1066? 800? eh?

[TdC]

Hi guys, just a quick question for you:
I'm going to upgrade my computer as soon as the 8800GTS/512 becomes readily available here in Holland, and while fitting the usual together, ie. quad core duo 6600, DDR2 and mobo, I see from the websites "people who bought this also bought that" function, that people don't always buy their ram at the FSB speed the CPU is running.

That is, I gather that you can do that, but I'm not sure. So here's the thing: I will get a Q6600 quad core cpu with an FSB of 1066Mhz. Does this mean that I shall require a mobo supporting 1066Mhz and ram that also runs at 1066? Or is this some strange intel thing where you can get ram at 800Mhz that doesn't fit your FSB and they don't care?

/confused anonymous

 

[dysfunction]

You can use lower mhz ram...but obviously you are not getting the most of the system. This also applies to the mobo.

Seems a waste to buy a 1066mhz cpu and then bottleneck it by getting a slower mobo.

 

[Guest]

wibble

 

[Mazling]

wibble

I agree.

Also, my motherboard set up everything for my ram to run at 1066mhz ... except the voltage - which needed to be a bit higher. If you don't want random crashing then be sure to check!

 

[TdC]

wibble

I did post to the correct forum though

 

[inactionman]

The faster the memory bus, the better the memory bandwidth you'll have and the faster your computer will perform. As with pretty much all processors these days you can run your memory asynchronously from the FSB. It's a cost/benefit issue really, depends on your budget.

BTW, make sure to buy a motherboard that will support the new penryns, and you can swap your processor for a much better one when they come out march-april time.

 

[TdC]

is that the 45nm thing I am reading about?

 

[inactionman]

Yeah, the new 45nm quad core processors.

 

[TdC]

aha cool, so I got it right

here's what I have in the order list atm:

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (S775, 4x 2.4GHz, 8MB, 1066MHz FSB, Boxed) (G0 stepping) € 219,95
• Scythe Mugen Infinity SCINF-1000 (Socket 478⁄775⁄754⁄939⁄940⁄AM2) € 37,95
• Asus GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB DDR3 (PCI-e, 2x DVI) EN8800GTS⁄HTDP⁄512M € 289,95
• Kingston 2GB DDR2 PC8500 1066MHz CL5 HyperX Nvidia SLI Dual Channel Kit (KHX8500D2K2⁄2GN) € 115,80
• GigaByte GA-P35C-DS3R, P35 (ATX, DDR2⁄DDR3, Sound, LAN, SATA II, RAID) € 97,95

the Gigabyte mobo is the only one in this shop of which I have been able to verify that it supports both 1066FSB and 1066DDR2 (it also suports DDR3 for that matter, but that doesn't particularly interest me) and the upcoming 45nm quad core cpus, so it's reasonably future-proof as far as anything in a computer can be future-proof heh. any holes?

 

[Jupitus]

Teeds - I just fitted that Mobo and CPU in my machine - no problems, nice packaging and build etc.

Drop the scythe (assuming its a CPU, not a GPU cooler) and use the stock cooler provided. The Q6600 runs MUCH cooler than older intel kit, so I don't think you will need it!

What OS is this for? If it's anything over XP you might want to look at a bit more RAM instead... ?

 

[TdC]

aha, cheers Jup, the cpu is a boxed one, so does that mean there's a cooler with it or would that be tray packaged? I can't remember :/

it's for XP, so I'm staying with 2GB for the mo which suites me tbh. I have 2GB now, and experience no issues at all.

 

[Jupitus]

aha, cheers Jup, the cpu is a boxed one, so does that mean there's a cooler with it or would that be tray packaged? I can't remember :/

dunno... best check though!!

 

[TdC]

heh I guess we'll see

afaict boxed means the cpu comes with a fan

 

[TdC]

zomg! the 8800GTS just became available at that shop! woot!

 

[inactionman]

Now's probably not the best time to talk about the 9800 coming out in march/april is it?

The 8800GTS should do you fine, I'll be waiting for the 9800GT/GTS and the new 45nm quad cores before I next upgrade.

 

[TdC]

yeah yeah, I know. still, if I waited for every better upgrade that came along I'd prolly never buy new kit, so there comes a time where you just have to put some cash down

 

[Raven]

Drop the scythe (assuming its a CPU, not a GPU cooler) and use the stock cooler provided. The Q6600 runs MUCH cooler than older intel kit, so I don't think you will need it!

Intel stock coolers have always been pretty good, there is no difference between the stock cooler on my E6600 and the great big pulsating monster that i bought extra. In fact the smaller stock cooler is probably better for overall case cooling simply because it gives you more room for the case cooling.

 

[Kryten]

True indeed, but the bigger coolers (the Scythe certainly) come into their own when things are pushed that little extra above stock speeds and have more heat to dissipate. It's always good to know that the stock cooler is more than capable anyway as thats money that can be spent elsewhere (pub, shop, half an hour with favoured wench, etc)

Don't worry too much about ram speed as long as its either 800/1066 - just get the best price, theres no performance boost or loss to be had that you'd notice.

 

[Jupitus]

Intel stock coolers have always been pretty good, there is no difference between the stock cooler on my E6600 and the great big pulsating monster that i bought extra. In fact the smaller stock cooler is probably better for overall case cooling simply because it gives you more room for the case cooling.

The stock cooling on my old Prescott couldn't cope, which is what I based that on

 

[TdC]

heh it's all been paid for. we'll see how the stock cooler holds up. I've been told the cpu can clock pretty well and one should view 400+ MHz gains as attainable. We'll see, I'm a notoriously bad overclocker

 

[Jupitus]

heh it's all been paid for. we'll see how the stock cooler holds up. I've been told the cpu can clock pretty well and one should view 400+ MHz gains as attainable. We'll see, I'm a notoriously bad overclocker

Ooooo we can both clock together!!!! Won't that be exciting

 

[TdC]

sounds like a plan Jup. as we both have the same cpu and mobo, it will certainly be a good effort I reckon

 

[Draylor]

I will get a Q6600 quad core cpu with an FSB of 1066Mhz. Does this mean that I shall require a mobo supporting 1066Mhz and ram that also runs at 1066?

buttttttttttttt

The actual FSB of the Q6600 is 266, 1066 is just marketing poo and silliness.
Your 1066Mhz RAM matches to a CPU FSB of 533.

Theres various dividers on most motherboards to run CPU & RAM at different speeds, so they dont need to match up, but if you are paying more than you have to for the RAM because you want them to "match", they dont so dont

As for clocking it: mine is ticking along happily at 3.0Ghz. Havent tried anything else, really dont need to. Cant see any reason why yours wouldnt, seems they pretty much all handle that with ease.

 

[Cyradix]

heh it's all been paid for. we'll see how the stock cooler holds up. I've been told the cpu can clock pretty well and one should view 400+ MHz gains as attainable. We'll see, I'm a notoriously bad overclocker

Pretty decent OC guide over here : HOWTO: Overclock C2Q (Quads) and C2D (Duals) - A Guide v1.4
Going try it myself when my Q6600 arrives this week

 

[TdC]

buttttttttttttt

The actual FSB of the Q6600 is 266, 1066 is just marketing poo and silliness.
Your 1066Mhz RAM matches to a CPU FSB of 533.

Theres various dividers on most motherboards to run CPU & RAM at different speeds, so they dont need to match up, but if you are paying more than you have to for the RAM because you want them to "match", they dont so dont

As for clocking it: mine is ticking along happily at 3.0Ghz. Havent tried anything else, really dont need to. Cant see any reason why yours wouldnt, seems they pretty much all handle that with ease.

so you mean they deliberately mix up the numbers and make things as confusing as possible to squeeze more money out of ignorant saps like me? never saw that coming; I thought if the numbers would match all would be well (or well-er, if you know what I mean)
but, if 1066MHz ram matches a 533Mhz FSB, , what does 800 match up to?, and the 533Mhz ones won't match up to anything, unless it's to the actual 266, which will have to be times 2, or 4 or whatever. I dooooon't understand!

 

[inactionman]

It's more complex than that, intel FSB's and DDR2 are actually quad-pumped. So the true FSB of a 1066 is 266, 800 is 200, etc.

As I said, the only thing that increasing the FSB does for memory is increase the bandwidth, for processors it increases the clock speed. There's dividers and other gubbins in the motherboards that means it just works.

 

[TdC]

but if everything is the same speed, don't you get 1:1 ticks and everything? I mean, if you're doing like a 5:3 divider or something, two cycles magically disappear somehow?

 

[inactionman]

It's like graphics cards, all components can pretty much run completely asynchronously (although not as well as in an AMD system using hypertransport, which gets rid of the FSB altogether), higher bus speeds just generally means higher performance.

It's honestly not as complicated to the user as it used to be, as the motherboard chipset does most of the work these days. E.g. in the bios of your new computer you should be able to change the FSB as much as you like (for overclocking), but have the memory locked to 1066 or 800, the PCI bus locked to 33, the PCI-Express bus locked to whatever that needs, etc.

 

[TdC]

hmm I'm going to set everything to stock, and post a score of some sort, but tbh I'd like to sync with Jup and Cyradix to see if we can get off to a jolly start together at making things faster.

according to my packet tracker the postie is somewhere en-route to me (which doesn't mean anything I know, but I'm thrilled anyway ) as we speak!

 

[Jupitus]

Ok, so what benchmarking do you want to use? Mine will probably be slower atm as I am sure I have lots of unnecessary processes running