Finally...the change to pressy 3.2E has come, advice please!

Hi People

OK, so I was controlling my urge to get a 3.2E and use my current 3.2c as a backup. I just cant do it any more, I need the pressy. I know its gonna be hot but temps at stock vcore will hit 55c tops under load. I know I have a silent WCing setup but it does the job really nicely, with 2x primes running and over things going while typing this mail my temp has yet to top 30c, for pressy I add 10c and extra 10c for OCing and 50-55c does not seem all that bad for OCing head room. I have read like a million articles on cooling the pressy, but I am sure the IC7 Max3 will come good. I just love this mobo.

I am going for the D0 SL7KC stepping. I will be looking to increase the case cooling but getting better 120mm fans or just getting new ones so that I can change the rpm's as the 2 I have the vavle has broken or something....spins at 1300 both of them, I know they can go to 2300 and still be noise free. I think if I get the pressy I will snap out of my general lazyness and get a large rectangle cut into the side panel of my case, stick the 120mm fans in there and there it is.

Only thing bothering me is my psu. Its a Zalman 400w psu. It has to power alot of things, so my power for the Wcing comes from main, but I still have 4 HDDs, 3x CDROMs and 9800 pro and 4/5 pci cards to power. So here comes the crunch..


What do I do? Buy a awesome noisy psu and sit back and cry or get the pressy and go nuts in the bios?

What would you do? I really want the pressy but then again I also really want 2x 74GB Raptors....4 raptors...(stop drolling)...

Ok, so I need ur help on this people.

Thanks Alot

get the prescott, ive seen people really having good luck with them.
also get a massive psu and swap out the fans in it with some panaflos to quiet it down.

Hey Jen, going to finally take the plunge, huh?

How many amps does your PS have on the +12v rail?

A heavy duty PS don't have to be noisy. My Antec True Power 550w is not that noisy. It has smart fans that adjust to temp, so if you have decent case ventilation (which you should with those 120mm fans) then the PS fans will run at a lower RPM.

Have you read my Prescott cooling article yet?

http://www.overclockers.com/tips1179/

I just did, great article.

I've been pimping that article so much that I'm sure some folks are getting tired of it.

Definately get the pressie man have fun with it to go CRAZY!!!

Make sure to get that D0-stepping though. I had a C0 3.2E before and it sucked cuz it couldn't do anything above 3.4-3.45-ish (low 1:1 FSB's) and the heat was tremendous. When I could get my hands on a M0-stepping Northwood I reverted back to it quickly :S

JenBell said:

...I am going for the D0 SL7KC stepping...

Click to expand...

Lancelot, looks like getting the D0 stepping is the plan.

Well a little off-topic but my M0 seems to be very willingly. Temps here on my attic have dropped from 30C ambient to 22C and I'm testing 255FSB succesfully; Prime95+SETI running stable for over 3hrs now. Sometimes I cut SETI for a few minutes to run either 3DMark 01 or 03, and inbetween things I'm on MSN, have some Peer to Peer proggies running in the background, am browsing the web and using Photoshop. The red icon stays so it seems stable to me! Again when it was reaching 30C ambient here I couldn't make 251FSB so I'm finally saving up for parts for a watercooling setup (also a good consideration when running Prescotts!) cuz this chip has more in it for sure!