New PC Build

Up and Running

Right now, I’m posting from the new PC! I was delayed a bit because I kept getting a blue screen of death (BSOD) on Windows startup. Then whenever I tried to reinstall Windows, it would crash at the same spot. After a lot of time wasted troubleshooting and trying to reinstall Windows, it turns out the crashing was due to misconfigurations in BIOS. I reset BIOS and did eventually reinstall Windows, all the updates, and Kaspersky.

Overclocking

I made a very modest overclock to 3.0GHz from the stock 2.4GHz. I did some brief stress testing and it seemed pretty stable. But judging from the temperatures I don’t think there’s any way I can hit 3.6GHz without the temps being too high. I’m going to try and hit 3.2GHz. Unless I take out the CPU and lap it, I don’t think I can go any higher without burning up the processor. But 3.2GHz would be enough for me, heck even 3.0GHz is enough. With minimal effort, I’ve put my $285 Q6600 on par with the Intel flagship ~$1050 QX6850!

More on the Overclocking

Alright, after more testing, I’ve settled on 3.2 GHz (8 x 400 MHz bus speed, 1600 MHz FSB). It idles at 35C-40C and goes up to around 55C-58C at load. So overall, these are decent temperatures. I’ve tested on Prime95 for about 3 hours and it seems stable. I’m going to try lowering vcore and see what happens. The Abit IP35 Pro has high vdroop so I don’t know how much I can lower it.

Vcore is the amount of voltage being supplied to the CPU. When overclocking, the processor needs more volts but this in turn increases the heat it generates. Finding the lowest possible vcore to keep your overclock stable is key to minimizing temperatures.

Vdroop is an aspect built into Intel chips where it lowers the vcore a certain amount to ensure the CPU is operating within standard specifications. Vdroop varies by motherboard, but too much vdroop can cause your overclock to be unstable because the CPU is not getting enough voltage.

Prime95 is a stress testing program that will make the CPU do a lot of math computations. Actually Prime95’s purpose is to find Mersenne Prime numbers (whatever that is) but it’s also the perfect stress testing tool. It will put all the cores on your CPU at 100% load and max out the temperature. Normal usage rarely stresses your CPU to the level of Prime95 but the idea is that if the CPU can withstand Prime95 for a prolonged period of time, then you know it’s stable. Generally, for long term stability, the goal is to get an overclock to be “prime stable” and stay at or below 60C on load. “Prime stable” means surviving the Prime95 torture tests for 24 hours or more without errors. Alternatively, many say only 8-12 hours of Prime95 is enough.

This can all be confusing at first for beginners (it certainly was for me, I had to do a lot of Googling). Fortunately there are a lot of forums out there with people discussing their overclocking experiences. It takes a bit of work but overclocking is a very cost-effective way of getting a lot more performance out of your PC.

Quiet System

While still noticeable (you can’t expect to build a performance PC without a little fan noise), my new PC is very quiet. Compared to the old Dell, it’s night and day. In fact, I can now hear my external hard drive spin up and power down. Before, the Dell’s fans drowned it out. This is an external drive so you can imagine how loud my Dell fans must have been that they drowned out noise from an external device!