Results from E6420 and Gigabyte P35-DS3R

[bengance]

With some recommendations from the kind folks on this forum, I completely upgraded by old comp last night. New specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6420
Gigabyte P35-DS3R
2x1gb Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 Low latency
MSI 8600GT Silent Heatpipe PCI-E

this replaces an AMD Athlon 2000 and an Abit NF7-S2 motherboard (nforce 3 chipset)...so, yeah, its much faster.

Vista Ultimate installed in about 30 minutes without a hitch. My performance index (Vista benchmark) was a 3.1 CPU up to a 5.1 now. All my stats are in the 5's now with the CPU as the lowest score. Idle temp was 25 C on the CPU.

After installing the chipset drivers I could barely keep from checking out the BIOS tweaks and overclocking. This board is definitely geared toward that segment. A few quick keystrokes and my FSB went up from 266 to 337, raising my CPU from 2.13ghz to 2.7ghz no problem with a 32 C idle load.

Today I'll install some other benchmarking tools...Sandra Lite and SuperPi maybe and start tweaking it out.

One question:
I bought my CPU from Fry's and it had previously been opened and returned. The intel stock fan had its thermal pad still there but it looked a little thinner than usual. Should I get some thermal grease to supplement the pad?

(I know, people will probably say dump the stock fan and get a real OCing fan).

 

[Bot2011]

Dump the stock fan and pickup the AF7 Pro here SVC.com Than you can really OC that puppy.

 

[bengance]

Thanks for the tip. For $20, not too expensive. I saw you're getting the same Mobo. In hindsight, it may be a good idea with the the P35C-DS3R. That one supports DDR3 slots as well and supports 45nm CPUs. Subtle difference. I think it's $20 more than the one I got.

 

[ollithemagicbum]

a mobo that supprts 2 kinds of RAM can be buggy and will not work that well. just stick with the regular p35 ds3r. besides, ddr3 isn't needed just yet.

 

[Sora]

The P35C isn't worth it becuase DDr3 isn't mainstream at all right now......and yes like with the old DDR/DDR2 boards they were a little buggy. As the same with the AGp/PCI-E boards.

 

[ThirdLeft152]

looks like a great build there. good luck with the oc'n.

and yes i would recommend reapplying a layer of as5 or mx-1 anyways as it will do a little better to keep temps down then the stock paste. you can't go wrong with reapplying a better paste.

 

[veg1992]

awesome build... i recommend u overclock and get an af7

EDIT: some1 already recommended it

 

[bengance]

So while leaving all BIOS settings on default (auto timings and voltage) except FSB.

400 FSB = BSOD
385 FSB or 3.08 ghz equaled a 16.645 SuperPi time

SuperPi mod 1.5 XS
1M
CPU got up to 37 deg C.
Voltage upped by board to 1.392v

Also knocked my Vista index score from 5.1 to 5.6 on the cpu.

 

[meat_helmet]

So while leaving all BIOS settings on default (auto timings and voltage) except FSB.

400 FSB = BSOD
385 FSB or 3.08 ghz equaled a 16.645 SuperPi time

SuperPi mod 1.5 XS
1M
CPU got up to 37 deg C.
Voltage upped by board to 1.392v

Also knocked my Vista index score from 5.1 to 5.6 on the cpu.

I wouldnt leave the auto voltage on if i were you though. Its alot safer to manually adjust it.

 

[b1gapl]

I believe auto voltage sometimes, gives more voltage then needed.