Quote:What motherboard do you have?
I wouldn't be able to find out without unscrewing the cover to my computer, but it's whatever came with it when I bought it. It's a Dell computer, if that helps.
Quote:since you will have to raise voltage, id suggest you look at your motherboards power phase. if its like 3+1 or 4+1 you may want to invest in mosfet/vrm cooling as to not fry them from voltage raises.
You will need to get a new cpu cooler, id say something like the cooler master 212, its good for the price, and should fit in most all mid atx towers.
Also you need to remove all the old thermal paste on your cpu. you can either use the arctic silver thermal remover, or something like goof off then use 90%+ rubbing alcohol, and use a lint free cloth to wipe it. coffee filters work good for it.
Then you can use the thermal paste that may come with the cooler, or get some arctic silver 5. make sure o apply it right, id say go here and read up: http://www.arcticsilver.com/instructions.htm
Ok then also case cooling should also be good. set up fans like this. front/side=intake, rear/top=exhaust. try to get atleast 2 intake & 2 exhaust, and always use more intake then exhaust or you will create a vacuum from the unbalanced pressure. (remember if your psu fan is inside your case its part of your airflow circuit).
now that all the cooling is taken card of you can overclock freely, just make sure to go read up on some guides. as this post i already really long, i dont want to really go into detail about how to do it as well lol.
just always keep voltage as low as you can while you keep it stable. every time you change fsb/multipliers, run a 1hr stress test, if you get errors/warnings or crashes, raise voltage by a tick. repeat until you are happy with your overclock or your temps are too high. (if you have a good power phase or you have mosfet cooling you dont have to worry as much about raising the voltages). also remember your fsb affects just about everything else, you usually want to raise the multipliers rather then the fsb, as raising your fsb will cause other hardware to fail.
This post straight up scared me. How much of this can I ignore if I don't need to change stock voltage as NaturalViolence suggested? As a computer n00b, I don't really want to be messing around removing thermal paste because I'd be too worried about damaging a circuit board or doing something else equally stupid that will prevent my computer from ever working again.
Quote: http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sear...CatId=3670
Too bad I'm Canadian :/ Still, 75$ for a powerhouse video card seems like a decent investment.
(06-09-2011, 01:56 PM)Vykan12 Wrote: [ -> ]Quote:What motherboard do you have?
I wouldn't be able to find out without unscrewing the cover to my computer, but it's whatever came with it when I bought it. It's a Dell computer, if that helps.
Quote:since you will have to raise voltage, id suggest you look at your motherboards power phase. if its like 3+1 or 4+1 you may want to invest in mosfet/vrm cooling as to not fry them from voltage raises.
You will need to get a new cpu cooler, id say something like the cooler master 212, its good for the price, and should fit in most all mid atx towers.
Also you need to remove all the old thermal paste on your cpu. you can either use the arctic silver thermal remover, or something like goof off then use 90%+ rubbing alcohol, and use a lint free cloth to wipe it. coffee filters work good for it.
Then you can use the thermal paste that may come with the cooler, or get some arctic silver 5. make sure o apply it right, id say go here and read up: http://www.arcticsilver.com/instructions.htm
Ok then also case cooling should also be good. set up fans like this. front/side=intake, rear/top=exhaust. try to get atleast 2 intake & 2 exhaust, and always use more intake then exhaust or you will create a vacuum from the unbalanced pressure. (remember if your psu fan is inside your case its part of your airflow circuit).
now that all the cooling is taken card of you can overclock freely, just make sure to go read up on some guides. as this post i already really long, i dont want to really go into detail about how to do it as well lol.
just always keep voltage as low as you can while you keep it stable. every time you change fsb/multipliers, run a 1hr stress test, if you get errors/warnings or crashes, raise voltage by a tick. repeat until you are happy with your overclock or your temps are too high. (if you have a good power phase or you have mosfet cooling you dont have to worry as much about raising the voltages). also remember your fsb affects just about everything else, you usually want to raise the multipliers rather then the fsb, as raising your fsb will cause other hardware to fail.
This post straight up scared me. How much of this can I ignore if I don't need to change stock voltage as NaturalViolence suggested? As a computer n00b, I don't really want to be messing around removing thermal paste because I'd be too worried about damaging a circuit board or doing something else equally stupid that will prevent my computer from ever working again.
Quote: http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sear...CatId=3670
Too bad I'm Canadian :/ Still, 75$ for a powerhouse video card seems like a decent investment.
well you can find out your hardware specs with different kinds of software. something like cpu-z or speccy are good.
but just saying "dell" means its probably not only a low quality motherboard, but all branded manufacturers like dell, hp etc all lock overclocking bios functions.
this mean you will have to overclock via software, which is never a good option. And you will only be able to overclock by raising the FSB. FSB affects your whole system not just your cpu, so you cant just raise your fsb to like 300mhz lol.
Quote:Ok i never said the 6450 was worse, i said it was barely better.
Sine when does twice as fast qualify as barely?
Quote:Also i liked your tests that compared ddr2 5450 to ddr5 6450 (worst 5450 to best 6450 lol).
All three of those links (and dozens of others that you could look up with a quick google search) are major reviews sites that use the reference designs. Using non-reference would provide worthless results.
Quote:ok now $55 vs $40, ok now in that price range why not just get a 5570: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product ($60+3ship)
5570: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_...on+HD+5570
This is double the performance for $63. or get the 5670 for like $70 and get 3x the performance.
if you are on a tight budget, 5450 is a good card, 6450 is not worth $15 more, it doesnt scale well in price/performance.
I agree, but that's not what my original post was about. I said a 5450 was too weak, a statement that I stand by, and therefore went on to say that he needed at least a 6450/GT520 or higher.
Quote:that is kind of high. either the stock voltages were set unbelievably high at stock for some reason. but every single processor is different. even same models processors will get different clocks at different voltages.
This is true. However most intel cpus since the core 2 series have been capable of 1/3 overclocks on stock voltage. The stock voltages used by intel are extremely conservative (way higher than they need to be). My Q6600 for example is perfectly stable at 1.05 vcore at the stock clock rates/multiplier, it might even be stable at a lower voltage, I never tried anything lower. It's also important to note that intel uses a vid to set the stock voltage so it's not a totally static number. This is done to account for variances based on different mobos as well as electrical properties of the chip itself (usually based on how close the chip die was to the center of the wafer during fabrication).
Quote:FSB affects your whole system not just your cpu, so you cant just raise your fsb to like 300mhz lol.
You're confusing FSB with base clock. The front side bus is a bus that is used by recent intel cpus (as well as older intel/amd cpus) to facilitate communication between the CPU core(s) I/O and the northbridge I/O.
If you have a core 2 cpu and you want to overclock you HAVE to raise the FSB since the core multiplier is locked. It's literally the only way to OC the cpu if you don't have an extreme edition cpu. My stock FSB is 1066MHz effective (266MHz real) but I have it running at 1420MHz (355MHz real) to bring my cpu up to 3.2GHz core clock, as do most Q6600 overclockers. You should read up on LGA775 overclocking when you get a chance. I have a feeling you're used to the AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA1156/LGA1366/LGA1155 way of overclocking where you have a base clock (which is sometimes called FSB by accident by people who are used to using the term) that does indeed affect the entire system.
Quote:As a computer n00b, I don't really want to be messing around removing thermal paste because I'd be too worried about damaging a circuit board or doing something else equally stupid that will prevent my computer from ever working again.
Just use thermal paste that doesn't conduct electricity and you can't possibly screw it up.
(06-09-2011, 03:16 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]Since when does twice as fast qualify as barely?
ok well w/e lol, i still think the 6450 is pointless because of the cost of it :3
really most of the low/mid range 6000 series seems too overpriced compared to the 5000 series
and when i was referring to barely better i was comparing:
5450: ddr3 64bit/650mhz core clock/650mhz shader clock/1334mhz memory clock/80 stream processors $40
6450: ddr3 64bit/625mhz core clock/625mhz shader clock/1334mhz memory clock/160 stream processors $52
5570: ddr3 128bit/650mhz core clock/650mhz shader clock/1600mhz memory clock/400 stream processors for $60
as an increase of 80 stream processors and decrease of 25mhz core/shader clock doesnt seem like much of an upgrade.
guess i was also looking at it from the stand point of like having a 5450 and upgrading to 6450 type of thing.
(06-09-2011, 03:16 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]You're confusing FSB with base clock. The front side bus is a bus that is used by recent intel cpus (as well as older intel/amd cpus) to facilitate communication between the CPU core(s) I/O and the northbridge I/O.
ah well i mostly always had amd processors (not that im an amd fanboy or anything, just ended up that way lmao. and amd dont have FSB, they have HT which is the same thing basically, but i find it easier just saying FSB instead of bus speed, probably a bad habit.
(06-09-2011, 03:16 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]If you have a core 2 cpu and you want to overclock you HAVE to raise the FSB since the core multiplier is locked. It's literally the only way to OC the cpu if you don't have an extreme edition cpu. My stock FSB is 1066MHz effective (266MHz real) but I have it running at 1420MHz (355MHz real) to bring my cpu up to 3.2GHz core clock, as do most Q6600 overclockers. You should read up on LGA775 overclocking when you get a chance. I have a feeling you're used to the AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA1156/LGA1366/LGA1155 way of overclocking where you have a base clock (which is sometimes called FSB by accident by people who are used to using the term) that does indeed affect the entire system.
never had a socket 775 or know anyone with one XD
know some people with 1156/1155.
(06-09-2011, 03:16 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]Just use thermal paste that doesn't conduct electricity and you can't possibly screw it up.
IC diamond
or you could just take the processor out, hold ONLY by the sides, and wipe off the paste, maybe even get a 2nd person to help.
Now that I have some money, I decided to buy a used computer (the one I have is 5 years old) that will be able to emulate Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn gameplay at 80-100% speed. Here's a few I had in mind, all priced at 300$.
Choice 1-
Quote:[Gamer PC] Core 2 Quad+ 4gig of ram+ 8800 GT
- Core 2 Quad Q6600@ 2.4 GHZ with a Nvidia geforce 8800 GT alpha dog edition
- 4 gigs of ram
- 250 gig hard drive
There is windows 7 64 bits on it + office 2007 pro + an antivirus
It runs starcraft 2@ ultra settings.
Choice 2-
Quote:AMD Dual Core Computer X2 260 3.2GHz 4GB RAM 500GB Desktop PC
Motherboard ; MSI K8N Neo3 H nForce4 Socket 754 ATX Motherboard w/Audio & LAN
processor : AMD Athlon 64, 3 GHz, Socket 754 Dual core
Memory : 4gb
optical drive : CD/DVD read & burn
video card : Radeon hd 6750 1gb
HDD : 3.5" 500GB SATA III 7200rpm HDD
Audio : onboard
case : wt5285 black case
ATX Midi Tower Case Black
* 500W PSU with Fan
* Front USB x 2 / HD Audio & Mic
* Case may slightly vary
network : Onboard Realtek 10/100/1000M Gigabit LAN
Choice 3-
Quote:HP desktop PC - HP D530 Pentium 4 3.00GHz
Processor
Intel Pentium 4 2.4ghz
Memory
4Gb DDR RAM
Chipset
Intel 865G chipset
Storage
300GB PATA IDE hard drive
CD/DVD burner drive
Communication
Broadcom 10/100/1000 network interface
Video
Integrated Intel extreme Graphics 2
Audio
Intergrated audio
Realtek
Ports & Expandability
6 USB 2.0 ports (2 in front)
1 parallel port
1 serial port
PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports
Software
Microsoft® Windows 7 Professional
Open office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, database and presentation software)
Anti virus
Choice 4-
Quote:Dell Duelcore 3.0,4.5gRam,Hd Radeon 5570 250gHD
Includes:
Dell Dimension 5150
Duelcore 3.0 Ghz 2.99ghz
250g Hdd (less then a year old)
4.5g DDR2 (2gig new with package)65$
Radeon Hd 5570(New still with box)130$
7 Usb ports(2 in the front not connected, 5 in back Usb 3.0)
1Dvd burner
1 Cd drive (not connected)
Surround sound integrated
Win-xp-7
fingerprint scanner(35$)
What's my most favorable option here? Keep in mind that I only need to run these games at 480p resolution.
Edit: Feel free to move this to the hardware section.
*Bins option 3 and 4*
I would go with option 1, if you overclock that to around 3.2GHz or so, you should get playable speeds.
(You should wait for NV to respond as he has this exact CPU)
Option 2 has a slightly better videocard though, but nothing major.
All choice are sh*t for dolphin , especially the overpriced Radeon 5570 130$ lol . I could grab
AMD 7750 for 109$
Athlon 64 , DDR2,Nvidia 65nm 8800gt, Pentium 4.... are outdated technology, might be 2nd hand or refurbished product . You could find DDR3 for a cheaper price (No company produce ddr2 anymore )
Quote:I would go with option 1, if you overclock that to around 3.2GHz or so, you should get playable speeds.
(You should wait for NV to respond as he has this exact CPU)
Option 2 has a slightly better videocard though, but nothing major.
Would option 2 work well without overclocking?
Quote:All choice are sh*t for dolphin , especially the overpriced Radeon 5570 130$ lol . I could grab AMD 7750 for 109$forec
Athlon 64 , DDR2,Nvidia 65nm 8800gt, Pentium 4.... are outdated technology, might be 2nd hand or refurbished product . You could find DDR3 for a cheaper price (No company produce ddr2 anymore )
They're outdated because I'm buying a used computer off craigslist.
Admin, Gartreal, remember that I am trying to run a lower-end game (Fire Emblem) at 480p so I shouldn't need a super powerful computer.
Actually, looking at ebay, perhaps I could get a new computer, hopefully below 500$. Would this be good, for example?
Dell 3 Ghz Dual Core