- Joined
- Feb 26, 2003
- Messages
- 804
- Reaction score
- 0
Just finished building my new rig and did a little overclocking to test it.
Basic set up:
Asus A7N8X Deluxe rev.2
T’Bred XP2700+
1Gb XMS3200 CAS2 in dual channel
2xWD 36.7Gb SATA ‘Raptor’ HDDs (10K rpm, 8Mb cache) in RAID 0
Asus 128Mb GeForce FX5900
The CPU is cooled by an SLK800 + 80mm Zalman Power Cooler fan and I used Arctic Silver 3 thermal compound.
Temp at idle on a ‘normal’ day is 28C and 34C at load.
The recent warmer days have seen these rise to 30C and 37C, respectively.
(Some peeps have expressed disbelief at these low temps, but I’m gonna put some screen caps together of the Asus ‘History’ screen showing temp change over time…I’d like to see what’s happening behind my back!)
Everything sits in a Lian-Li PC-70 full tower, with two filtered 80mm intakes at the front base, and two 80mm exhausts on the back, level with the CPU. The airflow is completely free diagonally across the mobo heatsinks as I have removed all obstructions including the hard drives, which I’ve put in Coolermaster 3 cool bays with their own 40mm fans. These now sit in 5.25” bays and are positioned so that the air exhausting from them does not impact on the CPU area, but flows above the PSU and out through vents at the top of the backside of the case, where I have two more 80mm exhausts (not switched on for my quick test). I have a single rounded IDE FDD cable and 2 SATA cables to the HDDs, so, apart from the PSU cables, there’s very little cable obstruction to airflow.
The whole thing is powered by an Antec ‘True Blue’ 480W PSU.
Default CPU settings are 13 X 166 = 2158Mhz
For my quick test I upped the multiplier to just 13.5 x 166 to just 2241MHz.
My main test was on the vid. As a non-Ultra, it’s default speeds are:
400/850MHz (Ultra’s are set at 450/850MHz).
I got a little aggressive and ramped it all the way up (eventually) to 471/947MHz.
With that combination of mild CPU overclock and heavy vid overclock, I got a 3D Mark 2003 score of 6,027.
Basically, for £100 less cash, the non-Ultra’s 5900’s can easily be clocked beyond the default Ultra settings. The only other difference is that Ultras have 256Mb RAM…but the extra 128Mb is not needed for any existing app.
I reckon, with some experimentation with voltages and minor memory timings, I should be able to push this score even further.
Basic set up:
Asus A7N8X Deluxe rev.2
T’Bred XP2700+
1Gb XMS3200 CAS2 in dual channel
2xWD 36.7Gb SATA ‘Raptor’ HDDs (10K rpm, 8Mb cache) in RAID 0
Asus 128Mb GeForce FX5900
The CPU is cooled by an SLK800 + 80mm Zalman Power Cooler fan and I used Arctic Silver 3 thermal compound.
Temp at idle on a ‘normal’ day is 28C and 34C at load.
The recent warmer days have seen these rise to 30C and 37C, respectively.
(Some peeps have expressed disbelief at these low temps, but I’m gonna put some screen caps together of the Asus ‘History’ screen showing temp change over time…I’d like to see what’s happening behind my back!)
Everything sits in a Lian-Li PC-70 full tower, with two filtered 80mm intakes at the front base, and two 80mm exhausts on the back, level with the CPU. The airflow is completely free diagonally across the mobo heatsinks as I have removed all obstructions including the hard drives, which I’ve put in Coolermaster 3 cool bays with their own 40mm fans. These now sit in 5.25” bays and are positioned so that the air exhausting from them does not impact on the CPU area, but flows above the PSU and out through vents at the top of the backside of the case, where I have two more 80mm exhausts (not switched on for my quick test). I have a single rounded IDE FDD cable and 2 SATA cables to the HDDs, so, apart from the PSU cables, there’s very little cable obstruction to airflow.
The whole thing is powered by an Antec ‘True Blue’ 480W PSU.
Default CPU settings are 13 X 166 = 2158Mhz
For my quick test I upped the multiplier to just 13.5 x 166 to just 2241MHz.
My main test was on the vid. As a non-Ultra, it’s default speeds are:
400/850MHz (Ultra’s are set at 450/850MHz).
I got a little aggressive and ramped it all the way up (eventually) to 471/947MHz.
With that combination of mild CPU overclock and heavy vid overclock, I got a 3D Mark 2003 score of 6,027.
Basically, for £100 less cash, the non-Ultra’s 5900’s can easily be clocked beyond the default Ultra settings. The only other difference is that Ultras have 256Mb RAM…but the extra 128Mb is not needed for any existing app.
I reckon, with some experimentation with voltages and minor memory timings, I should be able to push this score even further.