Upgrade monitors or computer

Sniipe

I have the following:
CPU: Q6600 with water cooling
RAM: 4 gb
GFX: ATI 4870
HD: 1tb hd + others (all sata)
Monitors: 19" + 15"

I do like my games but I also like my 2 monitors and was thinking of upgrading. There are some nice 24" monitors for less than 200euro (link) and I was thinking of getting 2 of them.

Where would I be best spending the money? Perhaps its time to upgrade my CPU...?

Solitaire

Depends on how intensive the games are but if you go for two of those screens we're talking a 4-megapixel setup here - any recent 3D game across both and the HD4870 would choke I doubt you'd play across both though, that only really works with 3-screen setups

If you're OCing (and why the water if not? ) then platform is still good for a while, if you really want to go triple-monitor then you'd need to upgrade to a GTX460 1GB at least if you play more intensive games (Crysis etc.)

Sniipe

this is a machine I purchased from someone else on Boards. I'm not confident in OC'ing so I've left it alone in the bios.

I'm going to double check if I have a 4870 or a 5870 card...

Currently I'm not playing any triple monitor games (or dual for that matter)

SC2, LOL, Team Fortress 2, COD MW2 is all I'm playing atm

Solitaire

Pretty sure it'd be a HD4870 in any second-hand comp

If that rig really is watercooled then OC that CPU!

lmimmfn

dunno, it would be a damn waste to have 2 24" screens and not have a third for gaming

Whenever i get rich im gonna upgrade my 3 screens to have 3x24" ones, IPS looks sooo good but damn expensive

Sniipe

Solitaire wrote: »

Pretty sure it'd be a HD4870 in any second-hand comp

If that rig really is watercooled then OC that CPU!

It looks like its a 4800 series graphics. The CPU is definitely not OC as its at ~2.4ghz according to dxdiag.

Hank Scorpio

Sniipe wrote: »

It looks like its a 4800 series graphics. The CPU is definitely not OC as its at ~2.4ghz according to dxdiag.

Dxdiag never gives me accurate readings, download cpu-z, awesome little program

Sniipe

nuxxx wrote: »

Dxdiag never gives me accurate readings, download cpu-z, awesome little program

Sniipe

What do I modify?

Your processor is running at default speeds with Intel SpeedStep enabled, that's why CPU-Z reports it as 1.6 GHz.

Sniipe

Karsini wrote: »

Your processor is running at default speeds with Intel SpeedStep enabled, that's why CPU-Z reports it as 1.6 GHz.

you mean 2.4 Ghz?
Do I overclock in the bios? If so do I mess around with the values on the posted screen?

DECEiFER

Sniipe wrote: »

you mean 2.4 Ghz?
Do I overclock in the bios? If so do I mess around with the values on the posted screen?

Absolutely, the best way to overclock in terms of stability and performance in one is to do it through the BIOS. However, it's not something you should just tweak without doing some research first. You'd need to check what clock speeds are attainable (I've seen people go above 3.2GHz on air cooling with the Q6600 - however, that's a pretty big overclock and on air cooling that's going to bring your temperatures right up). The next thing you need to work out is what voltage to set your Vcore (CPU Voltage) at. The Q6600 uses a 65nm manufacturing process so it'd require a slightly higher Vcore than a newer CPU like a Core 2 Quad Q9xxx series, Core 2 Duo E8xxx series or the Core i series with a 45nm process, meaning higher temperatures as a result. They key with overclocking is to get the highest speed possible while maintaining stability with the lowest possible Vcore to keep your temperatures down.

The higher the Vcore, the higher your temps. Too high and you'll kill the CPU, and depending on how high you go it can be days, months, or years before it dies. The BIOS *normally* warns you if you select a Vcore too high by highlighting the value in red, so not to worry too much. So why not select a low Vcore? Too low and you'll have stability issues, like random Blue Screens of Death. It's very much trial and error, with a big part of it running Prime and/or Burn tests on the CPU to test for stability (which is quite time consuming).

If you overclock by changing the clock speed (FSB), you'll also be overclocking the RAM so you'd have to change the FSB:DRAM ratio in order to avoid that, unless of course you want to overclock the RAM as well (in which you'd have to set a higher VDIMM (DRAM voltage)). Unfortunately you're limited in what you can do, so you'd have to select a specific clock speed to match a suitable ratio in order to maintain exact stock speeds for your memory. Your CPU has a 9x multiplier by default, so it's FSB x 9 to get the total CPU clock speed. I'm not sure if you can avoid changing the FSB speed and just increase the multiplier, maybe 9x is as far as that chip goes? You'd have to check or someone else can chime in if they know.

The voltages you set are vital and you will of course need to research this and maybe check on the Tweaking & Modding forum here on Boards. Google is also a great tool. A term like Q6600 Overclock should yield some results from people who have overclocked your chip with experiences and values to start from. You need to be very careful but if you keep within the safe limits, you'll merely flop a few Prime/Burn tests, possibly get higher than desirable temperatures, or experience a few BSoD's at worst depending on how low or high you set your Vcore/VDIMM.

In summary, you can overclock if you want to for the sake of doing it like enthusiasts do (for bragging rights, etc.) or you can overclock because you need to, if your CPU is the component holding you back (bottlenecking your performance in a particular application/game). If you're not an enthusiast or you don't need to overclock, I would suggest not doing it.


EDIT: Forgot that you mentioned that you have water cooling in your first post. That'll certainly keep your temperatures down but it doesn't take away from how important it is to get your values as correct as humanly possible.

Sniipe

The machine was owned by chosen and I'm pretty sure he told me this was a better than normal Q6600 chip and that he had it overclocked to 3.0 or 3.2 ghz stabily.

I would love the computer to go quicker and I have messed around in the past with the ratio's. I will give it another go tonight and see how I get on. I would love a computer that boots faster and perhaps encodes movies quicker. The games I currently play don't require a better graphic card yet.

DECEiFER

Sniipe wrote: »

The machine was owned by chosen and I'm pretty sure he told me this was a better than normal Q6600 chip and that he had it overclocked to 3.0 or 3.2 ghz stabily.

I would love the computer to go quicker and I have messed around in the past with the ratio's. I will give it another go tonight and see how I get on. I would love a computer that boots faster and perhaps encodes movies quicker. The games I currently play don't require a better graphic card yet.

To be honest, your boot performance won't increase by much, or at least it never does a whole lot for me and I've had a few chips down through the years (I have an i7 920 now overclocked to 3.2GHz on air - the dreadful Intel stock cooler no less). This is simply because the Hard Disk plays a major part in that operation, as with many other operations, and it's definitely a bottleneck that a faster drive can help remedy. You will notice faster movie encoding, which is a heavy CPU process more than anything else. Also, depending on the games you play, it may give you an extra few FPS there too. If you get it up to 3.2GHz, you'll notice increases for sure. It's not a discreet overclock by any means!

Sniipe

Sniipe wrote: »

you mean 2.4 Ghz?
Do I overclock in the bios? If so do I mess around with the values on the posted screen?

No, in your photo the clock speed is shown as 1600 MHz in the first picture.

Solitaire

DECEiFER wrote: »

I've seen people go above 3.2GHz on air cooling with the Q6600 - however, that's a pretty big overclock and on air cooling that's going to bring your temperatures right up

Anything over 3GHz isn't clever with the stock cooler, but with "big air" (120mm full tower cooler) or light WC you can shoot for 3.6GHz quite happily with the 65nm C2Qs

DECEiFER

Solitaire wrote: »

Anything over 3GHz isn't clever with the stock cooler, but with "big air" (120mm full tower cooler) or light WC you can shoot for 3.6GHz quite happily with the 65nm C2Qs

I did a hop, skip and a jump from a 95nm down to 45nm. Not familiar at all with the Q6600. Sounds like good advice though!

Sniipe

Karsini wrote: »

Your processor is running at default speeds with Intel SpeedStep enabled, that's why CPU-Z reports it as 1.6 GHz.

Yeah, I just noticed this; it increases to 2400mhz at certain times.

Sniipe

cool - so I've upgraded and now my core speed steps between 1995.9 and 2999. Other stuff varies also; multipliers, bus speed and rated fsb

Solitaire

Make sure the system is stable and that your RAM hasn't been OCd by accident! Otherwise, yeah, that's the reason we love our ancient 65nm C2Qs :D