s478 Overclocking

[AtomicFire]

I'm looking to take my watercooled 478 as high as I can push it. If you're going to recommend me to get an Opteron, or tell me to go s775, please don't. I just want to have a little fun as see how high I can push my IC7-MAX3 and a good s478 chip. Money isn't really a big problem, but i want something practical to run 24/7 and not suck the power load of a small city.

Current setup:
DangerDen TDX\D5 1/2 inch
Single 120mm rad (keeping it single to make the case as close to stock as possible)
Aspire 500w power supply (soon to be OCZ Modstream 520w)
4x512 Corsair XMS Pro PC4000 (soon to be 2x1gb Corsair XMS Pro 3500LL)
2.8E (Soon to be SL7PN 3.2E)

My goal is to hit at least 4GHz stable, rock solid stable. I'm thinking the weak point in my system now is the crappy power supply that can't handle the power it needs. Here's my upgrade path (in the order its likely to happen)

AS5 + clean up CPU power MOSFET's
OCZ Modstream 520
P4 3.2E SL7PN S-Spec chip
2x1gb Corsair XMS Pro 3500LL (I should be able to do to 250 1:1 at 4GHz if I have a 3.2 chip)

Anyone else have any suggestions to help with the overclock? I was thinking of doing the vdimm tracking mod, but Corsair memory I hear doesn't respond to high vdimm very well so I didn't think I would need it unless i'm using Mushkin stuff...right?

 

[DarkSi]

Honestly, I doubt that your power supply would be the big killer there. Voltage stability, *maybe*, but you should still have plenty of overhead.

Otherwise, sounds like a respectable project. What kind of heat is your radiator capable of dispersing? If it's a Prescott core, you may want to think about getting something better, if yours isn't up to the task.

Otherwise, 4Ghz stable is going to be quite a feat. You're going to generate a ton of heat, You could always run a divider on the RAM, just to push the CPU to its furthest for testing purposes. It's going to be a pretty tought path to get there, that's for sure.... Hopefully you have just the right CPU to do it with, or it may not end up as good as you would like it to!

Good luck with it, you'll definitely need it!

 

[Dark_fire]

my mem(the 3500LL) will do 238 ish 1:1 on stock volts and timings or atleast mine do