime and yanking that sob out.

[tecton3d]

let's hope a simple BIOS update would allow quad cores but I just found this thread over @ ocforums regarding a rumored Intel Bad Axe II Mobo. If there is such a thing in the making, I think we can forget about the simple BIOS updater for the current Bad Axe D975XBX.

[Greg Hess]

There is always something better coming out! .

[Geoffc]

I ordered my wife a sony Vaio FE690 core duo 2500 (2.0ghz) w/ the Nvidia 7600 Go and manually upgraded it to 2gb of ram.

I don't have an authorization yet to try vray on it, so I created this quick scanline teapot scene to test this against my older P4 pc.

200 teapots w/ the built in chrome material applied to all, and an omni above. 800x600 render size (reduced for this post).

 

Here are the results:

 

P4 3.06 ghz, HT, w/2g ram, xp home: 12:32

Core Duo Vaio 2.0 w/ 2g ram, xp pro: 7:41

 

That's in ~60% of the time! I thought it might be a bit faster, but that's amazingly better from what I expected. This laptop will defintely be my new render horse until I build a new workstation later this year.

 

 

Just ran this simple test again w/ my very expensive new toy (Boxx dual dual woodcrest):

 

3:52

 

and, just like last time, i don't have vray yet on this new Boxx, I'm waiting for the authorization from Chaos (or the dongle, whichever comes first).

[Greg Hess]

Awesome Geoffc! Thanks for sharing! Enjoy the new boxx!

[AJLynn]

I've got some parts, expecting the rest of what I need in the morning, going with an E6400 on an MSI 975X board (rev 2.1 AKA "Power Up Edition") with OCZ PC6400 RAM and a bigass HSF. I've done the best I can to smooth out the power in this old house. I figure I can get the RAM to come in higher than 266 (maybe not all the way to 400, from what I've seen, but way over 300) and use that to OC the CPU. Anybody got any last-minute advice for me?

[tecton3d]

I've got some parts, expecting the rest of what I need in the morning, going with an E6400 on an MSI 975X board (rev 2.1 AKA "Power Up Edition") with OCZ PC6400 RAM and a bigass HSF. I've done the best I can to smooth out the power in this old house. I figure I can get the RAM to come in higher than 266 (maybe not all the way to 400, from what I've seen, but way over 300) and use that to OC the CPU. Anybody got any last-minute advice for me?

 

didn't even know you were considering building Andrew, nonetheless ... sounds like some good 'old fashionded hedonistic fun:D

 

I think I'll be joining the Conroe party soon since the Opterons are still so damn expensive and a decent 6700 can render nearly as fast as 275's:p

[AJLynn]

Yeah, I've got some stuff coming up and I could use some more power. Plus, I'm a hardware geek and I want to see what I can get one of these to do.

[Juan Altieri]

yes, i buy a core2 duo 6300, and beats (only by some seconds) my old dual opteron 246 (twice machines with 2gb ram),

[landrvr1]

Not sure if this has been posted or not, but here is a great benchmark review.

 

The Woodfield 51xx series kicks the AMD Opterons around the room and has them begging for mercy....

 

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_cont...eon5160&page=6

[AJLynn]

Got this thing working. Running Windows 64, no overclock (2.13GHz) Cinebench 2xCPU rendering is 692. Going to try some overclocking now...

 

Update: 2.4GHz (300MHzx8) is stable, Cinebench is 772

Update: 2.56GHZ, Cinebench 807, and this is very easy on this hardware

 

Last update for now:

2.8GHz, Cinebench at 898, no problems, all voltages within spec, and I'm not pressing my luck anymore today.

 

Okay, just one more, but really this is it. I took the CPU back to 2.64MHz and reverted to XP32 because I wasn't happy with the drivers. Complete Cinebench results:

 

Rendering 1CPU: 441

Rendering XCPU: 816

C4D Shading: 514

OpenGL SW: 1980

OpenGL HW: 5010

 

Can Cinebench get its OpenGL scores wrong by a factor of 2? It's giving me 5000 range consistently, but this is only a FireGL v5100 - I would have expected more like 3000.

[radioVOY]

My test on scanline 6:34min on a dual Xeon 3.6ghz tyan MB 4gb ram 74gb SATA 10k quadro fx 4500 512mb