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Worth overclocking my E8400?

LucasG said:
Or should I maintain my E8400 at 3.6GHz? :p
Click to expand...

You already have it overclocked to 3.6ghz?

I'm running 3.6ghz at 1.25V, not too bad, and I really only played with the VCore. I could probably get it to run even more on 1.25V with some tweaked VTT/NB/SB/etc. This is on a Xigmatek HDT1283 and C0 stepping. I haven't had any games run slow (except crysis on very high) so I don't really feel the need to crank it up any more right now.

I don't think even at stock speeds the e8400 would bottleneck your system. But the e8400 is a great clocker, and if you have the time it's definitely worth doing. Is this a C0 or E0 stepping? Have you overclocked before? Are you planning on keeping the stock cooler or going with aftermarket?
 
I got the E8400 this morning. It's E0 stepping. I just went ahead and overclocked it by simply changing the FSB to 400 as I read that there is no need to do any voltage changes for 3.6 so I have it running at 3.6 with stock cooler and voltage (I did set the fan to run at max though). I already ran Prime95 for a while and no errors where reported. The temp just went up a little bit. I don't think I'll go aftermarket, already used a lot of money on the PSU, processor and GTX 260 (which will arrive in 2 days).

I don't know, I just feel like maybe keep running it at stock speed as it's new and I don't really feel like tempering with it. The only thing that kinda freaked me out is the crappy windows vista performance thingy that with my stock speed it gave me 3.7 rating and with 3.6GHz it gave me 3.8 when my E6750 used to give me 3.8 rating at 3.2GHz.
 
That's pretty good for the stock cooler. How long on P95? Also, test some games out, as it stresses it a little differently than P95.

The vista rating doesn't sound good, I got 5.5 with my E7300, and I just tested mine now and got 5.8 with the E8400 at 3.6ghz. That's my lowest score though, everything else at 5.9, so close to 6.0 :D (not like it really matters). It could just be a glitch, check out your CPU score with 3Dmark Vantage or similar and compare to someone's score online.
 
Yeah, I get 5.8 too with this processor and the rest all 5.9, lol. I guess it does not say much. Do you think it's worth keeping it with the overclock once I get my new video card or just run it at stock with the GTX 260?

I don't know, I just feel like I don't want to deteriorate the CPU and stuff. :p
 
You won't deteriorate the CPU if you just increase the clock and not change the voltage. It's designed by Intel to run at that voltage, the only thing increasing the clock will do is decrease your stability, but not the reliability/health of your CPU.

If it is 24HR stable on P95 and doesn't crash any games as well, then you're really fine. Being on a unstable clock doesn't really screw up your CPU, unless you really crank the voltages up, intel says 1.365v Vcore for the "limit", but 1.35v is probably more like it.

At 3.6ghz that's quite a good increase for stock cooling if the temps are alright and it's stable. If in the future you upgrade the GPU/etc. and the processor is bottlenecking, then I'd consider an aftermarket HSF and cranking it up to 11 :D. I guess it depends on what games you're playing, what resolution, and what other apps you use.

What temps are it at? It's probably fine, but just wondering. I'm getting 32*C idle, 44*C load with 70*F ambient temps.

Oh also, anymore clock increases and you will be RAM limited (if you want to keep it 1:1, which you should). It depends on how far the RAM OC's though.
 
I'm going to jump into this conversation cause I've got an E8400 and have considered oc-ing but have no experience doing so. I've got a Zalman 9500 on it and it idles at about 25-30C. I'm thinking I could crank it up, and have read a few articles, but could use some refreshing. Are there any particularly complete guides to ocing this cpu on a P5Q pro?
 
Mine idles at 38c - 42c and with 100% load it goes up to 60c. It's pretty decent for stock cooler and a .6 overclock.
 
Just undervolted my 9500 with the fanmate to ~6 volts and under realtemp i'm getting a reported 40C with rosetta running a full 100% load. Not sure if that's a "real" full load or something else cause that seems especially low.
 
Considering I get 44*C, with a higher clock and more voltage, I guess that is kind of odd but not that off.

Try running P95 for at least 10-15 minutes, then it'll really start stressing the CPU. Or run P95 and play a game, haha.
 
After looking over at silentpcreview it seems the 9500 performance isn't much affected by fan speed. Running at 44 on full load at stock clocks with fan speed at ~1500. What's a good temperature to shoot for if I up the speeds?
 
Usually below 60*C is good, but once you start reaching temps above that it becomes hard to keep the system stable at all. Like I said, don't ever go above 1.365V unless you want a dead chip. I don't think I ever want to go above 1.34V, just to be safe. The actual TJMax is 100*C, but the CPU has a built-in protection to auto-shutdown as it nears that temp (as does your BIOS).

I was going to say that fan performance usually levels off after a certain RPM, volt/RPM is not linearly related to CFM. Plus, after a certain point you may be limited by the actual cooler's ability to transfer heat from the CPU more so than the airflow's ability to transfer heat away from the heatsink fins.
 
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