New PC now or wait? Q9400 vs i7 920. Thinking out loud

[tim]

My PC is starting to annoy me. If I render something large in Proshow Gold my CPU temp spikes and I get a constant loud annoying tone from the speaker until I reboot. It'll be overheating. It's an AMD X2 4800+, with stock cooler. It's mostly fast enough, but rending lots of RAWs can take some time, and i'd like it to be more responsive. I need to process about 30,000 RAW files in the next 4 months (22 weddings), plus make albums, render DVDs, etc. The bulk of the work is Feb and March next year.

I'm undecided whether I should get a high end Core2Quad now, a low end Core i7 now, or wait until Jan and get an i7 then. Benchmarks aren't conclusive about performance. According to Toms Hardware the Q9400 is about the same speed as the i920 in Photoshop tests (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-Core-i7-Nehalem,2057-29.html) (lots of filters), but the i920 is about twice as fast in the 3D rendering tests (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-Core-i7-Nehalem,2057-34.html), and is twice to three times faster in the Xvid/Divx tests (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-Core-i7-Nehalem,2057-31.html). My workload is 60% working with and batch converting RAW files, 30% making albums (PhotoJunction and Photoshop), and 10% rendering Proshow DVDs. My best guess is the 3D rendering is the best model for my main task, batch conversion, as on my dual core the hard drives barely tick over and the CPUs are max'd out, which tells me it's not disk limited.

I priced out the two systems, at my usual local retailer (http://www.ascent.co.nz), even though the parts aren't quite available yet prices are there. NB I can't order from Newegg or outside New Zealand, they won't ship here.

Things like motherboard and video card I just picked at random, i'll do more research before I actually buy. Here's what I came up with:
- Intel Q9400, Intel G33 based board, 8GB Corsair RAM, a hard drive, Vista Business, Asus 9600GT 512MB video card, and a mid range CoolerMaster case: NZ$2070.
- Intel i920 (NZ$700 online), motherboard (guess $350 since can't actually find one), 6GB DDR3 1600 NZ$500, the rest the same: NZ$3250

Seems to me that the entry level i920 will cost about $1000 more than the Core2Quad machine. I don't really want to spend $3K on a PC though, that seems excessive, though I can afford it if I choose to. I don't want to use anything from the current PC, as it has some odd quirks that could be either power supply or motherboard related, plus I want a quieter case too. I think the i920 will be 50-100% faster for the types of tasks i'll do.

There are three other things to consider:
- If I wait until Jan will the price drop much?
- Will future i7 chips be a drop in replacement for the i920? If so I may be able to double performance again with an upgrade in 2 years. I've read they might be changing to another socket again before too long, even though the socket the i7 uses is new.
- The New Zealand dollar is REALLY weak right now. If I wait it might strengthen a little, making things cheaper. It might get worse too.

Thoughts are welcome!

[OdiN1701]

Well for motherboard, I would get a P-series or X-series chipset, not the G-series if you go with a current chip.

New release chips don't drop in price that quickly usually. It may drop the price of the Q9400 though.

With Intel - you can't always say that a future i7 chip will be a drop in replacement - it may, it may not. One would think - with the memory controller on the i7 chip itself that it would increase the longevity of the motherboard, but I generally figure Intel will do something that will make it need a new board.

$3000 is $1700US approximately. I don't think I'd spend that much on a system either.

One thing to try is to get some Arctic Alumina thermal paste. Clean your CPU and heatsink of whatever thermal paste is currently on there. Alcohol pads work well for this. Then apply the Arctic Alumina and put the heatsink back on - blow any dust out of the heatsink - make sure the fan is turning well.

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_alumina.htm

If it's overheating when full load it may throttle the speed down and cause lower performance. It's a cheap way to find out and I'd recommend the Arctic Alumina anyway for a new chip.

[MaxxuM]

My PC is starting to annoy me. If I render something large in Proshow Gold my CPU temp spikes and I get a constant loud annoying tone from the speaker until I reboot. It'll be overheating. It's an AMD X2 4800+, with stock cooler. It's mostly fast enough, but rending lots of RAWs can take some time, and i'd like it to be more responsive. I need to process about 30,000 RAW files in the next 4 months (22 weddings), plus make albums, render DVDs, etc. The bulk of the work is Feb and March next year.

I'm undecided whether I should get a high end Core2Quad now, a low end Core i7 now, or wait until Jan and get an i7 then. Benchmarks aren't conclusive about performance. According to Toms Hardware the Q9400 is about the same speed as the i920 in Photoshop tests (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-Core-i7-Nehalem,2057-29.html) (lots of filters), but the i920 is about twice as fast in the 3D rendering tests (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-Core-i7-Nehalem,2057-34.html), and is twice to three times faster in the Xvid/Divx tests (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-Core-i7-Nehalem,2057-31.html). My workload is 60% working with and batch converting RAW files, 30% making albums (PhotoJunction and Photoshop), and 10% rendering Proshow DVDs. My best guess is the 3D rendering is the best model for my main task, batch conversion, as on my dual core the hard drives barely tick over and the CPUs are max'd out, which tells me it's not disk limited.

I priced out the two systems, at my usual local retailer (http://www.ascent.co.nz), even though the parts aren't quite available yet prices are there. NB I can't order from Newegg or outside New Zealand, they won't ship here.

Things like motherboard and video card I just picked at random, i'll do more research before I actually buy. Here's what I came up with:
- Intel Q9400, Intel G33 based board, 8GB Corsair RAM, a hard drive, Vista Business, Asus 9600GT 512MB video card, and a mid range CoolerMaster case: NZ$2070.
- Intel i920 (NZ$700 online), motherboard (guess $350 since can't actually find one), 6GB DDR3 1600 NZ$500, the rest the same: NZ$3250

Seems to me that the entry level i920 will cost about $1000 more than the Core2Quad machine. I don't really want to spend $3K on a PC though, that seems excessive, though I can afford it if I choose to. I don't want to use anything from the current PC, as it has some odd quirks that could be either power supply or motherboard related, plus I want a quieter case too. I think the i920 will be 50-100% faster for the types of tasks i'll do.

There are three other things to consider:
- If I wait until Jan will the price drop much?
- Will future i7 chips be a drop in replacement for the i920? If so I may be able to double performance again with an upgrade in 2 years. I've read they might be changing to another socket again before too long, even though the socket the i7 uses is new.
- The New Zealand dollar is REALLY weak right now. If I wait it might strengthen a little, making things cheaper. It might get worse too.

Thoughts are welcome!

It's going to be expensive to go with an i7 for the foreseeable future. Motherboards are going to be more expensive than the actual CPU for a few months too. Prices will likely not drop more than 5% until after Christmas - maybe not even then. It's hard to predict the market, but history says prices will come down but not for at least 4-6 months then as supplies decrease prices will rise again.

Just about any motherboard from Asus, Gigabyte or Intel will be fine, particularly those above $150US. I would wait at least until Christmas to see what happens though. AMD is in a very bad situation with the i7 and all they can do is lower price to compete. I would wait to see if Intel lowers their prices to really rub out AMD - in the past they have, but they may also feel they have such an advantage they will just let AMD alone for now.

[tim]

Ok maybe i7 will have to wait. I wonder if it's worth upgrading to a Q6600 system and overclocking it. A Q6600, an Asus P5Q motherboard, 8GB Kingston DDR2 1066MHz, and Vista Business is $1200. I'd also replace the fans in my PC to make it quieter, so another $100. Any thoughts about whether it's worth the bother? Alternately my PC isn't too bad, I can wait I just get impatient and the overheating's annoying.

I've already gotten some replacement heat transfer paste and reattached the stock cooler to the CPU, I don't think doing it again will help :(

[Moppie]

Ok maybe i7 will have to wait. I wonder if it's worth upgrading to a Q6600 system and overclocking it. A Q6600, an Asus P5Q motherboard, 8GB Kingston DDR2 1066MHz, and Vista Business is $1200. I'd also replace the fans in my PC to make it quieter, so another $100. Any thoughts about whether it's worth the bother? Alternately my PC isn't too bad, I can wait I just get impatient and the overheating's annoying.



You could build a cheap Q6600 system now, then early next year get a new i7 system.

Then the Q600 would become a reliable back up system if needed, and you could completely ditch the old system that is sounding like it is becoming less and less reliable.

[tim]

If I stick with XP and go with 4GB of RAM (more than enough for me) I could get a Q6600 for $780. That would double to quadruple my system speed and be a good short term upgrade. I can then wait until the i7 systems come down in price, sell the quad core system for a decent enough price as it'll still be pretty dang fast.

Can anyone recommend a motherboard for the Q6600? The list of available boards is here (http://www.ascent.co.nz/Category.aspx?majorcatID=37&minorCatID=211). Since i'm only planning on keeping it for 6 months I don't need a fancy one. I do want to have a go at overclocking though.

While i'm at it, how is this RAM (http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=348297)? And can anyone recommend quiet fans for the system? Probably CPU cooler, and two case fans. I'll have to work out which ones are loudest and need to be replaced, but it could be the PSU fans that are loud. The cooling page is here (http://www.ascent.co.nz/Category.aspx?majorcatID=13).

[Moppie]

Try this MB: http://www.pbtech.co.nz/index.php?item=MBDAS61236

[tim]

Thanks Moppie. I just ordered:
- Q6600 (the more expensive CPUs didn't seem to give much extra performance)
- Asus P5Q SE/R (think this is the one you linked to - same specs at least)
- Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 (reviews well)
- Corsair DOMINATOR TWIN2X4096 2x2GB, DDR21066 (random choice)

[Moppie]

Sweet, I built a machine for a mate a couple of months ago using the same CPU, board and ram, and it works very well and was very easy to put together.

[tim]

I just hope this fixed the issues I have. The first is overheating, should be fine with that cooler. The other is after I turn the PC off I have to unplug the PC then plug it back in to get it to restart. If it's a motherboard issue this will fix it, but if it's a power supply i'll have to replace that.

[Moppie]

I would replace the power supply as well, just to be sure.
Another $100 could save a lot of time and stress later on, especially if the old one pops and takes all the new bits with it.

[tim]

I'll wait and see how it is, if it works reliably i'll keep it, if I have the same problem i'll get a new PS.

[Moppie]

That's assuming the problems manifest the same way :cool:

Don't be cheap, buy the new PS

[tim]

Let's see if there's anything wrong with the current PS first. The whole point of this upgrade is to do it on the cheap and save money for the big upgrade next year.

[tim]

Does it make any difference if I have 800MHz DDR2 vs 1066MHz DDR2? Everything shipped but the RAM, I can buy DDR2-800 locally but the DDR2-1066 wouldn't be here until next week. I plan to overclock the CPU a little, but not much. What i've read suggests 800 should be fine.

[OdiN1701]

I've got the 2.4@3GHz with 800MHz RAM. You're fine unless you muck with the RAM dividers - which you wouldn't see much increase running the RAM at 1066 (out of sync) anyway.

[tim]

Thanks Andrew, that much matches what my quick google search said.

I've never overclocked anything, but I know little bit about the theory, and I have a hardware engineering background. Any suggestions regarding how to overclock the new machine?

Edit - just found a guide at Toms Hardware that will walk me through it :)

[OdiN1701]

Yeah basically on that sysem all you need to do is set the FSB speed on the motherboard to 333MHz with a Q6600. Done.

IF you have good cooling. I don't know about that unit you got. I have a Thermalright Ultra 120. The only thing that beats it for air cooling is the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme.

http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?i=2981

You may need to increase your CPU voltage (remember more voltage = more heat). You can check Intel's site for the in-spec range of voltages for your CPU. Just don't go outside of that and you're fine. You can push it outside the range, but why?

[tim]

I looked at the reviews for the cooling units and the one I got isn't as good as the one you have, but it's good quality and about half the price. I think on 333MHz/3GHz that fan will be fine, and i've been reading on Toms Hardware about voltages and such. I'll run it stock until I have time to mess with it, even stock it will be a bunch faster than what I have now.

I'm going to cancel the DDR2-1066 RAM and buy DDR2-800 locally, it's more than enough for the q6600 even at 3.2GHz.

[OdiN1701]

I'm running mine at the stock voltage so you probably won't even have to change it.

[tim]

I'll take it down as low as I can, to reduce the heat it generates. I might try going above 3GHz some time too, when I have time to play.

[OdiN1701]

I wouldn't undervolt it personally.

[tim]

All the parts turned up today, including the overspecced RAM :) One thing I just realised is I have an IDE main disk, and i'm fairly sure my DVD-RAM is IDE as well (i'm not at home right now). The motherboard I bought only has one IDE connector :( I might try cloning my system drive onto an SATA disk and using that as my system disk (using XXClone), then running the DVD-ROM on the IDE port. Worst case i'm out $50 for a new DVD writer.

[Moppie]

You can normally run 2 devices on one IDE cable, just remember Master and Slave :)

Just beware that some old IDE drives won't work on some newer m/b's.

[MaxxuM]

All the parts turned up today, including the overspecced RAM :) One thing I just realised is I have an IDE main disk, and i'm fairly sure my DVD-RAM is IDE as well (i'm not at home right now). The motherboard I bought only has one IDE connector :( I might try cloning my system drive onto an SATA disk and using that as my system disk (using XXClone), then running the DVD-ROM on the IDE port. Worst case i'm out $50 for a new DVD writer.

I use Drive XML, but as long as it works...

Just a note about IDE drives. All devices on one chain will run at the speed of the slowest device while it is active. Meaning, if you have a DVD-ROM and a hard drive on the same wire the hard drive will run at the DVD speed. You can buy yourself a PCI IDE card if you are just looking to save money. They're very cheap and a DVD will run fine off of one.

Don't beat yourself up about the SATA vs IDE thing. I was in a rush a few years back and purchased a motherboard with no PS/2 slots for the keyboard and mouse and the store was closed so I couldn't go buy new ones.

[MaxxuM]

I wouldn't undervolt it personally.

Not to mention most motherboards have voltage droop... Meaning, the voltage you set in the BIOS will actually 'droop' or fall slightly from spec because the electronics are not top quality. There is actually a pretty large gap of voltages for Core2Duo's... I'm undervolting one system because for some reason the MB wants to pump nearly the max voltage to the CPU even while idle. So I dropped it by .3 volts and tested it for 12hrs with Prime. With really good motherboards you can set voltage max and min and set the power saving features to kick on at certain voltages. Usually those boards run over $200 though.

[tim]

I don't think the cable's long enough to run both on the IDE cable, and that speed thing doesn't sound ideal.

Sounds like cloning the drive to an SATA drive is the best plan, especially since I have a spare 120GB SATA drive. Hopefully windows will clone onto the drive ok, then hopefully I can uninstall the motherboard drivers and get windows running on the new motherboard without reinstalling windows.

If I do need to reinstall windows I need SATA drivers for the motherboard, as my old windows CD doesn't recognise SATA. The motherboard's an Asus P5Q SE/R. Does anyone know where to get drivers? I think I have a floppy disk somewhere... and I still have a floppy drive in the PC!

Edit - it has floppy and IDE connectors.

[MaxxuM]

I don't think the cable's long enough to run both on the IDE cable, and that speed thing doesn't sound ideal.

Sounds like cloning the drive to an SATA drive is the best plan, especially since I have a spare 120GB SATA drive. Hopefully windows will clone onto the drive ok, then hopefully I can uninstall the motherboard drivers and get windows running on the new motherboard without reinstalling windows.

If I do need to reinstall windows I need SATA drivers for the motherboard, as my old windows CD doesn't recognise SATA. The motherboard's an Asus P5Q SE/R. Does anyone know where to get drivers? I think I have a floppy disk somewhere... and I still have a floppy drive in the PC!

Edit - it has floppy and IDE connectors.

Some things to note...

When cloning an active partition the software will have to use Shadow Copy and there might be a small bit of corruption due either to permissions or bit differences on the copied drive. A CHKDSK /F usually fixes this though.

When cloning a drive the target usually has to be equal or larger size than the partition being copied. There is free software to partition the drive smaller to accommodate the difference between drives. Again, there may be slight corruption.

For SATA drivers go to your motherboard or hard drive manufacturer. I would also take the opportunity to download and install the newest chipset drivers and install them 'after' you have copied things over.

Edit: Almost forgot, turn off all AV software during cloning just to be safe.

[tim]

Thanks Maxxum. I just read my new motherboard has an IDE emulation mode, so if I do need to install windows I might not need drivers. A friend sent me a link to drivers anyway, and I have them, just need to buy a floppy disk!

I'll take your suggestions cloning the disk, thanks.

[Moppie]

All the P5's I have played had an IDE emulation mode, but it should have come with a full set of drivers anyway?

If not just download them from the ASUS website before hand, and stick them on a USB key or disk.

[tim]

Cool, bit of luck I won't need to reinstall windows, but if I do i'll try emulation mode, and I have the Intel SATA drivers on disk. I had to go buy a pack of floppy disks!

[Moppie]

A pack of what's ???

[tim]

Yeah, exactly. They come in handy for ghost disks, rescue disks, etc, as I don't know if my old motherboard could boot from a USB key. Don't know if the new one can either, actually, might try it this evening.

[Moppie]

I have 3 computer cases in the house, and the only one that actually has a disk drive in it is the one that doesn't work.

[OdiN1701]

Tim - running the CD and HD off the same IDE cable could also hinder the performance of the hard drive, even if it's set as master.

[tim]

Tim - running the CD and HD off the same IDE cable could also hinder the performance of the hard drive, even if it's set as master.

Yeah someone told me that on another forum, thanks. I'll address that at some point.

[tim]

Hello, world!

Got it all going, took a few hours, the hardest part was installing the heatsink. I'm on the old windows install, with the old drivers gone and the new ones installed, all looks good.

My batch conversion time in my old PC was 4minutes. With the new one, not overclocked yet, it's 1m 40sec. So it's maybe 2.3X faster, and there's lots of potential there.

Thanks for all the advice to everyone who helped me out :)

[tim]

Anyone know how to get it to control the fan speed properly? It's spinning the CPU fan at 2800rpm (92mm arctic cooler) and the chassis fan at 900rpm (120mm) even though the CPU temp is 31 degrees. It's kinda loud.

Edit - worked it out. I just had to enable a feature in the bios. Volume has dropped 70%, it's quiet even with the case off :)

[BottomBracket]

Hey congratulations Tim! Glad it all worked out for you. Just remember to blow out any dust that gathers at the cooling fins of the CPU cooler and other fan intakes every now and then. Also you can download CoreTemp (http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/) to monitor the temperature of each core if you like.

[tim]

Thanks Pio, I have a couple of temp utilities. This thing just files compared with the old system, but that's a combination of CS4, more RAM, and quad core. Plenty of dust in the old system, even though I vacumed it occasionally.

The hardest part was putting the heat sink on. That took me 25 minutes!

[jdizzle]

Congrats on the new build Tim! I see everything worked out well for you. I'm still sitting on the fence since i7 just came out. I'll probably go this route and even though it's overkill for gaming, I like to have the latest and greatest.:) My budget exceeds my wants and that's just my nature. :) I'm definitely going to OC the CPU and Ram and definitely do some liquid cooling on the CPU. Have fun with your new rig! :)

[tim]

I'm just playing with overclocking the Q6600 now. With a FSB of 333MHz (CPU 3.0 GHz) it locked up the entire system under load (i'm using Prime95 to generate the load). It was 20% faster to batch convert in ACR while it worked... but it's no good if it doesn't work. I don't have a clue how to work out why it hung, so I took it back to 2.7GHz to try that, which seems ok for now, and about 10% faster than stock.

[MaxxuM]

I'm just playing with overclocking the Q6600 now. With a FSB of 333MHz (CPU 3.0 GHz) it locked up the entire system under load (i'm using Prime95 to generate the load). It was 20% faster to batch convert in ACR while it worked... but it's no good if it doesn't work. I don't have a clue how to work out why it hung, so I took it back to 2.7GHz to try that, which seems ok for now, and about 10% faster than stock.

What was the temp, core v and memory v?

[tim]

Core temp was about 60 degrees, don't think it was that. Vcore was 1.27v or so, i'm trying 333/3GHz with 1.3V right now. I tried it with 1.2V a few minutes ago and it rebooted.

With 3GHz and 1.3V it gave me an error in Prime95, the calculation came out wrong, temps still below 60 degrees. I've backed off to 2.7GHz and a slightly lower voltage to see what happens.

[MaxxuM]

Core temp was about 60 degrees, don't think it was that. Vcore was 1.27v or so, i'm trying 333/3GHz with 1.3V right now. I tried it with 1.2V a few minutes ago and it rebooted.

With 3GHz and 1.3V it gave me an error in Prime95, the calculation came out wrong, temps still below 60 degrees. I've backed off to 2.7GHz and a slightly lower voltage to see what happens.

60C is starting to get a little hot. Chipset temp and v also matter, however not as much until you start going above 3.2Ghz. I'm currently running at 3.6Ghz on air, but I've lapped my CPU/HS and found the perfect voltage which is 1.41v. My motherboard allows me to v adj everything from the northbridge to the CPU and memory and I had to play some to get mine going w/o errors after 12hrs of Prime. Do you use CPU-Z? That way you can see how much voltage droop you're getting. Mine droops about .03v which is not so bad. Budget boards can droop more than .3v and you may be experiencing a big voltage irregularity. Not to mention peoples milage will vary with OCing.

The first thing I would do is see how much difference there is in temp and voltage in BIOS vs in system. Set your voltage at 1.2 and match the NB to the CPU - with NO OCing. Open CPU-Z and see what the voltage is idle after 10 minutes. I bet you're going to see at least a .05 - .1 v droop. Under stress the voltage will actually go down - this is because the CPU and MB are sucking up more power. There is a science to getting the most out of your equipment. Here are two links to some good info. The first is the CPU and its stats and the second is an OCing tutorial. Very indepth and it saved me a lot of trial and error.

http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLACR


http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/240001-29-howto-overclock-quads-duals-guide

[tim]

A couple of cores made it to 66C, which is only 4 degrees from what I consider the maximum. This is under a constant load though, something I never do in practice.

This is seeming like too much bother for 10% more performance. It's already 3-4 times faster than my old PC so i'm pretty happy with it :)

The only thing I might do is maybe try 3GHz with 1.4V, just to see what happens. DO you think it's worth a go? I'll get hotter, of course, running faster with more voltage.

[OdiN1701]

Something isn't right.

http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?i=2981&p=3

That is worse than most everything.

The Ultra 120 Extreme ran 3.96GHz full load at 47C. Granted that was a dual core, but still.

Mine is running at 1.29V, and under full load it's at 48C. I have the original Ulra 120. Now ambient temp is probably lower here as it is winter and I don't run the heater all that high.

It *could* be your PSU - if it is marginal it may not be the best for overclocking.

Are you sure your heatsink is on correctly?

[MaxxuM]

A couple of cores made it to 66C, which is only 4 degrees from what I consider the maximum. This is under a constant load though, something I never do in practice.

This is seeming like too much bother for 10% more performance. It's already 3-4 times faster than my old PC so i'm pretty happy with it :)

The only thing I might do is maybe try 3GHz with 1.4V, just to see what happens. DO you think it's worth a go? I'll get hotter, of course, running faster with more voltage.

Odin's right. Something isn't right. I would reseat the heat sink. That's too much heat for 3Ghz. With the thermal compound make sure you're only placing a thin single bead down the center of the cpu.

[tim]

It's about 40 degrees at idle, in a room that's probably 20 degrees. I have the BIOS set up to keep things quiet rather than cool. The PSU seems fine, I guess the problems I was having was a faulty motherboard.

It wouldn't surprise me if the heatsink isn't mounted properly, it took me about 20 minutes and three goes to get it clipped in correctly, the space that it's in is quite tight. I didn't put paste on, the heatsink came with paste already attached. I'll add cleaning and redoing it to my list of things to do, since the temp is within spec it won't hurt it for a while. I might sand the CPU down a little too, or I might not. I'd rather touch the CPU as little as possible, especially since I don't have any way to pick it up without touching the pins.

Thanks guys.

[OdiN1701]

I wouldn't sand it. I would remove whatever stock paste was already on the heatsink and use some good stuff. I hate the clip things. I prefer something that screws down.

[tim]

I'll get some Arctic Silver paste some time and give it a go. I'm not looking forward to playing with that heatsink again.

[MaxxuM]

I'll get some Arctic Silver paste some time and give it a go. I'm not looking forward to playing with that heatsink again.

I've read in the past that things like arctic silver are superior thermal conductors vs heat pads - however they also break down faster than pads and if you do not plan on upgrading CPUs/HSs then the pad is recommended. However, since you plan on removing it then silver is the way to go. My room's ambient temp is around 25.3 and my CPU hovers around 38C with no load even at 3.6Ghz. This is likely because my MB allows me to set the min/max voltage. When the CPU goes into power saver the voltage drops to 1.2v, when it kicks in all cores it jumps back up to 1.41v. The more volts you put in the hotter things get. My north bridge is set to the same voltage as the CPU - so as it rises so does the NB. My case is really a big factor too; the Antec 900 as 5 (7 w/ PSU) very efficient fans and the case is very spacious inside with plenty of air flow. There are no wires in the way either (they are all strapped down on the walls). When I changed cases I saw a drop of 5 degrees!

To check your heat sink, wiggle it a little and if it moves at all, even the slightest bit, it isn't set right. There should be a 'click' on all four legs. Sometimes what you think may be a click is actually just the outer foot peg just locking without the inner going through it completely.

[tim]

I'm fairly sure the heatsink is clicked down properly, if not the core temp would go way above 70 at full load. Maybe the heat interface isn't quite so good, I did have 3-4 tries at putting it on so that wouldn't surprise me. Now i've done it once a second time should be easier.

I have an Antec Sonata 1 case, it's not too bad. I have a PSU fan of course, a 120mm case fan, a 92mm CPU fan, and a 120mm hard drive fan. There's wires all over the place, which i'll strap down pretty soon, and i'm changing the IDE HDD to SATA so I can connect the DVD back up.

[OdiN1701]

Well if one corner isn't quite right - it could cause your issues, even though it may appear to be on correctly.

[BottomBracket]

Agree with Odin here, perhaps one corner is not 'clicked' on correctly. Those push pins are a pain in the derriere and it is best to do away with them and fasten your HSF with a retention bracket. This allows you to bolt your CPU cooler to the motherboard instead of pushing in those pins.

The good news is that retention brackets are cheap, around $7. The bad news is that you will have to take out your motherboard from the backplate, as the retention bracket goes on the underside of the motherboard. A bit of a pain but well worth it.

You will have to clean your CPU and the HSF interfaces with rubbing alcohol before reapplying the TIM. Since your CPU is a quad core, and your Arctic Cooler has a shiny plate, all you need to apply is a thin line along the middle of the CPU, horizontally (that is, parallel to the text on the CPU when you read it. Don't sand down your CPU, you will have problems with RMA'ing it if ever something happens to it.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y209/killa_concept/sidebysidecomp.jpg

[tim]

Small things usually cost more here than in the US. I can't find a "retention bracket" on the site I order from, can you spot one? http://www.ascent.co.nz . I'm fairly sure I have the heatsink locked down properly, and that I can do it again. I have a kit with cleaner and heat transfer paste on order.

[tim]

The heatsink wasn't clicked in properly after all... now under full load for ten minutes the CPU gets to 54 degrees, and idles around 38 degrees (in a room that's probably 22 degrees). I'm still at 2700MHz, i'll play some more when i'm not so busy.

[MaxxuM]

The heatsink wasn't clicked in properly after all... now under full load for ten minutes the CPU gets to 54 degrees, and idles around 38 degrees (in a room that's probably 22 degrees). I'm still at 2700MHz, i'll play some more when i'm not so busy.

That sounds a little better :)

After the 'burn in' temps should drop another 3-5 degrees. To measure the quality of your HS you should go into the BIOS and monitor the temps there. After ten minutes temps should not be more than +10 of ambient for an OK HS. For good HSs temps should not be more than +7 of ambient and for water cooled no more than +5 ambient.

[BottomBracket]

Small things usually cost more here than in the US. I can't find a "retention bracket" on the site I order from, can you spot one? http://www.ascent.co.nz . I'm fairly sure I have the heatsink locked down properly, and that I can do it again. I have a kit with cleaner and heat transfer paste on order.

Tim I don't see it in the site you linked to. And wow, prices down there are a bit more expensive than here.

But the issue is moot since apparently you fixed the errant pin after all. I am glad you are enjoying lower temps now, and as Maxxum said, they should go a bit lower once the TIM sets in.

[tim]

Yeah, it's settling down, thanks guys. I might still reseat the heat sink just to be sure, but only if it actually hits a high temp during batching. I have the stuff to do it, just not the time. I just put a 1TB hard drive in for my images, so I could connect the IDE DVD-writer up again. I have a customer waiting for a DVD!

The new machine coupled with new versions of Photoshop and PhotoJunction are pretty quick, it's fairly rare for me to be waiting for it these days. Pretty happy with the performance improvement for about US$500 :)

[mzondeki]

Hello Tim,
I strongly believe, your existing Athlon 4800 X2, has enough juice to process 22K Raw images. Here are my observation. My existing Athlon 3000+ , DDR400 ultracheap machine processes raw files (converts to TIFF/JPEG), at <1 mins per File. Your machine is atleast two times better.

If you think your machine is sluggish, here are couple of things you can do.

1. Dust on HeatSink Fins..Clean it to expose metallic fins. Pull off Heat Sink from processor, detach fan from heat sink, brush off lints and dusts, you may use water to clean it. Infact clean as much dust possible from the case

2. When doing batch processing (of 22K files), probably you will be sleeping..so unplug internet, shutdown internet security/firewall. Some internet security softwares take nearly 50% CPU resources.

3. You have 2 CPUs (X2), the batch processing software many not be multithreaded to take advantage of 2 CPUs (if so a Quad-Core or 100 core machine is not going to help).
Instead of firing 1 batch job of 1000 files, create 2 batch jobs of 500 files each.

4. Make sure you have enough RAM (at least 2G).

5. Kill all junk process you dont need while batch processing.
Hope this helps.

[tim]

Thanks Mzodeki, bit late I already bought a new machine. My degree is in computers so I know all that stuff, but maybe it'll help someone out.

[smcclelland]

Good choice on the Q6600, the i7 Bloomfield chips are early stages and the performance gains aren't all that noticable at least until Nehalem launches in February or so. Bloomfield are nice chips however the benefit over a Q6600 or a Q9650 aren't big enough to warrant the cost right now, Nehalem will offer dual CPU configs and hopefully Skulltrail 2 from Intel which is what I am waiting for.

As for your overclocking (i only briefly glanced over the thread here), you could easily crank out 3.4ghz on air without so much as a hiccup with a good cooler. I run 3.2ghz daily using a Thermaltake Mini Typhoon on my Q6600 and just run 400x8 @ 1.325v 5-5-5-15 on the memory (disable C1E which will help stability situations). Your system's a wee bit tougher because of the 1066 ram, I went with DDR2-800 so I could match the ram and cpu at 1:1 for better throughput back and forth. Doubt you'll see 533 clock without stuffing a watercooling setup in there :(

[tim]

Thanks for the tips, I might give overclocking it another go now the heatsink is properly attached. btw the RAM speed is just the maximum speed it can run at, so anything 800 RAM can do the 1066 RAM can do, I run it at the same speeds.

[luukie]

I don't see why you can't run the Ram at 400, it is lower than the rated speeds so no worries there. I also reckon that you should easily reach 3.2 GHz (8*400), but i couldn't find what cooler you are using, so heat might be an issue.
Here is a link that might be helpful
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=142430
It seems like that's quite an effort to get the last 10% performance out of your computer, but if you spend hours working on your computer, a 10% performance increase could potentially save you a lot of time. Time you can put into photography or other things. You already bought the hardware, you might as well spend some time on it to squeeze every performance out of it..to save you some time.. :D

[smcclelland]

Thanks for the tips, I might give overclocking it another go now the heatsink is properly attached. btw the RAM speed is just the maximum speed it can run at, so anything 800 RAM can do the 1066 RAM can do, I run it at the same speeds.

It's not so much about the RAM speed actually, while 1066 ram is fast it needs to have a sync with your CPU frequency. If your frequency isn't matched you get latency between the two which is a bottleneck. Try running CPU-Z and look at the memory tab, it will give you a list of your memory settings and you'll see a Ratio listed as to how many CPU cycles per memory cycle you run (most systems tend to do 5:6).

[tim]

It's not so much about the RAM speed actually, while 1066 ram is fast it needs to have a sync with your CPU frequency. If your frequency isn't matched you get latency between the two which is a bottleneck. Try running CPU-Z and look at the memory tab, it will give you a list of your memory settings and you'll see a Ratio listed as to how many CPU cycles per memory cycle you run (most systems tend to do 5:6).

The number beside RAM is the maximum rated speed. DDR-533 is actually fast enough for most people. DDR-1066 running at 800MHZ will behave exactly the same as DDR800.

[tim]

I don't see why you can't run the Ram at 400, it is lower than the rated speeds so no worries there. I also reckon that you should easily reach 3.2 GHz (8*400), but i couldn't find what cooler you are using, so heat might be an issue.
Here is a link that might be helpful
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=142430
It seems like that's quite an effort to get the last 10% performance out of your computer, but if you spend hours working on your computer, a 10% performance increase could potentially save you a lot of time. Time you can put into photography or other things. You already bought the hardware, you might as well spend some time on it to squeeze every performance out of it..to save you some time.. :D

Sometimes the last 10% of performance can cause instability. It's overclocked from 2.4 to 2.8 right now and it's perfectly stable, I might try 3GHz some time. I would rather have it quiet than 10% faster.

The cooler's an arctic freezer something, 92mm fan. It rates well on the hardware sites :)

[smcclelland]

The number beside RAM is the maximum rated speed. DDR-533 is actually fast enough for most people. DDR-1066 running at 800MHZ will behave exactly the same as DDR800.

Right, that's the number when your memory is running in dual channel mode 1066 which is the combined 533 frequency of your memory. It's just a way of making sure that your cycles are in check and not bogged down, if you don't notice any bottlenecks then it's generally not an issue but my primary work is floating point operations so 1:1 is where I need to be for my setup.

When Nehalem arrives it'll be a completely different situation as CPU1 will talk to CPU2's memory allocation and vice versa so without an FSB there's a totally new way of pushing that data through cleanly :)

[luukie]

Sometimes the last 10% of performance can cause instability. It's overclocked from 2.4 to 2.8 right now and it's perfectly stable, I might try 3GHz some time. I would rather have it quiet than 10% faster.

The cooler's an arctic freezer something, 92mm fan. It rates well on the hardware sites :)


Ah, I should have said that i was assuming that everything is tested stable. I run my e8200 (stock 2.66) at 4ghz, that's a 50% overclock, and tested it 24 hours stable. I used to be the "hardcore overclocker" watercooling, running benchmarks for no reason (other than just having a faster system).
You already assembled your computer, otherwise I would advise you to buy a heatsink that can accommodate a 120mm fan which is significantly quieter given a certain performance.
Anyways, you already have everything up and running. If you ever decide to upgrade your heatsing, get the ThermalRight Ultra extreme (any version will do, but preferable the 120). It's arguably the best heatsing available and you can also use that one on your new system-to-build in the future.

Ok, c'est tout, enjoy!

[tim]

I didn't bother with the big assed cooler, it seemed unnecessary given I don't need to overclock it much if at all. The jump from my old PC is still fairly large, even if I was at the stock speed. It doesn't much matter if batch jobs finish in 5 minutes or 4 minutes 30 seconds.

[OdiN1701]

I didn't bother with the big assed cooler, it seemed unnecessary given I don't need to overclock it much if at all. The jump from my old PC is still fairly large, even if I was at the stock speed. It doesn't much matter if batch jobs finish in 5 minutes or 4 minutes 30 seconds.

The nice thing about the larger coolers is that they use 120mm fans, which means you can get a nice quiet low RPM 120mm fan and use that vs. a higher RPM 92mm.

[cfcRebel]

Good choice on the Q6600, the i7 Bloomfield chips are early stages and the performance gains aren't all that noticable at least until Nehalem launches in February or so. Bloomfield are nice chips however the benefit over a Q6600 or a Q9650 aren't big enough to warrant the cost right now, Nehalem will offer dual CPU configs and hopefully Skulltrail 2 from Intel which is what I am waiting for.Isn't i7 Nehalem already launched? Dell has already been selling system with i7-920. Or are you talking about something else?

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[tim]

Yep that's the new ones, the performance should be pretty darn good for CPU intensive stuff.

[Quad]

When Nehalem arrives it'll be a completely different situation as CPU1 will talk to CPU2's memory allocation and vice versa so without an FSB there's a totally new way of pushing that data through cleanly :)


Don't know about totally new since AMD got rid of the FSB some time ago.

[OdiN1701]

Don't know about totally new since AMD got rid of the FSB some time ago.

Not really. They are just using a different interconnect pathway technology. The FSB becomes QPI (QuickPath Interconnect) on Intel and it's HT (HyperTransport) on AMD. They are still all interconnect pathways that deliver data to/from the CPU or other devices - but instead of a single, wide, pathway shared by multiple components, you have a serial connection that is higher speed and dedicated to each device.

Systems have been moving in this direction for quite some time. AGP was a bit of a start - it was still parallel in nature but it was a dedicated pathway for the AGP card only providing direct CPU access.

We moved to PCI-Express which is serial in nature, and SATA drives are also serial instead of parallel like the older hard drives.

So really it's the same sort of thing, just different technologies. There is no shared bus anymore, but there still is a bus.

[tim]

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

[ChasP505]

I just read through this thread for the first time and as I begin to assemble my new Q6600 based system, I appreciate all the helpful tips contributed. I've built about a dozen custom PCs for gaming, business and general use, but it's been 3 years since I built my last machine. This thread provided me the "refresher course" I needed. Thanks guys!