Overclocking ---3.0E Vs. 3.0C ---

Hi, i was just wondering which of these CPUs would perform better overclocked. Im going to be buying one of these CPUs very soon. I just need some feedback on their performance overclocked. I'm looking to hit about 3.75Ghz - 3.9Ghz (with Luck). Would the Prescott beat the Northwood at those speeds? I will be using a sp-94 and 92mm tornado as cooling initially but i may decide to go into watercooling down the track. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Prescott with air cooling to 3,9GHz.. HELL NO!

I said "with luck" . Im realistically hoping for at least 3.75Ghz. I have a rig using 2.8E @ 3.6Ghz and im only feeding it 1.44 Vcore using an sp-94 and a 92mm tornado. It's rock stable (12hours Prime95). Its probably going to be really hard getting a 3.0E to 3.9Ghz on air, but i did say that i might venture into watercooling in the near future.

Heh, 3.75ghz is quite elusive. Mine does 3.6-3.66 stable, but up to 3.75 gives no crashes.

The prescotts are better overclockers, but require better cooling. I think the [email protected] is a nice overclock, and wouldn't bother going higher than that. Depending on what you use your PC for, wouldn't it be wiser spending it on different component replacement? Even if you have a 9800, IMHO its money better spend (gaming-wise) to go to x800.

Yes its nice for that little bit more on clocks, but is it worth it?

~t0m

I agree... that much more money for ~300 more mhz when you could spend that on an x800 pro or XT??? I'd go for the video card to be honest... I mean hell, if you're looking to throw money down the drain, blowing it on a high end video card would be more satisfying imo.

Well, im not really throwing money away, i need a new cpu because i need to build a new computer, not cause im upgrading my 2.8E system.

Oh well, i decided to go for the 3.2E. Its a "SL7KC" so its D0 stepping. Apparently on the intel spec site it says it uses about 1V for Vcore. On the box it says 1.4V max. I'll let the CPU settle for a couple of days and then overclock it.

Right now I'm running a 3.0E [email protected] and it beats the crud out of a northwood that is clocked the same. Now I have it watercooled and I'm still getting high temps. Generally close to 50C under full load. But hey I can live with that. Now here's what you have to take into account. When you overclock a Prescott you are putting a lot of stress on your mobo. In fact I'll be ordering a new P4C800-E Dlx soon to replace my P4C800-E Dlx board that Pressy is killing. I didn't sink up the mosfets on the board, but at this point I'm not sure that, that would really help. In fact I think that the stress being put on the power regulators is what is killing the board, and I don't think reducing the heat little bit on the mosfets is going to save it in the long run. Yeah, it will probably get me another few weeks out of the board than if it weren't sinked up. I know that I can't just throw out a broad statement like Pressy's highly overclocked kill mobo's, but in my case, at my speeds, thats exactly what it is doing. The tradeoff...My rig clocks higher, runs faster, performs better than anything I've ever built, at any level. I'm loving it, and for now I'm willing to put up with a mobo that might die on me any day, because I've got a back up rig, and if it dies, I'll call Asus and tell them what happened and ask them if they will RMA it. If they refuse then I'll most likely buy another board and give it another shot. So if your willing to get better cooling and willing to stress your mobo in order to attain clock speeds of 250+ then I'd go with the pressy. If not, then I would stick with a northwood.

This question seems to keep popping up, so I'll try to make some time later to do a direct comparison since I have both a 3.0C and 3.0E. I'll post benchmarks later comparing them both at 3.8 gig.

Myhre, I just installed a C0 3.0E in my rig in the sig... had it a 3.9, same as my Northy. I ran SuperPi, the only benchmark I compared really, but the times were identical... Plus the Northy at 3.8 and 1.65V loads at 39-40C where the Pressy was at 54C. PWM with the Pressy was 58C and is 43C with the Northy. I don't know that the Pressy is all that much better at 3.9 than the Northy at 3.9. I am interested to see myself.

My northwood couldn't even compare to my pressy when overclocked. I lowered the pressy to my max 3.0C's overclock which was only 235. My northwood ran a 39superpi at that speed and my prescott ran a 37superpi. It did better in sandra benchmarks and pcmarks as well. /shrug, maybe my northwoods are just gimp, but I was able to notice the difference in performance even before I ran bench's on it.

batboy said:

This question seems to keep popping up, so I'll try to make some time later to do a direct comparison since I have both a 3.0C and 3.0E. I'll post benchmarks later comparing them both at 3.8 gig.

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