New System: Opinions?

[Player0]

I purchased a new PC system for myself this weekend after selling one of my dual-xeon boxes. I want to overclock the hell out of this thing. I bought:

Abit IC7-Max3
P4 2.8C
Swiftech MCX4000B
92mm Vantec Tornado
520w Vantec PSU

I'll be using this with my 1g of XMS3200 (not LL), my AIW 9700 Pro, my 3Ware 7500-4 RAID5 array, a SBLive Audigy and a Iomega DVD burner. I also bought some parts for my coming car computer, but those aren't important here.

I could have purchased any CPU, but I chose the 2.8C because of it's multiplier and great price. Was I wrong to do this though? Would a 3.0C overclock better in a system? I thought that if I was going to use a 300mhz FSB that the 2.8C would be the best choice, since it has 14x and at 300mhz thats 4200mhz, which I'll never reach. But I want 4ghz at some point.

I do plan on upgrading ram at a later date, but I think the old XMS3200 will work okay for now, especially with added DDR voltage. Has anyoen used the non-LL 3200 in the IC7 boards with any luck?

Ive used the MCX4000 on another IC7 system of mine, and the SK9000, as well as some Zalman thing which sucked. I would have tried that SP-94 thing, but I'm worried that it wont fit on the Max3. Can anyone confirm what the best heatsinks for the Max3 might be?

I will eventually have a Promethia in this system, and don't expect 4ghz until then. But thats not coming till christmas so until then I need a good air cooler.

Thoughts on this system? Did I do good or should I have done something else?

[Metro]

I think you can get 3500Mhz on air with 5:4 divisor for chore. With Prometeia 4 Ghz is certain. I wonder if the Raid array will limit your overclock.
Done something else?
Well, maybe you could have waited for the Athlon64. If they come good as it seems...

[Player0]

I already get 3500mhz with an IC7-G and a P2.4c Im certainly hoping I can do better than that with the Max3 and a P2.8C hehe :)

Why would a RAID array limit my overclock? I can lock the PCI bus at 33mhz. However, what DOES suck is because of the lack of PCI-X on these boards, I can only run the 3Ware at 33Mhz/32bit. Kind of a performance loss from the PCI-X my Iwill DP533 had.

As for Athlon64, no, I couldn't wait. I use this machine as a PVR, and I'm missing all the shows I cant record while I'm down a box. So I needed to get the best I could for now. I'll just get an A64 later when the prices are sane and the technology stablizes.

[Sarcastro]

Originally posted by Metro
With Prometeia 4 Ghz is certain.


Certain is a big word. A lot of good chips reach 4ghz in a prom, but definately not all.

[Amoeba Assassin]

8/10

:up:

[Metro]

Originally posted by Player0
I already get 3500mhz with an IC7-G and a P2.4c Im certainly hoping I can do better than that with the Max3 and a P2.8C hehe :)

Why would a RAID array limit my overclock? I can lock the PCI bus at 33mhz. However, what DOES suck is because of the lack of PCI-X on these boards, I can only run the 3Ware at 33Mhz/32bit. Kind of a performance loss from the PCI-X my Iwill DP533 had.


You have asked cooling with air. You get the 2.4C to 3.5 on air? You are lucky. If this 2.8 is a good chip I bet you can get to 4Ghz. That sound better:)
For wath I have seen in a few posts the RAID array can limit the overclock, like the HT enabled. You must stuck with the AGP/PCI lock so is one think that you can not tweak. That could help on the overclock of the graphic card.
Unfortunnely the PCI-X is not available in the Canterwood boards. Let's hope that in the next year the PCI-Express become a standard. Let's hope.

[Player0]

I have a 2.4C and a 2.6 at work doing over 3400mhz on air. I dont know if I'm lucky, but so far it seems as though the P4s just have a lot of overhead. With my luck, my own 2.8 wont hit 3200 ;)

8/10? That's not exactly helpful. What would you do differently then AA?

My RAID card is good up to 66Mhz. So I have to assume it will overclock just fine on a 33mhz PCI bus. But we shall see. I'm not to worried about the AGP overclocking. This is more of a video editing box than a gaming box. Nothing taxes the 9700 Pro yet anyway.

[Metro]

Player0:
The theory is very good. But nothing is better than the pratice. Let's see what results do you get.
I hope you can archive 4Ghz. Good luck.

[FragMagnet]

I think Amoeba was saying that 8 out of 10 P4's hit 4 Ghz on Prommies ?

You mention a Raid card ?? Why would you use an ad-in card, when the ICH5 does it in the chipset ? The on-chip SATA has independent buses (150mb/sec) for each HD, which in turn are independent of the PCI bus. So why clog the slower PCI bus with HD data ?

[Player0]

I plan on using the add-in card because, well, I have it, for one. I have three 250g drives hooked too it, and thats too much data to transfer to another RAID controller. In fact, I cant physically do it. Secondly, its a RAID5 controller, and the ICH5 doesn't do RAID5. Thirdly, I dont have SATA drives, they are PATA, and I don't have 3 converters :) The 3Ware controller card is super fast, and super reliable. I doubt even in RAID0 that the ICH5 would come close.

I'm not an expert on the ICH5, but are you sure that the SATA doesn't sit on the PCI bus anyway? I can't confirm that.

[Metro]

Originally posted by Player0
I plan on using the add-in card because, well, I have it, for one. I have three 250g drives hooked too it, and thats too much data to transfer to another RAID controller. In fact, I cant physically do it. Secondly, its a RAID5 controller, and the ICH5 doesn't do RAID5. Thirdly, I dont have SATA drives, they are PATA, and I don't have 3 converters :) The 3Ware controller card is super fast, and super reliable. I doubt even in RAID0 that the ICH5 would come close.
I'm not an expert on the ICH5, but are you sure that the SATA doesn't sit on the PCI bus anyway? I can't confirm that.

Link: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.html?i=1811

Ripped
...the most important feature of ICH5 is its integrated Serial ATA controller. Current Serial ATA controllers use a PCI interface to the South Bridge (or MCH) and thus eat into the 133MB/s of bandwidth that is allocated to the collection of all 32-bit 33MHz PCI slots on a motherboard. Well, if you look at the Serial ATA specification you'll notice that the maximum transfer rate is listed as 150MB/s, that's 13% more bandwidth than a 32-bit/33MHz PCI bus can provide! Whether or not drives are currently reaching even half of that maximum transfer rate isn't an issue, regardless of what the case is, you never want to create additional bottlenecks; by placing the Serial ATA controller off of the PCI bus, a bottleneck is created that would only be exposed down the road.
Intel's ICH5 gets around this problem by bringing the Serial ATA controller onto the ICH and bypassing the PCI bus all together. The Serial ATA controller has a direct link to the Hub Link 2.0 interface in ICH5 and thus can offer a full 150MB/s per channel.

I'm sure that the SATA doesn't sit on the PCI bus:)
You are right about the raid 5. The ICH5 only give you Raid0 ou Raid1. Not Raid 5 or Raid0+1.
But I thing you have seen a very good performance from your 3Ware controller card in a PCI 64bit in your Xeon rig (I have made the homework visiting your web page:) ). It will look diferent in a 32bit PCI.

Give a look to this article. I dont now if this controller from 3ware is very diferent in terms of performace from yours.
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/print_content.asp?id=sataraidso

Waths your opinion?
P.S. The article from anad is old and on that time the ICH5 only had suport to Raid0. Raid1 suport is more recent.

[Player0]

Wow, that's nice that it has it's own bus. In RAID5 mode with 3 hard drives, I'm only using 60-70MBs tops anyway. Yeah, I knew that by going to 875 that I would loose the nice PCI-X slot, but most of what I do is better done with the memory bandwidth. The Xeons had terrible memory bandwidth on the i7505. It was always pretty quick though, but lack of stability was the killer. A system I spent $5000 on for the PURPOSE of stability, and it ended up being the most crashy system i'd ever built cause the components hated each other.

[Kunaak]

those Swiftech MCX4000B's are amazing.

almost hit 3.8 ghz on air with mine with a 2.8C on a Asus P4P800 in just ten minutes of overclocking.
even at 1.7 volts, the heatsink never passed 30C.

I wouldn't trade it for 2 SLK900's ;)

thats a beautiful system, you should do well with it :)

[FragMagnet]

Glad someone picked up the ball. Sorry I had to go to work :(