OK... Here is my e4400 Asrock 4core-VSTA setup

Noetic

Noetic

[H]ard|Gawd
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Apr 11, 2001
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Simple enough, I wanted to upgrade a 2500+XP, x800AIW AGP, 2GB of GEIL DDR RAM setup. The ASRock board was selected for its ability to utilize some of my old hardware (thank you to [H] forrms for the research). The 10x multiplier of the e4400 would offer the best possible results being this board does hit a wall at 291 (according to another site). From what I have read, the VSTA is not an ideal board for o/c'ing, but it is perfect for extending the life of other hardware.


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The fsb:RAM is 4:3, hence a little bit is lost. Still, I am very happy with the results of this incremental upgrade, since it was purchased for under two hundred.
 
Awesome, thats the exact same mobo/CPU combo I'm getting, but I'm also getting DDR2 ram

The mobo has an internal FSB wall at 291, so with this setup, its best to get the CPU with the highest multipler, the E4400

How is the temperature at that speed?
 
nice... wish i could find a 775 board that supports sata 2 drives / 4gb ddr and conroes so i could pick up a cheap e6600 since the price cuts but im out of luck :(. Nice job with the o/c tho :D.
 
Very nice, makes me want to go out and spend $200 to upgrade my old p4 to new life. Is the pci-express bandwidth limited at 8x?

Your divided on fsb:ram was 4:3. What was your original GEIL ram rating?
 
Breath_of_the_Dying said:
Awesome, thats the exact same mobo/CPU combo I'm getting, but I'm also getting DDR2 ram

The mobo has an internal FSB wall at 291, so with this setup, its best to get the CPU with the highest multipler, the E4400

How is the temperature at that speed?
Click to expand...

Actually, the FSB can go up to 340, however there is a "wall" at 291. We share the same thoughts regarding the CPU and its multiplier.

I would suggest another board if you had DDR2 and a PCI-e graphic card. This board is limited in its adjustments for RAM and voltages.

Under stress, the CPU ran at 45 degrees with the stock HSF. I almost feel bad not pushing this chip harder, however it would cost twice as much to do so.
 
Tzzird said:
Very nice, makes me want to go out and spend $200 to upgrade my old p4 to new life. Is the pci-express bandwidth limited at 8x?

Your divided on fsb:ram was 4:3. What was your original GEIL ram rating?
Click to expand...

The PCI-e is at 4x, not a problem for lesser cards but will probably choke the mid to high range GPU's.

The GEIL was conservatively rated as DDR400 3,8,4,4. When it was in my 2500+XP, I had the timing much tighter.
 
Noetic said:
The PCI-e is at 4x, not a problem for lesser cards but will probably choke the mid to high range GPU's.

The GEIL was conservatively rated as DDR400 3,8,4,4. When it was in my 2500+XP, I had the timing much tighter.
Click to expand...

Any idea at what point it iwill choke? x1950pro? 7900gtx?
 
hmmm.. here's a quote from an anandtech article:

"Since our test board is operating in X4 mode we have one fourth of the bandwidth available which equates to about 1000MB/s upstream and 1000MB/s downstream. This is slower than AGP 8X since the available read bandwidth is limited and can be saturated by certain applications, making AGP 8X potentially more effective. PCI Express X4 offers about half the available read bandwidth of AGP 8X, and the write performance advantage of PCI-E goes largely unused in most applications."

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2814
 
Damn that's too bad... too bad ASROCK doesn't have a core2duo board that has higher than 4x on the pci-express bandwidth.
 
My personal opinion on the subject of the Asrock 775DUAL-VSTA motherboard (I think this is the topic of this thread). What seems like a long time ago (before I could afford a C2D or maybe they weren't even on the "bricks yet, except some ES chips, it seems like such a long time ago I don't remember) I had some, at the time IMO, expensive RAM and stuff (DDR1 PC3200) Rather than do a whole expensive upgrade to new hardware (which may have overwhelmed my living arrangements) and wanting a board that would except a C2D I went and bought a Asrock 775DUAL-VSTA mobo, a PD 805 cpu and a good ole' TT Big Typhoon HSF with a bigger than stock fan (I used my other gear, PSU, RAM, 8x video card, etc) to save some $. I now have 4 C2D's, 2 P5B Deluxe boards, 1 TForce P965 and 1 AW9D-MAX motherboard. (along with 1 GB PC6400 DDR2 RAM and PCIe cards in each rig) I have a E6600, a E6420, a E6400 and last but not least a E6300, all are OC'ed mildly for 24/7 folding and if "Gods willin' and the creek don't rise" I hope to get either another E6420 or a quad of some kind and a ASUS P5W DH DELUXE motherboard ( I do like those ASUS boards). I can honestly say I don't have any regrets getting the Asrock, as far as the 4x video thing I didn't notice any difference (I read somewhere it would be hard to tell any difference, but I did read the board was no good for OC'ing (I think the highest I got my 805 to was 2.8 GHz stable folding 24/7)
 
Really? A 291 wall? Hah, i lucked out. I just bought the e4400 and asrock 4coredual-vsta. I'm adding on some 2x1GB OCZ PC3500 EB ram and an ATI radeon X800XL. I installed the motherboard, re-installed windows and just set it to 290. BAM, works like a charm. whodathunkit, a 45% overclock on a $200 kit, on the first try and no tweaking! Awesome!
 
Furcifer said:
Really? A 291 wall? Hah, i lucked out. I just bought the e4400 and asrock 4coredual-vsta. I'm adding on some 2x1GB OCZ PC3500 EB ram and an ATI radeon X800XL. I installed the motherboard, re-installed windows and just set it to 290. BAM, works like a charm. whodathunkit, a 45% overclock on a $200 kit, on the first try and no tweaking! Awesome!
Click to expand...

The 291 FSB "wall" was according to the proclockers site. I have mine working at 294 FSB. I agree, it is one sweet upgrade.

InorganicMatter said:
I hate you...your crappy $200 combo beats out my kickass E6300 and Badaxe 2. :mad:

:p :D
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be that sure. You probably have me beat on memory bandwidth.
 
Interesting to know. I'm not really sure how much higher I can go at 4:3 since my ram is specced at 217 mhz. But now that I know someone else that has gone higher then I gotta give it a shot too.
 
Welp, the thing is orthos 8hr stable at fsb 298 (2.99ghz) but will not boot at all at 3.0 ghz. But since I dont need it running at that speed i brought it down to 290fsb. Idles at 45C and load at 65C according to Coretemp. Awsome chip!.
 
cool results on the 4400, im considering ditching my amd x2 and picking up a e4300, but im not sure if i shouldnt just spend a few tenners extra for the 10x multi

and as for asrock, from what i find they are quite a mixed bag for OCing, i built my dad a simple pc with an amd 3000+, and before handing it over i off course had some fun with it, it would boot up to 290 HTT (from stock 200), and when going faster i ran into the fact my ram would play nice anymore, and i couldnt divide it lower. Then a few weeks back i built a s754 sempron based simple HTPC, and the asrock board i had for there wouldnt be stable over 225 HTT :(:mad: i tested everything and the cpu and memory werent the problem
 
Well from what ive read, most people who buy quality 965 boards or the 680i's tend to get >350 fsb, so by comparison the asrock isnt a very good overclocker anyhow.

Nonetheless, I never expected anything higher than stock anyways so I was *quite* pleasantly surprised with the near 50% overclock.
 
There are pencil mods that allow the 775dual-vsta to go above 300fsb with stability. However, the price is that the pci-e frequency must be allowed in the bios to proportionally go up also. Very bad for both pci-e video cards and sata hard drives. However, if a 200fsb chip is run at exactly 266fsb, then the ratios are all maintained and nothing except the fsb is overclocked. A unique situation with these boards that allows the E4300 and E4400 to really shine...
 
Well, the OC from 1.8 or 1.9 to 2.6 - 3ghz is a great improvement.

And while with a more expensive board you'd probably get 3.2+ you quickly end up in the area of diminishing returns - the improvement on game fps, etc isn't much.

Looks like the record for this mobo (or the 775 dual VSTA) with mods is about 318fsb
 
To the OP,

I finally got the parts in and have it all up and running, but I cant seem to get it to overclock too high. I can get the the FSB to 270, but any higher and I cant boot into windows.


I'm pretty new to the OC, especially on the intel side. Is there anything you did besides bump up the FSB speed on the CPU?
 
ddr400 - 200mhz = 4:3
ddr333 - 166mhz = 8:5
ddr266 - 133mhz = 2:1

I can see that being true for 266bsel cpu's. but will that apply to 200bsel cpu's at 290fsb as well? or is there a strap selection in the bios to toggle that? or bsel manipulation needed?

ddr400 - 200mhz = 1:1
ddr333 - 166mhz = 6:5
ddr266 - 133mhz = 3:2

but seeing how you're using 4:3 at 290fsb with a 200bsel, leads me to believe no manipulation is needed.

friend has this board coming soon

edit: dug up that 240fsb has strap change, so all is good.
 
That 291 wall would explain why my E4300 is at 290 at stock voltage. 300 was a no go at any voltage as well as 295. Gonna bump it up 1 notch now.
 
I think there's a pencil mod that has helped people get that mobo up to 315 - 320fsb.

Check out vr-zone I think.
 
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