Well.... i've finally turned to the dark (fast) side....

[Andrew LB]

Last night I placed an order for the following:

1x - ASUS P5N32-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
1x - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor
1x - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ


I was going to buy 2x2gb memory sticks but for the moment my wallet couldn't handle any more impulse buying.

I'm going to be adding all this to my current setup which you can see below in my sig and sell off my current A8N-SLI, 2x1gb Corsair XMS PC3200, and AMD 3800+ X2 939 chip.

I rationalized the purchase because a friend gave me a moderate budget to build him a new rig, so i'll get a good chunk of the money I just spent back on this whole deal once it's done.


.... i've been reading about how much faster these E6600 chips are for months now so I figured the boost in power and memory speed is what i need to make the best out of my dual 8800GTS video cards in SLI.

:toast:

[irev210]

You will be happy :)


definitely update us when you overclock that monster :)

[kniwor]

congrats, it's only wise to get what gives you best for ur buck, do let us know of ur OC results.

[perkam]

Nice...do oc the cpu :)

Perkam

[eXceeded]

yeah you definitely need this upgrade the A64 X2's don't really become competitive until you hit at least 2.7Ghz, and even one 8800 will be bottlenecked hugely by that.

[Andrew LB]

You will be happy :)


definitely update us when you overclock that monster :)


Most definitely sir! I've overclocked every chip i've owned since i built my first rig based on the PII-300mhz. I've even been known to volt mod boards in the past when feeling a little adventurous.

I'm going to start off with stock cooling unfortunately. I've been reading the air cooling section religiously lately and have pretty much set my eyes on either the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme or the Thermalright IFX-14. It's a bummer that i can't seem to find either available as of yet.


Edit: Wait! I found the Ultra-120 eXtreme for sale! I'm going to pair it with a medium power 120mm Panaflo BX series fan. *places order*



yeah you definitely need this upgrade the A64 X2's don't really become competitive until you hit at least 2.7Ghz, and even one 8800 will be bottlenecked hugely by that.


Yeah, i figured i had a pretty bad CPU bottleneck when I upgraded from a single 8800gts to dual SLI cards and only saw a slight increase in FPS even at super high resolution with AA and AF maxed.


What kind of overclock speeds are "normal" for the E6600 with a setup like this? I plan to push the chip pretty hard for being on air much like my 3800+ X2 which maxed out at 2.85ghz before crapping out.

[Nazu]

With that mobo and ram I guess over 3GHz easily. ~3.6'ish should be doable with a good air cooling.

[adamsleath]

dont forget to post back once you have it all setup :)

[Andrew LB]

I believe I should have all the parts here tuesday. I'll probably go to work immediately backing up certain data onto my Raid-1 array then do the build. I'm certain i'll have the rig up and running sometime wednesday.

[Andrew LB]

Well guys, it's up and running but currently with the stock cooler. My Thermalright ultra-120 eXtreme is on the way and should be here by the weekend.

I immediately jumped into clocking this chip and am doing my first stability test @ 3.2ghz 1.35v. Over an hour now on Orthos and everything seems fine. The stock cooler sucks arse though. My idle was 37'c and the load while running full bore on Orthos fluctuates between 59'c and 63'c.