9x333, 8x375, or 7x428 on a Q6600 - Which is faster?

[Shaggy]

Those apps are all cpu limited as far as I know. You would need a much larger gap in the fsb to see a difference, if any.


I think

[graysky]

I don't think they're CPU limited... x264.exe was the only app to peg all 4 cores @ 100 %. Most are disk limited which underscores my point that when using normal apps, the FSB is not the speed limiting factor.

[sofarfrome]

I don't think they're CPU limited... x264.exe was the only app to peg all 4 cores @ 100 %. Most are disk limited which underscores my point that when using normal apps, the FSB is not the speed limiting factor.

In this case if all 4 cores are taxed to 100% that means you are using an app that is CPU bound (primarily uses CPU functionality), not CPU limited. It doesn't matter if you have 400x9 or 450x8, the results will be the same for all intents and purposes. What you want for comparison of FSB impact is something that compares bandwidth. You should realize higher bandwidth with a 450x8 OC relative to a 400x9 OC. Try SiSoft's Sandra as it does a good job for a relative comparison.

[graysky]

What you want for comparison of FSB impact is something that compares bandwidth. You should realize higher bandwidth with a 450x8 OC relative to a 400x9 OC. Try SiSoft's Sandra as it does a good job for a relative comparison.

This is sort of my point: there are few apps that actually use 333 MHz of FSB to its full potential; the few that I know about are designed to simply benchmark a system like Sandra. Usually higher voltages are required to feed the higher FSB values. As you pointed out 450x8 will likely require more juice than 400x9. If you can't use the full 400 MHz bandwidth, why increase the voltage to feed 450 MHz bandwidth that you aren't going to use... sort of like driving semi to the store to buy your groceries when a pickup truck has more enough space to hold all the bags.

[Shaggy]

That is what I was saying. The cpu cache is already being filled up faster than the cpu can process the information. Thereforce, increasing the speed of the communication between the cpu and memory is not going to help. In those particular applications.