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Finally broke down and ordered my E6600 + DQ6

5

50Stang

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 9, 2005
Messages
134
Finally, after a month of researching dual-core and quad-core I finally ordered my combo today. That, and my g/f finally got tired of me talking about upgrading.

Conroe E6600 + Gigabyte DQ6. After some research of quad-core I found that as of right now, the DQ6 is the only well known board to support quad-core Intel chips.

I am upgrading from my Athlon 64 3800 (single core) w/ eVGA NF4-SLI and 1.5gb of memory. The only downside of the upgrade is I'm going to use some generic 1gb ddr-533 memory since I dont want to hurt my bank account with another $250 any further at the moment.

It took a while to figure out if I wanted the E6400 or E6600, but after seeing several benchmarks I figured the E6600 was well worth its weight in gold. The extra cache will pay off eventually. I also went with the E6600 because of its cost vs believed cost of quad-core processors starting out at $1000 for a good one. Who knows how that will hold up, but I know I will be able to overclock this one when I get better/faster memory.

This will be my first Intel processor since the early P4 3.0Ghz came about.

If there are any benchmark comparisons you would like me to do before I install this stuff on tuesday/wednesday.. let me know.

My system currently stands at this.

Athlon 64 3800 (SC)
eVga NF4-SLI
EVGA 7600GT OC Superclocked
1.5gb Corsair Value Select

and will go to this

Intel E6600 Conroe
Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6
1GB Generic DDR2-533
eVGA 7600GT OC SC (580/1500)

Let me know what you think. I'm sure I will be happy with the upgrade.
 
965 motherboards, the slowest memory ratio is 1:1 so your ram will not have much headroom for overclocking at all, especially since you're getting generic stuff.

with Conroe, you really high speed ram, b/c of the high default FSB doesn't leave you much room. Now the timings aren't that important, but you want ram that at the very least is rated for 667, if you plan on overclocking.
 
chrisf6969 said:
965 motherboards, the slowest memory ratio is 1:1 so your ram will not have much headroom for overclocking at all, especially since you're getting generic stuff.

with Conroe, you really high speed ram, b/c of the high default FSB doesn't leave you much room. Now the timings aren't that important, but you want ram that at the very least is rated for 667, if you plan on overclocking.
Click to expand...

ATM I dont plan to overclock but I planned on getting more memory in the future and going with a 2x1gb pair. So its a good motherboard, but in the future if I want to overclock I would need faster memory ?
 
you are going to be a very happy man to see what this cpu can do , its bloody amazing. Overclocking mine at the mo and hopefully make it in the top 10 in E6600 if the next two hours go well.
 
Why are you going with generic PC533 memory? Why not just get generic PC800?

I was thinking of upgrading my socket 754 Athlon 3200+ w/ 1GB (2.2ghz, single core), and getting myself into an E6600 in a ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe (this board any good?).. I was also going with the 2x1GB Corsair XMS2 PC800 memory, and just want to get a 200-400mhz o/c going using to ~2.7ghz using the stock heatsink.. I dont feel like stressing it too much in the beginning, more so just for the hell of it ;)

Hows that setup sound? Will I see a noticable improvement to the amount of money spent? I do a moderate bit of gaming, and multitasking all the time..
 
gah bunch of PFY's, the guy has a girlfriend, not money shooting out his arse. You think hardware is expensive try a girlfriend, even version 1.0 costs a fortune to maintain. God help you if you upgrade to wife 1.0 and wife 2.0 is expensive beyond belief.

He is lucky he can get anyting at all,

"millions for decorating, but not one dime on that damn computer"
 
A lot of boards hint that they will, but I bought the DQ6 because of the 12 phase power circuitry for the CPU ensures it has the juice to do it. Top of the line ASUS etc. probally will but i would worry about a low end board and some of the midrange ones as well. What I have seen of the Kentfield they need slightly more than twice the power of a core 2 duo, of course since that just brings us back up to P4 prescott range it might not be a big issue.
 
BillParrish said:
gah bunch of PFY's, the guy has a girlfriend, not money shooting out his arse. You think hardware is expensive try a girlfriend, even version 1.0 costs a fortune to maintain. God help you if you upgrade to wife 1.0 and wife 2.0 is expensive beyond belief.

He is lucky he can get anyting at all,

"millions for decorating, but not one dime on that damn computer"
Click to expand...

Thank you!

and to the guy who asked about faster memory.. I had stated in the original post that I couldn't afford $250 on memory and all I have right now is 1gb of generic 533mhz ddr2.
 
hey stang If you are planning to overclock later, I stongly suggest you rework the heatpipe. I got a post aournd here somewhere detailing the somewhat "sloppy" implementaion at the factory of the heatpads and thermal paste and what I did to fix it. It would prevent you from having to tear apart your entire build if you later pop in some better memory and go for it. I also firmly beleive it will increase the life of the board as well. It wil cost you an afternoon and about a buck in hardware.


i will try to find a link and edit it in.
since you asked abou the water block I presume you intend high performance operation. Here is what I discovered building my DQ6.

Along those lines the DQ-6 has a much better 12 phase power system for the processors and uses all solid capacitors which may or may not be better than the more common electrolytics used on the other boards.

Yes the heatsink on the bottom is in the way (BTW it is totally useless according to Intel documentation) but it can be easily removed. It is held in with 3 small screws and the 2 plastic push pins of the Northbridge heatsink. Just replace the push pins with 4-40 screw washer and nut (use a fiber washer under the head of the screw on the bottom side of the board) and you can easily dispose of the heatsink to install any needed brackets. There is a thermal pad between the heatsink and the PCB but with just a little carefull prying it came right off.

One interesting thing is that the heatpipe assembly also covers the voltage mosfets for the 12 phase power and attempts to contact the mosfets with a thermal pad. When installing the stock intel fan the preload clamping force on the processor causes the board to "flex" bend (this is by design). This causes the board to bend away from the heatpipe and the mosfets along the edge of the board no longer contact the heatsink/heat pipe.

I fixed this by placing a u shaped piece of aluminum insulated with electrical tape and a thin cardboard strip to act as a stiffener/support along the edge of the board between the board and the top row of standoffs. I had to file down the standoffs to accomodate the thickness of the aluminum and got rid of all the plastic push pins and instead used 4-40 hardware, artic ceramic (non-conductive) and got rid of the thermal pads on the entire heatsink/heatpipe assembly. .

The heatpipe works the bomb, I could not count to two with my finger on it. Heat was definately getting transfered and in a big way. Since I water cooled I had to provide some airflow for the heatpipe to replace the airflow lost from removing the stock cooler. Two 40mm x 20mm fans from a cheap harddrive cooler were superglued together side by side and then with silicon sealer/adhesive glued to the edge of the board on top of the top part (after mounting in the case) of the heatpipe assembly so they suck air thru the heatpipe radiator.. This worked great as well and immedately the entire heatpipe assembly cooled down and I can keep my finger on it indefinately and the fans blow the heat directly into my PSU exhaust fan and out the case.

So there is some practical concerns if you go witht he DQ6 - which I highly recommend if you dont mind futzing with the the heatsink and heatpipe asssembly.

One question in my mind was : does the 12 phase power supply really make any difference with the Conroe processor ? With the older style power sucking Intels the answer had to be yes, but witht he more efficient Conroe ? /shrug the DS3's seem to be able to overclock just as well. I guess I am hoping the blurb about this board being ready/capaible of running the quad cores when they are available pushed me over the edge to get the DQ6 instead of the DS3. Ohhh the DQ6 has raid ability not availible on the DS3. (Note that while there are 6 SATA ports on the Intel northbridge, a raid 5 array can only have a max of 4 disks on this implementation).

I am running E6300 on DQ6 7x475 - 3.32GHz Vcc at 1.375V Thermakake big water cooling ambient at idle, +7 to 10C above ambient full load both processors. Corsair XMS PC800 CL4 DDR2 at 5 5 5 12 @ 2.00 V

After dealing with heatpipe issues the rest of the install was a snap.
Click to expand...
 
chances, are you can get some generic 667 or 800 for the same price as 533. Prices are weird, but its true.

new egg has some Giel 2x512 ddr 800 for $130
Same for soem Ocz and $140 for some gskill.

Pqi 667 and Adata 667 2x512 for $115. Should be able to get atleast 3.1ghz with that.
 
Most el-cheapo generic ddr2-533 will make it to 400mhz with relaxed timings and increased voltage anyway. And with a 9 multiplier that's all he really needs. You only really need expensive ram to overclock a 6300.
 
schizo said:
Most el-cheapo generic ddr2-533 will make it to 400mhz with relaxed timings and increased voltage anyway. And with a 9 multiplier that's all he really needs. You only really need expensive ram to overclock a 6300.
Click to expand...

QFT
 
BillParrish said:
gah bunch of PFY's, the guy has a girlfriend, not money shooting out his arse. You think hardware is expensive try a girlfriend, even version 1.0 costs a fortune to maintain. God help you if you upgrade to wife 1.0 and wife 2.0 is expensive beyond belief.
Click to expand...

The BIG cost is the migration from Wife 1.0 to Wife 2.0. When you uninstall Wife 1.0 nearly 50% of all of your resources are gone for good. :)

to OP stang.... you NEED to overclock. Even noobs with zero overclocking experience are getting 30-50% overclocks like cake.
And on a dual core system thats A LOT more power, b/c you're clocking 2 CPUs up.
 
I only have 667 memory and it is running fine at 800MHz. I think it would go higher, but I think I've reached the limitation of my e6300 at 2.8GHz. 400 x 7
 
chrisf6969 said:
The BIG cost is the migration from Wife 1.0 to Wife 2.0. When you uninstall Wife 1.0 nearly 50% of all of your resources are gone for good. :)

to OP stang.... you NEED to overclock. Even noobs with zero overclocking experience are getting 30-50% overclocks like cake.
And on a dual core system thats A LOT more power, b/c you're clocking 2 CPUs up.
Click to expand...


Oh, dont think I'm not going to push this memory to its fullest.. and I will get faster memory, but I'm going to see what my results are with this stuff first so I can save some money.
 
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