An OC'ing question & Removing a CPU.

Furiosity

Furiosity

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I'm getting either a Phenom II X3 710or 720. I want the 720 'cause it's a BE at 2.8 GHZ and the 710 is at 2.6.

I'm 15$ short of the BE, and my only hope to get the BE is if they have a decent sale during Thanksgiving. I don't want to wait that long :( /cry

Choices like this make me over think:

I can wait a whole freaking 30 days and "hope" there's a deal on processors and get the BE and either A: Run ti at stock, or B: Increase multiplier by 1 for 3GHZ.(I like whole numbers).

Or I can get the 710, and increase the Bus Speed by 16 for 2.8GHZ so it's like the speed of a BE, I am terrified of going above 200MHZ. Absolutely terrified.

I have no idea if increasing the bus speed is safer than increasing the multiplier, but to me increasing something by 1 is less of a hassle than by 16.

So which is safer? I really hate waiting for things :( Especially when I'm not sure there will be a deal on the processor I want :( I have a single core Sempron 140 right now.


Other questions:

When I built this PC, I put the CPU in wrong like 4 times, I didn't get why it wasn't booting. I swear I aligned the triangles, then I took an even closer look and realized I confused the triangle edges of the CPU socket with the indented triangle I was supposed to align it to :X anyways, during those failures every time I removed the Heat-sink to put the CPU in again, the CPU came along WITH the Heat-sink, pulled out of the socket. I doubt that's the way it's supposed to be =\. How do I take it out the Heat-sink without it pulling the CPU with it?


Thanks for the help :O I mainly just want the 2.8 'cause that's what Dragon Age recommends. Also, will it degrade the life of the CPU substantially by oc'ing it by 200, whether by bus or multiplier? And will I need to change the voltage, because I SWEAR under no circumstances will I mess with the voltage. I'd rather have 2.6 than risk something. I have REALLY bad luck.
 
Ocing will degrade the life of your CPU from 12yrs to maybe 10 (gasp)

i would buy the 710 only if you are confident you can Oc it like that. The BE will be a lot easier to OC (i have a 550 BE), all you do is change the multiplier.

personally i would get the 720 just becasue im a total noob at overclocking.
 
if you're on such a budget, ya i'd buy the phenom ii x2 550 be - cheaper, faster, might be better suited for you.
if you're trying to match the supposed recommended system specs for dragon age - they for some reason say you need this "CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent"
so not x3 but x4, and if you cannot afford the x3 720 you won't be able to afford a x4

as more to answer your question, you shouldn't have a problem OCing the 710 to 2.8 ghz
 
JunK said:
if you're on such a budget, ya i'd buy the phenom ii x2 550 be - cheaper, faster, might be better suited for you.
if you're trying to match the supposed recommended system specs for dragon age - they for some reason say you need this "CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent"
so not x3 but x4, and if you cannot afford the x3 720 you won't be able to afford a x4

as more to answer your question, you shouldn't have a problem OCing the 710 to 2.8 ghz
Click to expand...

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or AMD Phenom II X3 Triple-Core 2.8 GHz or greater. <-- Reason I want the tri-core :( Plus according to some gaming benchmarks the performance between X2 and X3 is decently large while he difference between x3 and x4 is really small when not multitasking.
 
well that isn't what the official website says HERE
also for gaming dual cores usually top even quad cores most of the time...there isn't many if any games fully optimized for quad cores or even triple cores - in fact if those recommended settings are true, this is the first game i've ever seen or heard of to have a quad as recommended
i think its highly exaggerated, included the needed ram - you don't really need a quad core if you're just gaming...theres been so many tests that have proven this over and over - yet ppl still just refuse to accept it and still shell out 300+ bucks for high end processors when they'll never utilize the power

choice is yours ultimately
 
Lmao, that's what I would do too.

But since you're upgrading from a Sempron to a top of the line processor...why even overclock?

The only noticeable difference I've experienced from overclocking is in benchmarks. But, in real time everything was the same. Get the 710 and don't overclock yet. Do some research and wait to get a good heatsink.
 
naw, if you do a decent overclock, you will see some noticeable increases. Maybe not if your already running like 80 FPS but there will be an increase. I OC my Q6600 form 2.4 ghz to 3.65 ghz, i saw a pretty large increase in gaming performance but nothing amazing since i was already running like 80 FPS or more :sleep: Overclocking helps more for getting rid of a bottleneck with your GPU. Hopefully the 5870x2/5850x2 won't bottleneck with my Q6600 when i get it but i highly believe it will bottleneck in some games.
 
reflex99 said:
this is even cheaper and its quad core and will easily run that game.
Click to expand...

hey there ya go - get that sucker...low wattage needed also...good find reflex

and ya overclocking your cpu should help a little bit in general...faster cpu speed is always good for faster processing, but when you overclock a cpu its usually with just the multiplier, for most i guess, meaning its only your cpu thats being affected - but unless your CPU is bottle necking your GPU you will not see an improvement in frames...games just are not that cpu intensive anymore
 
I overclocked my Phenom II X3 to 3.6Ghz, but decided to bump it back to 3.4Ghz. I set my FSB at 277 and my CPU Multiplier to 15X. I also had to bump up my core voltage from stock up to 1.4V. With overclocking you can't really look at what someone else has for their settings and expect it to work. Every processor is different and some require more voltage for simple overclocks, while others may need less. I was looking online and there are many people with 3.4Ghz at stock voltage, but mine isn't stable unless I bump the core voltage.

Moral of the story, if you have time to spend overclocking, it's a good way to get more performance out of a chip. If you aren't willing to spend possibly several days tweaking and stress testing, then I'd just stay at stock speeds.

Also the Phenom II X3 720 BE is a great chip. I'd highly recommend it :).
 
JunK said:
hey there ya go - get that sucker...low wattage needed also...good find reflex

and ya overclocking your cpu should help a little bit in general...faster cpu speed is always good for faster processing, but when you overclock a cpu its usually with just the multiplier, for most i guess, meaning its only your cpu thats being affected - but unless your CPU is bottle necking your GPU you will not see an improvement in frames...games just are not that cpu intensive anymore
Click to expand...

I pondered that processor a month ago, asked on this forum about it actually, based on responses it made me somewhat timid of not having L3 cache for newer games.
 
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