(another thread on) Hardware advice

Wed Jul 13, 2011 11:48 am

Actually i didn't overclock it, my friend did it himself ;-P I might add that i used to overclock my Pentium Dual Core from 1,6Ghz to 3,2Ghz and it served me for about three years. Now my brother is using it;-) Overclocking is scary at first, but when you see a 30-40% increase in computing power, in my opinion, even if you burn the CPU after two years - it's worth it. That is: if you're making money with it

Make sure you have the right kind of motherboard for your needs. From what i recall motherboards with h67 chipset allowed you to use the integrated GPU, but didn't allow overclocking, and P67 allowed overclocking but didn't allow to use the GPU (or the other way around). Z67 motherboards were supposed to have both functionalities, but i don't know if they are out yet.

Whatever you decide, good luck

P.S. Overclocking on the Sandy Bridge used in comparison with the 6-core was very, very slight. Could have very well been left to automatic and worked under box cooling (which obviously was replaced anyway)

Wed Jul 13, 2011 1:25 pm

I see your point jamnique and I have to say you're right. some of my prejudices against OC come from the past... I remember what a pain it was to OC the first PentiumMMX processor family back in the days! (yep, I'm 37...)

Wed Jul 13, 2011 1:53 pm

We'll I think in a way we're both right ;] Most of the time i keep my processor at stock clock value, with automatic overclocking turned off as well. The reason being that now for the most time i don't need the extra power, it would just go to waste. I would even be very happy if my precessor could efficiently downclock itself when I'm browsing or basically doing anything else than rendering. Good news is that i7 can do that. When you're doing mundane tasks it can go as low as 1,6 Ghz, and the second you start a render it jumps up to 100% power. My quad processor can't do that, automatic overclocking causes instability, BUT... overclocking it when i need it takes changing one value in bios - that's it. So i would really recommend 2600K - 30$ will give you a significant power boost, and you can use it when you really need it.

Btw, i also had the first Pentium MMX ;] Not to mention a 086 machine with an operating system in German and a BLACK and WHITE monitor hehe.

Fri Jul 15, 2011 12:07 pm

jamnique wrote: Not to mention a 086 machine with an operating system in German and a BLACK and WHITE monitor hehe.

I had (well, it was my father...) an Olivetti M200 back in 1988...

great news on the i7, missing parts have arrived... today is the day

be prepared for a bunch of questions in the next few days...

Fri Jul 15, 2011 4:41 pm

SurfingAlien wrote:
jamnique wrote: Not to mention a 086 machine with an operating system in German and a BLACK and WHITE monitor hehe.
I had (well, it was my father...) an Olivetti M200 back in 1988...

great news on the i7, missing parts have arrived... today is the day

be prepared for a bunch of questions in the next few days...

I don't actually have an i7, but i will do my best to answer ;]

Sun Jul 17, 2011 10:16 pm

hehe the i7 is fine, I meant questions about Octane (only been able to play with it, now's time for something more serious)

anyway, this is offically my first post from the new PC... feeling a bit strange being amused to OSX (haven't used a win machine for almost 3 years now...!)

ok, to update my sig now...

Mon Jul 18, 2011 4:51 am

I'm happy for you:D I would buy an i7 this instant if i could, but in this economy i couldn't really justify it. Feel free to ask anything, i'll answer as well as i can

Mon Jul 18, 2011 8:21 am

jamnique wrote:...in this economy...

don't tell me... I've been looking for this for more than a year now, my previous Win machine was so old (one of the last P4HT on 478 socket) I couldn't use Octane because there was no PCIe... from 2088 I've been investing all my "computer stuff" budget in my MacBookPro, apps and stuff!

now that 3d is becoming more than just an hobby I decided it was the right time time (BTW, your machine is still pretty good anyway... if you're thinking about a pretty cheap upgrade I'd surely suggest to buy a fast SSD as system disk, really impressed by the speed improvement over a standard sATA HD!)

cheers,
Alessandro

Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:05 am

Thanks, i won't be doing any upgrades soon though. Maybe another four gigs of ram in a couple of months. Eight is the new four

Still, it's painful to think that i won't be able to reuse it when i finally switch to a newer machine later. SSDs are still too expensive for my taste.