Hi!
I'm building a small linux computer for music producition and have
gotten to the point of confusion with Fsb, memory and cpu speeds.
Reading ahead a bit, does this production need more performance? How
small? Small enough that you'll be making case cooling compromises
due to the case design? Overclocking involves many elements, it can
be done in small cases but some details aren't as obvious until you
hit a wall, like how much noise you can stand from a higher speed fan
and/or have to buy a better high end heatsink to lower the noise.
From how i understand it I would benefit from overclocking a system
with a (for example) 3ghz 1333FSB core 2 duo to an FSB of 400Mhz
partly because a DDRII 800 would run at full speed (plus the whole
system clock is faster),
No, this is a fairly inconsequential performance increase. That it
would raise the CPU speed too is the much larger benefit. Modern
chipsets have the ability to run an asynchronous memory bus clock
speed so you pick ratios of what the memory bus to fsb speed is. It
need not be 400 to run the memory at that speed or higher.
but wouldn't that entail the CPU running at
3.6Ghz? This seems like a big increase to me but I don't know anything
about overclocking.
Yes that is a significant increase. A higher end CPU, a lucky sample
that overclocks well, very good heatsink (water cooling?) or a move to
45nm process CPU (which is yours?) would make 3.6GHz more managable,
any of these factors but more than one together and it is do-able.
That performance increase is much more than your concerned increase
mentioned above which as mentioned isn't even entirely applicable.
Even so, for that minor benefit you would pick a higher FSB rate if
that is also managable, or a lower than 400 to get the CPU o'c speed
and temp in a range it will do and do at a noise level you accept.
Anyway; If it generates a lot of heat I don't want
to do it since i want a simple(silent) cooling system and a small case
so perhaps i should save in on the memory and buy 667's , which seem
to match the 333Mhz FSB, instead.
Forget about matching FSB. Yes it will generate significantly more
heat partially due to requiring higher voltage and partially due to
just being a faster clocked CPU - and yet choosing 3GHz CPU in itself
at stock speed also creates more heat than choosing a lower speed CPU
so it's really a bit arbitrary to make a decision based on this factor
until you see how well it clocks and resulting temp with the whole
system together.
You aren't saving much money getting DDR2-667 instead of -800, get the
-800 and as mentioned you can run it with a ratio to the FSB <> 1.
That is a typical setting in the bios of any motherboard with merely
modest user settings, typical even on low end mATX retail boards, just
don't expect some OEM board pulled from a Dell or HP, etc, to allow
it.
Ps. I'm considering mini-itx since the new intel boards are coming
soon, perhaps overclocking one of those is a really bad idea???
If performance is really a concern you should decide how much you want
it, and not try to get some tiny system in that situation. By
overclocking you can easily gain 60% performance in some situations,
give or take depending on many variables, but it shouldn't be crammed
into some tiny case unless you want it to sound like a leaf blower
from the need to move the heat out using smaller higher RPM fans.
Generally miniITX boards are not built as robustly in their power
regulation section so that too works against the idea even if in an
otherwise good case, but 45nm CPU can hit 3.6GHz without much trouble
and without extreme heat increase. Just remember you are not forced
to do 3.6GHz, can pick any speed between these on a typical board with
user overclocking settings. It'll just take a bit of testing to find
what is the best compromise for you.
Anyone got any ideas? Hope this hasn't been asked a million times.
It's been thought a zillion times. Make it smaller. Make it faster.
Make it cheaper (with the -667 memory in your case). In the end you
need to assess how extreme the compromises are in the small cases you
like, some may be better than others. Unless you have some strange
space limitations you're better off going with a larger motherboard,
at least mATX, to get more features and just more board space in
general for layout and additional slots. Seldom do people later wish
their PC was only a few inches shorter but often they wish it had some
slot or feature it doesn't.
You should do some web searches for Core 2 Duo overclocking, once you
understand better the details around having different FSB:Memory
ratios you will then better understand why you have a lot of middle
ground in what speed you decide to run the CPU.
