How to Become a Benching Team Member

[Seebs]

PM has been sent to Brollocks... Now we wait until I get my cool badge!!!
This damn benching thing is addictive... I was 100% happy with my sub $500 PC (It really does everything I need from it) until I started with the ten required benchies... Now I'm itching for some proper gear... If my calculations are right; I should be getting around 3 or 4K back from Uncle Sam next February on my income tax return... All that is going to go towards benching/gaming HW.

 

[MattNo5ss]

Oh yeah, it's definitely addicting. Remember, you don't need top of the line HW to rack up boints, just popular HW.

 

[m0r7if3r]

yea, really, 775 stuff is great for 2d's and if you've got a solid processor under it beating on old graphics cards can yeild some serious boints...but nothing brings in the boints like a bit of the chilly stuff.

 

[Seebs]

Speaking of 775s...

That's kind of what I want to get into for starters... I have a P4 that's just sitting in a box collecting dust right now and waiting for me to get a MoBo that will push it hard. There's an ASUS Maximus II Formula in the classifieds here selling for $100 (Seems to be an incredible price for that board)... I just hope no one snatches it up before I can get my funding sorted out for it.... Hoping to have the money some time next week.

And on the chilly stuff... I figure part of that income tax return money will definitely go towards a pot so I can step into the dark side.

 

[m0r7if3r]

make sure the board will do 600+fsb or it's not worth that price for a bencher, just FYI...does it do ddr3?

 

[Seebs]

From ASUS website:

FSB: 1600/1333/1066/800 MHz
Memory: 4 x240-pin DIMM, Max. 16 GB, DDR2 1200/1066/800/667

Any major disadvantage on DDR2 vs DDR3?


Any recommendations on 775 boards? From what I've read P45 is the best chipset for overclocking... Is that correct?

 

[m0r7if3r]

No, that's not the right FSB, that's to do with memory, you're looking for FSB as in base clock...I'll let someone who's a bit more familiar with 775 take the reigns though.

 

[Seebs]

I got thrown off by the site's specs page... So that FSB they list would be the RAM speeds that the board can handle then.

EDIT
Just took a look at HWBot's rankings by chipset and in the P45 category the Maximus II Formula is one of the top dogs along with the ASUS P5Q Pro and Gigabyte GA-EP45 Extreme...
I guess the determining factor would be availability... To be honest I'd rather buy from someone here in the classifieds than take my chances with ebay or other sites; and since the one available here is the Maximus I guess that's the one I'll be getting if it's available when I have my funding straightened out.

 

[moocow]

I got thrown off by the site's specs page... So that FSB they list would be the RAM speeds that the board can handle then.

No, thats different.

 

[Seebs]

No, thats different.

Ok... I'm more confused now...

From what I've seen on that board over at HWBot; my guess is that it can handle the high clocks needed for OCing....

But if the FSB speeds listed at the ASUS site are not the ones that m0r7if3r was referring to; and they're not the RAM speeds either... So what are they?

 

[MattNo5ss]

Ok... I'm more confused now...

From what I've seen on that board over at HWBot; my guess is that it can handle the high clocks needed for OCing....

But if the FSB speeds listed at the ASUS site are not the ones that m0r7if3r was referring to; and they're not the RAM speeds either... So what are they?

They're the rated FSB settings for the board. Remember though, the FSB is "Quad Pumped" so you have to divide those "1600/1333/1066/800" numbers by 4 to get the actual FSB. So the board is rated up to 1600/4 = 400MHz FSB.

 

[Seebs]

Ok gotcha...
I've been searching the interwebs (including eBay) for 775 boards in the P45 chipset and so far nothing I've found comes close to the $100 that is being asked for the Maximus II on the classifieds section here... Found a couple of GA-EP45-UD3R up for sale on eBay, but the ones that are listed by users I'd risk buying from (good ratings/enough ratings) are way more expensive than $100.... So it's looking like the Maximus will be it for me as long as it doesn't get sold in the next seven days or so.

Sebstian

 

[MattNo5ss]

It will be a good board, it's a P45. Depending on the CPUs you want to use, you may need some high speed DDR2. At least 1066, but preferably closer to 1200. That's where DDR3 helps a lot, no need to worry about RAM limiting your FSB.

 

[Seebs]

Well right now I only have one CPU to go with that board:
Intel P4
630 SL7Z9 COSTA RICA
3.00 GHz/2M/800/04A
3503A892

But who's to say that I won't start snatching up some good deals on other cpu's from the classifieds here? I'm just getting started, so I figure a minimal investment ($100 for MoBo and $100 for a nice kit of RAM) will get me started and once I've learned the ins and outs of OCing them puppies I can start thinking about buying other chips for more boints...
I have way too many plans for this whole thing...
- Get a PII X4
- Get a PII X6
- Get a decent AM3 MoBo to run the chips above
- Get that Maximus MoBo if it's still available next week
- Get some used 775 cpus from the classies
- Get one top tier GPU from each team (AMD/NVidia)
- Get an i7 and a MoBo to go with it
- Start saving up for SandyBridge and Bulldozer
- And some time in the near future start thinking about freezing all them goodies above; so a nice Pot is in that list as well... But I think I'd be better off just learning normal OCing before and then taking the "Cold" plunge.

The only thing stopping me now is money, but give me time and I'll build up a nice collection of HW that I'll use to collect as many boints as I can for team OCF!!!!

I can honestly say that OCing/Benching is even more addictive than gaming... I put about three hours into Crysis last night (yes I'm late to the party, but only until now did I have HW that would play that game at decent settings and give me good FPS)... I had planned on putting another couple hours into it tonight, but started running benchmarks to get the ten required and completely forgot about gaming.

 

[Bobnova]

It's terribly addictive. Before you know it you'll have a 980x and a few gtx580s if you aren't careful

 

[Apht3rThawt]

Just ran 3DMark05 and can't submit the scores. The website says temporarily not accepting scores. Is this a scam or something to get me to buy the program? Saved it but don't know if it does any good.

 

[MattNo5ss]

For 3DMark05 you have to buy the program to see the scores or submit to ORB. I think Furturemark got rid of ORB (or stopped support for older benches or something) with the 3DMark11 release, so the only way to see scores now is to buy the advanced edition...

You can still get 10 benches without 3DMark05.

 

[Apht3rThawt]

Thanks, but now I am leery of any 3dmark**. I don't want to install apps that don't run or don't provide scores and may leave trails on my system. Are the rest like that?

 

[m0r7if3r]

nope, just 05

 

[Bobnova]

PC05, 3d05 and 3d06 you can't see the scores without going online or buying the program.
It's annoying.