If only once....

...you guys could answer my easy questions. Please - my wife says I come off as a di&% so please understand - that is not my intention.

Ok, I have an Alienware rig that I have since modded cuz I know more now then when I bought it. (yes - u all are right that I paid too much) (moving on) I switched out the SLI mobo with a P5WD2 Premium. And I changed the ram and the cooling on the chipset. So my sig says what I got.

Anyway, I can't seem to get past 4.4GHZ. My temps are on the high side - I just ordered some Artic Silver 5 - hoping that will help.

The ram voltage maxes out at 2.3 on the board, I have heard of a voltage mod on this forum before. Will doing that help me either lower the timings or up the MHZ??

Also I have the option (in my bag of tricks) to get the 7800GTX 512MB card. Do you guys think that is worth my while or should I wait for the 8800 series ( or whatever is next) before I drop 7 hundred bux on a video card.

Basically my ??? is simple. I seem to have the best rig $$ can buy, what can I do to make it even better?? Any suggestions would really be appreciated. Just post what you would do if you were me. Thanks

Anyway, I can't seem to get past 4.4GHZ. My temps are on the high side - I just ordered some Artic Silver 5 - hoping that will help.

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Not as much as you are expecting, maybe a couple of degrees.

The ram voltage maxes out at 2.3 on the board, I have heard of a voltage mod on this forum before. Will doing that help me either lower the timings or up the MHZ??

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Yes, vdimm (memory volt mods) benefit in BOTH faster speeds and tighter timings.

The guide is here:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?p=3881005

Also I have the option (in my bag of tricks) to get the 7800GTX 512MB card. Do you guys think that is worth my while or should I wait for the 8800 series ( or whatever is next) before I drop 7 hundred bux on a video card.

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You'd probably be better suited by getting another gtx and doing sli as you already have an extremely high end card.

Basically my ??? is simple. I seem to have the best rig $$ can buy, what can I do to make it even better?? Any suggestions would really be appreciated. Just post what you would do if you were me. Thanks

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Water cool or phase change it. Volt mod it. Get SLI. Yes, in that order.

pwnt by pat: Thanks - u say water cool, volt mod and get SLI.

My answer is: Says in sig that it is already water cooled, had SLI but now that I have a board that only supports one card, SLI really is no longer an option.

Volt modding I will have to look more into. Don't want to blow 500bucks worth of ram. thanks again.

Koolance != watercool.

Build a REAL setup

Oh, I thought that board supports sli? Maybe I saw a wrong guide and got confused..

Edit: I did see two pcie 16x slots. That's what had me thinking SLI

viperlair said:

The ASUS P5WD2 Premium comes equipped with one PCI Express x16 slot, a PCI Express x4 universal slot, a PCI Express x1 slot and three standard PCI slots. Those of you hoping to run an ATI Crossfire or NVIDIA SLI config will want to continue hoping. According to some sources, NVIDIA's 66.75 drivers will enable SLI on the board, but game support is spotty at best. For those of you wishing to power four displays, the board will handle that just fine.

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driver 81.95 is out so maybe?

What do you mean "build a real setup"?? There is a 2" radiator with 2 big fans on the water cooling system. It was upwards of 300bux of that watercooling. My friends tell me there is nothing better. The waterblock never gets over 40C. Usually stays at 33C. What do you suggest???? thanks again

My bad, I meant a 2 foot radiator.. LOL - I have had too much to drink...

Koolance systems are NOT the best. That radiator, while 2 feet long, is probably all aluminum which is not optimal. Those fans are probably 120mm which is good.

The tubing is probably 1/4" internal diameter. You want no less than 7/16" internal diameter for watercooling. The waterblock is probably a big piece... and it's probably copper which mixing aluminum and copper in one loop = big NO-NO. Also, that pump is a piece. Sorry.

If you want a real WC system, check out the Swiftech Apex kit. I don't like to recommend kits but basically, it's the best kit you can get for the money and is the same price as, or almost the same price as just the individual parts.

http://www.jab-tech.com/Swiftech-Apex-Ultra-H20-220-pr-3198.html

you know, you've already got 4.4ghz out of an EE. as you know, you are already WAY up there in terms of performance.

upgrading to "real" watercooling (aka, better watercooling) may only yeild you a 5c-10c drop in temps, and it may get you nothing in terms of OC. you are already above what i've seen most get with a EE on watercooling.

you sound like you are serious about wanting to go faster, and by the tone of your thread, money isn't really a concern. this tells me the choice is clear. its time for you to try PhaseChange. there is no sense going out and spending 200-300 on a new watercooling setup, only to find that it still leaves you wanting. drop the $700 you were thinking of spending for that videocard, and buy a phase change setup. there are many threads to read up on in the cooling section and many experienced members here that can help you out along the way.

seriously, nothing is really going to make a noticible difference to you, except extreem cooiling. you need negative temps. with ~-20c you may find yourself sitting atop 5ghz(ymmv). i would hope that would satisfy you, at lease until presler hits the market towards the beginning of 06 (some are hitting 5ghz on air with early samples already).

**edit** oh and pwnt, that is a NICE looking wc setup. i personally still want to go water for the low noise, and the 24/7 power consumption.

Finally the cool people come out of the woodwork.
Pat = thanks, I imagine you are correct in almost every aspect and will try to learn from what you have said.

Beatbox = I am afraid that your theory is the correct one. I just can't imagine that I will ever be able to do a phase change. I would love too - don't get me wrong. I just don't think it is gonna happen. Unless someone can help me out with a step by step of what I need to do. my email addy is [email protected] thanx a bunch

i've never run phase myself, so i'm afraid i'm no help there. maybe someone will come in here that can help.

you could also start a thread in the cooling forums, or even just browse around. try looking for threads from people's first phase experience, to find common pitfalls.

from what i've heard, it really isn't all that hard. just think of it as a little fridge beside your computer, concentrating all its cooling power on one tiny brass plug, that just happens to be sitting on top of your cpu.

**EDIT** ( i love my edit's...)

here's a nice review of the Prometeia Mach II GT. lots of good stuff in here to read through: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/prometeia-mach2gt.html

You are already running high voltage which is no surprise that you are running a bit warm. Looks like you are maxed out with your current cooling. I don't know what memory ratio you are running, but certainly if you tried the 1:1 there is no way you would max out the RAM. Then you could see if that was the bottleneck. If not, go back to your current ratio. Volt modding is up to you. Personally, I doubt you'll gain much. It's my opinion that going from your current vid card to a 7800GTX 512MB is a waste of money. But, if you have deep pockets and want the best vid card on the market right now, then go for it. In another month or two, there will be something better out though. Maybe it is time for you to try extreme cooling. Go over to that section of the cooling forum and look around.

batboy -

You are right. I am going to wait for the dual core GPUs to come out on the video cards. I have run a 1:1 ratio with the ram but find the 3:5 is better in the benchmarks cuz the ram is running faster. Also I currently have the voltage at 1.50 and it is stable, brought my temps down a bit but not much. Deffinetly going to try to convince the wife to let me get a phase change. The heck with this small stuff. Thanks everyone.

im not sure if anyone has said this yet, but here goes, the main problem is that you have a EE chip... those are known not to oc that well, a 650 will oc much better (from what ive heard)

and as for phase-change, you can buy a vapochill if you didnt want to make your own set-up (i dont have phase-change, but if i did that would probably be my first step)

and as for the wc'ing you have, the koolance is definatly not helping you out that much, probably doing about the same as a high end air set-up, check out the watercooling threads and then see what you want to do with that

hope that helped a little bit

your right bro, and I will tell you why. The EE has a multipier of 14. No higher. So I can have an FSB of 320 wich is very high but still not have a great CPU clock. That was a mistake I won't make again. Goin after phase next. Thanks

Higher FSB is always good, but the BIOS, mobo, chipset, CPU, etc. may limit just how high an FSB you can run. Without being able to switch to a higher multiplier, there's really no way to check whether the mobo or proc is the hold up.

It took me way too long to get a phase unit. I watercooled for a years and finally realized that I had spent more on various WCing components/setups over the years than a phase unit would've cost and I had nowhere near the cooling. Phase change cooling performance is 2nd to none except LN2/DICE, but neither of those are long-term cooling solutions. A properly setup and prepped phase system can run 24/7. Mine is on a minimum of 10-12 hours a day (only off when I go to sleep).

I don't know if you really want to start out building your own, but off-the-shelf phase units like the Prometia or Vapochill are pretty straight forward for install and operation, if not a little expensive when purchased new. Used units can be had at a decent discount depending on the model/mods/options/age. Stock units won't have the cooling or capacity of custom-built or modded units, but they are a no-brainer. If I was buying a new one, I personally wouldn't look at anything less than the Prometia Mach II GT or the Vapochill LightSpeed (LS)...both use R507.

There are also several people who build and sell phase units and I highly recommend checking out Chilly1 (xtremesystems.org). Good cooling and capacity and a complete unit with the value controller is substantially cheaper than either a new Prommie or Vapochill units (in some cases, cheaper than used units as well).

It was by far the best $$$ I ever spent. My P4 550 went from a max of 4.3GHz on "good" water to 5.1GHz on phase. I never ran the 670 on anything but phase so I don't know what kind of a gain it would've gotten from the awesome cooling, but I think anywhere in the area of 600MHz-1GHz gains could be expected going from water to phase depending on the proc and IF the rest of the system will support the FSB...

If you want the best go Phase and drop your "high side" temps Then you will hit your MAX overclock and hopefully get the performance you need .