Legit Reviews

Hi,

I have had my system for a while and didnt' test a whole lot for a bit, I

didn't even have xp pro at the time, but I'm ready to push it a little bit and

see what I can do for later. So far, I have had it go up to just a few mhz shy

of 3Ghz (I don't remember, that was a long time ago) and a couple days ago I

tried 247 fsb and it wouldn't Post...246 does post however, which leads me to

believe something is up...*sigh* I need some more advice to give me some

headsup on some things. Probably best to describe my system though, yes? lol...

Motherboard
Asus P4C800-Deluxe (UAY)

Processor
Intel Pentium 4 2.4C Ghz PGA-478 (no m0 stepping)

Memory
Corsair TwinX-XMS3200 Cas 2 (Platinum; 2x256MB)

I keep it cooled decent, with room temp. of around 71-72F it the CPU idles

around 96F and running Prime95 I have hit a maximum of 130F around 14 hours. In

normal use (gaming, etc) it never goes above 115F. Case temp is usually around

84F and reached 89F during Prime95 a day ago. 7 Case fans, 2700+RPM retail HSF,

dual-fan Antec ION 400W PSU and Q-Fan control off (when on, set to default 11/

16 ratio).

Overclocking did little to overheat it when it hit 2952Mhz -- which is good for

the stock hsf (I believe Intel site said it was good for up to 3Ghz or so).

I think maybe the memory is keeping it from going higher, but I'm not sure. I

dont' know a whole lot about voltages, but I tried raising VCore to just over

1.55 -- I believe I read the mobo offsets this by around 0.52 So I didnt' want

it to hit much past ~1.6 (I don't really want to shorten the life of my

products, I just want to overclock it so I can see how far it goes with the

current setup before I buy a new HSF, etc. and/or to say that I've actually

pushed a/my pc to a nice, stable level).

Any ideas or things to try/to do to see about hitting that 3.0Ghz mark...I know

~275 fsb is common, yes? :'( but not for me it seems so far...

My ram timings spec are 2-3-3-6, I can use 2.5-3-3-5 as well, but I haven't

tried 2-3-3-6...something made me leave it at 2.5 and I don't know why --

accordign to my ram it can go cas 2 for intel but 2.5 for amd, obviously I want

my true cas2 lol...let me reboot and see about that now..

OK, it will not post at 2-3-3-6 (I suppose I should have taken this up with

Corsair BEFORe now...heh), but it does post at 2.5-3-3-5, thought that was

kinda weird, but i dunno, lol :$

I have a million questions, so I'm sure ill be posting more later on different

things.

275MHz FSB is rare on non MO chips. Some of the initial 2.4C and 2.6C processors that I had couldn't even do 250MHz FSB no matter how much juice you put to them on the best setups out there. If you are getting around 246MHz FSB stable and reaching 3GHz call it a success for that chip and expect no more. Fellow editor Justin West (Illuminiti on the forums) only gets around 240FSB out of his 2.6C that he bought a couple months after the initial release.

If you want more power the last 3 2.8C's that I bought from newegg this month all overclocked to 3.5GHz with ease. 3.5GHz for $170... not a bad deal right now and it blows away the prescotts ;)

As for the memory timings CL2 is more agressive than CL2.5 so when you are overclocking memory you will reach a max for CL2 and by loosening the CAS Latency to 2.5 it should give you more head room.

If your memory can't run at CL2 and it is supposed to try making sure you have the correct voltage on it. Most memory is spec'd to run at 2.65V, so you should have the vDimm set to 2.7V in the BIOS. ;)

yeah mine doesnt have mo stepping, sadly, but i bought it from newegg for like 220 i think it was~

im sure i can get it to go a little higher, i think actually ocne i DID have it hittign 247, but like i said earlier, i had doen most of that earlier adn wasnt as concerned...i started feeling like my computer was becoming...impudent lately so ive been wanting to push it a little more...

yeah, the cas is 2 but i didnt check vdimm (thats a thing i can go check and see baout, because it didnt cross my mind to change anything but the core at first)...live and learn, lol thanks, ill try changing that and see whats up :)

Hey, :)

OK I tried putting timings to 2-3-3-6 (spec to run at that) and increase the vdimm (isnt the 'reference' setting the voltage for that?) to as high as 2.85 and it would not post.

It still only works at 2.5-3-3-6 (or last charge to 5).

I have it at 246Mhz, but I haven't thoroughly tested it, but I have booted i believe at 245Mhz before, this is with retail hsf (although I have a pretty decent aircooling, 7x80mm fans pushing ~35cfm, one is side and a double-fan psu right over cpu...that should help, lol...)

anyways, i gotta go get something, bbl

2.5-3-3-6 at 246fsb is damn good for any ram. i dont think your going to get it down to cas 2 with out a hell of a lot of voltage and a fan sitting on top the ram. i would be happy where you are or sell your ram and buy some CorsairXL

Corsair XL is some great ram for tight timings...

2-2-2-5 at 400MHz
2.5-3-3-6 at 500MHz ;)

yeah, thats great...ik it sounds like im complaining...but it wont go 2-3-3-6 at 200mhz, that's the problem...:( i dont even keep my comp overclocked right now (dont feel a very great urge to), so i cant help but want to make it run like i expected at stock...its maybe just as much curiosity than anythign else...but i almost feel bad because i should have rma'd this ram...i heard something in a corsair forum a long time ago that there was a 1.1 adn 1.2 revision and they discontinued one of them, the one they did discontinue was supposedly very sweet and awesome for overclocking, they repleased it with another version or something, i think it was even a letter revision of that version as well, who konws lol :)

i wont waste corsair's time with an rma that i should have done before (live and learn, then test ur hardware that next day), i can use this ram on another system i build later maybe, and when i get some spare throw-around money ill buy a full gig of some probably XL :)

hehe :D