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RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

yeoboy — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:28:53 GMT

Have now provisionally listed a 7200cpu, Gigabyte ga-ep35c-ds3r mobo,and the memory and psu reccomended in the previous post, thanks for your input guys, will order sunday incase I am persuaded to change anything,cheers.

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

FreakShow! — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:07:49 GMT

[url]http://www.ebuyer.com/product/116755[/url] I'd say that for the memory. Unless you are looking at upgrading to 4Gb in which case I'd go for a single stick of this:

[url]http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128499[/url]

As to PSU something like this will do the job:

[url]http://www.ebuyer.com/product/141597[/url]

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

yeoboy — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:15:55 GMT

I have searched around the two mobo`s and had read of some instability on the gigabyte board, but, lots of good comments, As it seems popular reckon I will go for it, Still need to choose memory and power supply tho, Not going to be a gaming rig and have read that the memory doesn1t need to be cutting edge.

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

nightlight — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:44:57 GMT

I use a DS3 and DS3R both are excellent and are P35 boards, plus very good overclockers, if your into that.

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

yeoboy — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:48:47 GMT

Its now the intel 7200, Between the MSI neo and Gigabyte DS3R, Happy to get the HD3450,So just need memory and power supply, Any reccomends please?

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

ricedg — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:43:07 GMT

I'd be looking at the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 (£65) and a HD3850 (£80).
If you don't want any serious gaming, a £25 HD3450 will do all you want.

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

yeoboy — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:49:49 GMT

Lucky enough to be able(within reason) to buy what I want on this project, My existing rig does not have the cpu instruction needed for prem pro (athlon xp 3200).

decided to upgrade to dual core and fulfill my ambition to get into overclocking, Had a look at the 7200 and like the idea of using it.

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

nightlight — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:46:01 GMT

At least a board with the P35 chipset, whats your budget.

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

yeoboy — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:23:52 GMT

A very comprehensive post(mush apreciated slipstream) Before I decide, What mobo would you reccomend to use with either the 4500 or the 7200.

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

nightlight — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:23:28 GMT

For an extra £5 - £8 you can get a E7200, which I now consider better than the E4500.
Comes with 3mb cache, and its based on the newer 45nm chip.

Yes its mutipiler is only 9.5, but its a very under rated chip the E7200, mine is cool running at 3.2ghz.

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

Slipstreem — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:51:21 GMT

It's debatable as to whether the E8400 is really worth the money. If you're only planning on mildly overclocking one, then it definitely isn't as a CPU costing £54 less will reach the same level of performance. On the other hand, if you're happy to take the E8400 to 4GHz then it starts to become more worth it in terms of bang-per-buck although it still never reaches the same level of return.

Looking at the E4500 at £76 overclocked to 3GHz, that works out at just over £25 per GHz. The E8400 at £130 overclocked to 4GHz works out at just over £32 per GHz.

When it comes to encoding to MPEG-4 with XviD for example, there really isn't much difference between the two CPUs at the same core frequency, so it isn't automatically 'better' to go for the E8400 in terms of value for money even if you plan on overclocking it to, say, 5GHz. That would require phase-change cooling (which would increase the total cost of the rig dramatically) and would also require an expensive motherboard and expensive RAM. You'd still need to be [i]very[/i] lucky to get to 5GHz even then. It's totally impossible to get the same value-for-money out of the E8400 due to the inflated cost of the necessary supporting hardware.

Most (if not all) motherboards limit you to a minimum memory divider of 1:1. This means that running an E8400 at 4GHz (which has a multiplier of x9) will require the RAM to be clocked at 444MHz (DDR888). This will either mean running DDR2-800 on possibly sloppy timings (losing you performance) or buying expensive DDR2-1066 to run on tightened or standard timings.

Realistically, you're not likely to be running the E8400 much past 4GHz 24/7 without buying fairly expensive supporting hardware anyway, and this would only give you roughly a 35% advantage over the E4500 running at 3GHz on a cheap motherboard with cheap RAM.

Running the E4500 (which has a multiplier of x11) at 3GHz means that you are only running the RAM at 273MHz (DDR545) at 1:1 which allows you to use relatively cheap DDR2-666 and run it on tightened timings which can give a [i]significant[/i] boost to performance. A dual-core C2D running at 3GHz isn't capable of using any more bandwidth than DDR2-666 can provide anyway, so the memory isn't a bottleneck even at this speed. Some people choose to use DDR2-800 and run it on very tight timings to magnify this effect.

If video encoding is the primary purpose for this rig, then I'd recommend that you take a look at the MPEG-4 Encoding Race thread linked to below my sig. The FPS figures vary widely and aren't necessarily representative due to different core speeds and different processor architecture, but the column marked as "Efficiency" gives you a fairly good idea of how different CPUs perform if you limit your comparisons to dual-core processors from the C2D family.

Bear in mind that the results are based on encoding a fullscreen 4:3 720x576 source. Encoding for letterboxed non-anamorphic material will be significantly faster. For example, my E4300 running at 2.83GHz usually returns an encoding speed of around 100FPS (4x real-time) with 16:9 content. How much faster than that do you want to go?

In short, anybody who claims that the E8400 represents good value for money obviously hasn't done the necessary maths to support their argument. The E8400 only wins if performance takes priority over bang-per-buck in a [i]major[/i] way. If it doesn't, then the E4500 makes a lot more sense. :)

Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

andydods — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:50:38 GMT

If it's video processing you want to do, skimp on the Graphics, splash out on the Processor, Motherboard and Memory.

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

yeoboy — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:53:39 GMT

Ok, Here goes, One guy has the 8200 running at 3.6!! Its interesting to see the specs you have on your systems, I wont be doing games (to old) but would need a bit of grunt to use prem pro which cost me mega, so cost saving is usefull but have been advised that 3gig is the bottom line to handle the proceedures, Hence a 3gig stock and modest overclock, plus the fact that i`m damn interested.

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

FreakShow! — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:26:42 GMT

Me and my dad went to the Wolverhampton Computer Market and bought an E8400, 1Gb ram, Samsung 500Gb drive and a Gigabyte Nforce chipset.

Total bundle came to £242. Interestingly if we'd have gone for the E4500 it would only have been £30-£40 cheaper in the bundle. I priced it up later on ebuyer and we'd have saved £3 ordering the same components from there.

If you can afford it go for the higher processor. If you can't then go for the E4500. Your choice, either way your not going to be disappointed :)

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

andydods — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:09:43 GMT

And here's my tuppence, forget previous advice! If you have the spare dosh get the E8400. With the right board it will overclock up to 4GHz and trash the E4xxx. See Pi(e) chart http://tinyurl.com/63r4ua .

More efficient, less power-hungry and cooler running, where's the reason not too? :w00t:

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

mog wilson — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:19:08 GMT

Hello, I just want to add something if i may, The comments by Slipstreem/Martenreed(The proper brainy techs) are absolutely spot on and would be folly to ignore them,However(here we go) in my view the biggest,fastest,most expensive processor is the best one to go for if you can afford it, The E8400 is on my shopping list even though my current CPU is overclocked and has the same performance as the E8400(loads of ocing headroom as well) i still want the best one out there(i must have it).

This is my reasoning, Why do we buy flash cars and nice watches? I could have got an old banger that will get me to work at the same time as my stupidly flash car, instead of a watch that is waterproof to 100m i could have got a cheap one to do the same job because i cannot dive less than 2ft in the bath, My long rambling point is this, It does not matter if your choice makes no sense, we all buy things we do not really need but we want them anyway.

warm regards

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

Slipstreem — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:25:36 GMT

Motherboards with on-board graphics usually have limited overclocking capabilities and wouldn't lend themselves well to overclocking an E4500. If gaming is a priority then the HD3850 mentioned above is a safe minimum for modern games, although something much cheaper like the HD3450 at around £24 might be more suitable if it's purely going to be a media centre rig and you don't intend on doing any gaming. :)

Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

MartenReed — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:17:26 GMT

Yeoboy, by the time a good deal comes a long, the next week a better one comes, then before you know it, the next series is out.

Although the verdict is that a HD3850 for ~£80 is the best buy

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

yeoboy — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:14:58 GMT

Sounds really helpfull, I will spend some time in here and see what I can deduce, One aim I was going to study is on-board graphics untill I could find the best graphics card deal which could affect my mobo choice unless its patently obvious what to go for, Any advise would be great, thanks.

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

Phitore — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:43:26 GMT

Welcome to the forum's yeoboy.

I agree with the posts above, the E8xxx chips are a lot more expensive, and you wouldn't notice the difference with a bit of home encoding.
If it's for commercial use, ie. running full time, it's a different story.

Get back to us with your needs and budget and i'm sure there'll be a lot of good advice on hardware and how to overclock it to achieve what you need.

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

MartenReed — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:36:12 GMT

[quote][b]Slipstreem (04/06/2008)[/b][hr]If you only ever intend on overclocking the E8400 mildly and haven't bought it yet, then I'd highly recommend that you don't. The E4500 costs £54 less and will run happily all day at 3GHz+ on the right motherboard. The difference in real-world performance between them at 3GHz is so close to zero as to be totally unnoticeable most of the time. :)

Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:[/quote]

Rub it in.... :P

I'm with this guy! Or if you don't consider the E4500, try the E7100

RE: 8400 overclocking tutorial sought

Slipstreem — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:35:04 GMT

If you only ever intend on overclocking the E8400 mildly and haven't bought it yet, then I'd highly recommend that you don't. The E4500 costs £54 less and will run happily all day at 3GHz+ on the right motherboard. The difference in real-world performance between them at 3GHz is so close to zero as to be totally unnoticeable most of the time. :)

Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:

8400 overclocking tutorial sought

yeoboy — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:22:54 GMT

Hi, Am about to build a new system around a 8400, I wish to overclock by a modest amount to help the video editing i am aiming to do,Cant decide which mobo to get, Can anyone point me in the right direction please.