Good OC setup?

[FooAtari]

After a week of reading I'm almost decided on my new build. I'm just not sure on the following parts for clocking...

Motherboard: Asus P5N-E
Memory: GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit -
800MHz RAM Speed, CAS 5-5-5-15 Timings, 1.8-1.9v VDIMM, Lifetime Warranty with GeIL.
CPU: E6300 (maybe E4300)
Cooler: Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler

I think the motherboard and cooler are adequate. I want to get an SLI mobo if possible, and this seemed a good option.

I want to take the CPU above 3Ghz, if the 6300/4300 and reach that. The higher the better, but ill be happy with 3Ghz. Is this likey with this setup? Im not sure if the ram is up to the task, would I better with;

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 - 800MHz RAM Speed, CAS 4-4-4-15 Timings, 1.8-2.1v VDIMM, Lifetime Warranty with OCZ.

or

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit - 800MHz RAM Speed, CAS 4-4-4-12 Timings, 1.9-2.3v VDIMM, Lifetime Warranty with GeIL.

Ta

 

[Crooked Paul]

I think you should definitely go with the E4300. It is very nearly the same chip as the 6300, and so should be capable of comparable clockspeeds. The 6300 has 4MB of level 2 cache on the chip, but 2MB of it is disabled. The 4300 has 2MB of level 2 cache and the extraneous transistors are eliminated entirely, which should reduce power draw and make it run cooler. Also the 4300 has no support for virtualization technology, but most people never use that and most of us with C2D's have it turned off in BIOS already.

So you're not really losing anything with the 4300, and here's what you gain. It's a bit cheaper, and it has a higher multiplier! Its multi is 9x while the 6300's is 7x. This means to hit your goal of 3GHz with the 6300 you'd need to be running your FSB and RAM at about 430MHz (which is 860MHz effective for DDR2). To hit the same CPU clock speed with the 4300 you only need your FSB and RAM at 333, which is a goddamn piece of cake. With a good stable mobo and adequate cooling I bet you could run the rig 24/7 at 400MHz FSB, which would give you 3.6GHz and you wouldn't even be running the memory past spec, so you could save some coin there.

If you decide to go with the 6300, you're definitely going to want the headroom that low-voltage, low-timing DDR2-800 modules get you (or even DDR2-1000 modules, which are spendy).

 

[FooAtari]

Yeah, thats what I was thinking. So basically the e4300 and 6300 are nearly identical in performance, but the e4300 is easier to OC and is more efficient with less stress on the rest of the system. Sounds like a bit of a no brainer really.

Hopefully, by time the e4300 is struggling Quad-cores will be affordable.

To be honest getting more expensive ram is going to be put me overbudget, so I think, like I said, the choice is pretty obvious. Unless anyone else has anything different to say. If I need to get more epensive ram ill need to cut back elsewhere.