Hey ho,
Right I've got some more questions before I finally jump into the deep end this week.
I've settled on an i7 920.
What I wanted to know about is memory speeds, motherboard speeds and their relationship to the CPU and each other.
My plan is to water cool the CPU to somewhere around 4.0Ghz. The reason I've settled on WC as opposed to a good air cooling system is as follows:
- I'll be using it in a fairly small room (not the small room sometimes known as the.... WC) so a WC set-up will reduce noise.
- I want a stable OC, not one that will poop itself in a year or two due to heat stress. I understand that, even on a good air cooling system, the 920 will run at heats approaching 80C at around 4GHz. I'd like to keep temps as low as possible. We don't have air-conditioning at home, so it isn't unusual for temperatures to hit 30c in doors.
- Possibility of stretching the OC beyond 4GHz if the WC systems lowers temps sufficiently.
- Water Cooling is cool. Literally and metaphorically.
So that's my thinking with the CPU.
Now we get to the Motherboard. I've seen Asus P6Ts that come overclocked at 2000MHz. What exactly does this mean? What effect does it have?
Similarly, I've seen sticks of memory that come out with speeds as high as 2133MHz. For the purpose of this exercise we'll rule that memory out and think about sticks of up to 2000MHz.
What I want to know is, for argument's sake, if I was to match an OC'ed i7 at 4MHz, a MoBo that runs at 2000MHz, and memory running at 2000MHz, would this be a decent setup? Would it actually be (as I suspect) a very good set-up or would I run into issues that I'm not thinking about/don't know?
I've been led to believe that 2000MHz memory is less stable for minor improvements in performance. What I've been unable to find out is whether these people are using a 2000MHz compatible motherboard. Plenty of forums post the question about whether 2000MHz is worth it, but I'm really struggling to find info on 2000MHz Mobos and whether they alleviate the problem or whether they're a worthwhile investment.
Please bare in mind that I want to leave some sort of head room so that I don't have to replace components on such a regular basis. I understand that, strictly speaking, I probably don't need to go for memory with higher clocks than 1333MHz.
What are your thoughts?
One frustrating thing I'm finding in shopping around for a system is all of the conflicting information I'm getting from retailers. Nobody seems to be able to give me good advice, let alone decent service. Fer chrissake! I want to spend $5000 in your store. Surely it can't be too hard to sit me down for half an hour and take me through all the things I need to know....?
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