ASUS P5-E/WIFI & E8200

Hi guys,
I'm currently looking at building a new system for around $1500 (Aust)
and
I've come up with the following main pieces of hardware;

ASUS P5-E/WIFI board running the E8200 CPU, will be running 4gb of PC6400
(1.8v 4-4-4-12)

From what I've read online, these 45nm cpu's are great to overclock, plenty
of sites claim to have
the E8200's running at 3.4 - 3.6Ghz on standard cooling...I'll be using the
Thermalright SI-128 with 120mm fan,
so I'm hoping the better cooling, with good case ventilation that I should
at least get a stable 3.2Ghz or similar
to run 24/7...the only with I'm unsure about is the motherboard's
capabilities, as I've always been an AMD &
Gigabyte fan and aren't really up to date on the whole Intel & Asus scene.
So is the board a decent over clocker?

And one last thing, would I be better opting for some 1066Mhz ram over the
800Mhz?

Thanks for any help, greatly appreciated

Strutter

'Strutter' wrote:
I'm currently looking at building a new system for around $1500 (Aust) and
I've come up with the following main pieces of hardware;

ASUS P5-E/WIFI board running the E8200 CPU, will be running 4gb of PC6400
(1.8v 4-4-4-12)

From what I've read online, these 45nm cpu's are great to overclock,
plenty of sites claim to have
the E8200's running at 3.4 - 3.6Ghz on standard cooling...I'll be using
the Thermalright SI-128 with 120mm fan,
so I'm hoping the better cooling, with good case ventilation that I should
at least get a stable 3.2Ghz or similar
to run 24/7...the only with I'm unsure about is the motherboard's
capabilities, as I've always been an AMD &
Gigabyte fan and aren't really up to date on the whole Intel & Asus scene.
So is the board a decent over clocker?

And one last thing, would I be better opting for some 1066Mhz ram over the
800Mhz?
_____

Considering the high nominal FSB of 1333 MHz, you should consider spending
an extra $20 US and getting a Wolfdale E8400 with a higher multiplier of 9 X
rather than the 2.66 GHz nominal E8200. You can only overclock an Intel CPU
(since about the Pentium II 300 MHz) by increasing the FSB (unless you spend
~ $1000 US for an Extreme version with a multiplier that is not upward
locked).

Getting an E8200 with an 8 X multiplier to 3.6 GHz will require an FSB of
1800 MHz ((1800 MHz/4) X 8 = 3.6 GHz), while getting an E8400 to 3.6 GHz
will require an FSB of only 1600 MHz ((1600 MHz/4) X 9 = 3.6 GHz). Raising
the FSB to 1800 MHz is going to really push the motherboard and chipset;
1600 MHz is much more reasonable. When overclocking you are trading
operating margins for speed so it is best to limit overclocking of
components other than the CPU as much as possible.

You should get memory with a DDR2 rating that is at least 1/2 the FSB of the
highest overclock you might attempt. That means that DDR2-1066 (PC 8500)
gives you a bit of safety room. You can always try faster memory at lower
speeds with tightened timings OR at higher speeds with relaxed timings. The
gains are relatively small, ~ 5% to 10% once you go above 1/2 the FSB speed.

You haven't mentioned the operating system you will use, nor the
applications you expect to run, nor the display adapters you intend to
install. Be aware that if you use a 32-bit Microsoft Windows operating
system, more than 2 GBytes of memory is nearly useless. For example,
physical memory addresses above 2 GBytes in these 32-bit operating systems
are used by peripherals. Programs can not directly use the second 2 GBytes
of physical memory. Even worse, each display adapter you install blocks use
of an amount of memory in the second 2 GBytes of physical memory equal to
the amount of memory installed in the display adapter. Installing two 768
MByte display adapters leaves less than 500 MBytes usable in the second 2
GBytes of physical memory; and even that 500 MBytes has limited utility.

In addition, the power supply should be considered an major item.

Not being familiar with Intel products you should eliminate as many
potential problems as possible by selecting appropriate components.

Phil Weldon


"Strutter" wrote in message
...
Hi guys,
I'm currently looking at building a new system for around $1500 (Aust)
and
I've come up with the following main pieces of hardware;

ASUS P5-E/WIFI board running the E8200 CPU, will be running 4gb of PC6400
(1.8v 4-4-4-12)

From what I've read online, these 45nm cpu's are great to overclock,
plenty of sites claim to have
the E8200's running at 3.4 - 3.6Ghz on standard cooling...I'll be using
the Thermalright SI-128 with 120mm fan,
so I'm hoping the better cooling, with good case ventilation that I should
at least get a stable 3.2Ghz or similar
to run 24/7...the only with I'm unsure about is the motherboard's
capabilities, as I've always been an AMD &
Gigabyte fan and aren't really up to date on the whole Intel & Asus scene.
So is the board a decent over clocker?

And one last thing, would I be better opting for some 1066Mhz ram over the
800Mhz?

Thanks for any help, greatly appreciated

Strutter