At 11 x 200, 2.2GHz, a lot of cores would run ok at 1.65V.
It was borderline on average over the family, rasing the MHz
the next 300 or so required significant vcore increase.
It can depend on the motherboard too. 'Tis not the avg.
voltage that matters as much as the minimum. Suppose your
board is set for 1.65V, but it dips .09V. Suppose another
board only dipped .06V, and the threshold was .07V. The
former board will need at least 0.025V incremental (since
vcore setting is always in steps). Further, the more
marginal board may have even more deviation in vcore drop
the higher the vcore is set. You might find one board needs
1.85V for the same o'c another can do at 1.775V.
Out of curiosity, how did you arrive at this figure? I was thinking
about going a bit higher with proper cooling and I'm glad I read your
post :-O
That is a good ballpark figure, though if you had a really
good heatsink you can push a little further. On one box
I've an o'c Barton in, an Alpha Pal8045 (which was
supposedly great for it's era) can't cool sufficiently at
1.85V, 2.4GHz. However, this is also within context of a
reasonable (quiet) fan operation, I always determine the max
fan noise I would tolerate first, THEN see how high it'll
go.
On another system with a Thermaltake SLK-900U, very similar
CPU can run all day (and does, it was doing batch video
encoding), full load, without problem at 1.85V. Keep in
mind an SLK-900U was supposedly a $48 heatsink which is a
bit excessive in my mind but I'd happened upon a Newegg
Refurb'd specimen for $25. Now that the system isn't
encoding video anymore, a ~ 1200 RPM and lower o'c makes it
inaudible.
Seldom is it only about what voltage, but at what cost to
hear, pay, or lifespan of the motherboard.
My PSU is a Antec SL350PGB 350W ATX P4 Smartpower Dual Fan Power
Supply.
Is this considered a good PSU?
It's not bad but a bit marginal for high overclocking if you
have other fair loads on it such as a gaming video card or a
lot of HDDs.
I think my CPU's heat problems were because of me not putting on the
thermal grease properly. I removed the stock pad and basically put a
whole syringe of the thermal paste on the CPU. The proper way to do it,
I've since read, is to clean the CPU from the old paste, lightly clean
& sand the heatsink and then put a *drop* of the stuff on the CPU.
The need to lap a 'sink can depend a lot on how well it came
finished from the factory. I've lapped a 'sink till it was
so good the CPU was within 1 degree of same temp with no
thermal compound at all... and then decided it wasn't worth
the effort to lap it so well. IOW, getting the surface
fairly flat is the more important part, a mirror finish
isn't nearly as important as a minimal amount of good
medium-low viscosity synthetic thermal compound. The
synthetic compound is far more important on these open core
CPUs as the thermal density is much higher and will degrade
performance of std. silicone based componds over several
months. With a stock speed CPU, there's more margin and a
few degrees temp rise may not matter but when overclocking
it becomes more necessary to have a habit of using good
parts- not necessarily premium though, Arctic Silver 5 is
not really necessary, Arctic Alumina would work too or
another 3rd party compound that's reasonable quality, thin
enough, and synthetic based.
I never use thermal pads though- far easier to just clean it
off the 'sink before it ever melts onto the CPU.
Thanks. Sometimes I use "natural" cooling, i.e. open my case up. It
lets dust in though
If you have a spare system, or when you begin building your
next one, take the time to get creative with airflow and
filtering. Given ample exhaust fan(s), rate, or pusher fans
in front with a large filter area, there should be no need
to keep the case open. Just beware of altering airflow too
much, if you reduce the amount coming in through the case
front, it may cause the HDDs to run hotter.
