e8400 Overclocking Fun!

G

gr!m

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 24, 2006
Messages
333
Well I just built my new rig tonight and so far I am absolutely loving it. I easily (and by easily, I mean stock volts, stock everything except FSB increase) made it to 3.6Ghz. Although, that's not good enough....lets see what happened.

RIG:
Intel e8400 3.00Ghz @ 4.05Ghz 1.32v C0 Stepping
DFI Lanparty DK P35
G.Skill 2x2GB DDR2-800 5-5-5-12 T2
VisionTek Radeon 4850 (Damn these run HOT! Average ~75C)
Xigmateck Rifle 120 CPU cooler


CPUz.jpg



*click pic to enlarge*

There you have it. 4Ghz on quite low voltage. I did a few stress tests and load ended up around 42C idle at <30C. I tried upping voltage, changing memory timings, ect...but I couldn't get it to go any higher for now. Comments welcome.
 
That's a good chip you got there. Make sure to use Real Temp to accurately monitor your temps.
 
You are making me want to upgrade from this E6400 even more than i already do.
 
I'll be pushing my e8400 to 4ghz when I get it in a few days. Thanks for the info.
 
nice. that is good voltage for 4.005ghz. not the best, of course, but good nonetheless.
 
Thats THE COMBO to get right now.
e8400
P35 mobo (asus, DFI, gigabyte)
4Gb G.skill (cheap)
and you should have a superfast 4Ghz machine.

Then down the road when Core 2 Quads get really cheap and possibly get a new revision that reliably hits 4Ghz, drop one in for an easy 4Ghz quad overclock.
 
Just a quick update. The 4.005Ghz was 100% stabe after 12h Prime95 but I don't see the need to keep it there as I can run 3.6Ghz stock voltage and temps are lower. So I keep it at 3.6Ghz for daily use.
 
You don't need the latest and greatest chipset to make an E8400 run. Here's my E8400 on an old Asus P965 board with a Tuniq Tower.

superpi4500mhz1mob1.png


As long as your board is stable, your memory is good and you're not afraid to give them a little bit of core voltage then you'll have no trouble hitting some decent numbers with one of these. This isn't even a good E8400 compared to some of the low volt monsters out there.
 
Nice overclock gr!m. I just got a E8400 too, this chip is the best. Got it up to 3.6GHz no problem. I can boot at 4GHz+ but can't get it stable yet. Looks like you got a good one, especially with those temps.
 
cybereality said:
Nice overclock gr!m. I just got a E8400 too, this chip is the best. Got it up to 3.6GHz no problem. I can boot at 4GHz+ but can't get it stable yet. Looks like you got a good one, especially with those temps.
Click to expand...

Temps are different between Smart Gaurdian and RealTemps. I might buy a sensor just so I can figure out which is lieing lol. I am guessing temps are around 30C idle 40C load. The average of the two.
 
Yea, the problem is try to get one of these prime stable @ 4.5Ghz. I can run SuperPI at 4.5Ghz @ 1.38v but prime fails in 2 seconds. Played with more voltage but its just not prime stable.
 
unclewebb said:
You don't need the latest and greatest chipset to make an E8400 run. Here's my E8400 on an old Asus P965 board with a Tuniq Tower.

superpi4500mhz1mob1.png


As long as your board is stable, your memory is good and you're not afraid to give them a little bit of core voltage then you'll have no trouble hitting some decent numbers with one of these. This isn't even a good E8400 compared to some of the low volt monsters out there.
Click to expand...

Some of us' P965 can't touch 3.0ghz much less 4.5. :) My E6400 can't even break 3.0, effing Allendales. Also, this DS3 simply can't run 45nm....sucks.
 
I'm also absolutely loving my e8400, btw hate to sound noobie, but what's the default e8400 voltage? At auto it was set to 1.26/1.28, Right now I manually set it to 1.24 and I'm running prime, crashed yesterday with 1.23.
 
Howdy. I have the same motherboard: DFI P35 T2RS. I went with the E7200 since it was a bit cheaper, and I can get it stable at 3.4Ghz with stock everything (even the stock cooler!). Its amazing at how simple overclocking these guys are.

Glad you hit 4ghz. that's a great milestone. I hope mine will go that high when I get better cooling (arrives tomorrow!).
 
Yeah, unfortunately a lot of reviewers have come to find that the 7200 does not overclock nearly as well, same goes for the 8200. The 8400 was only $10 more and happens to be the best ocer.
 
techpriest said:
I'm also absolutely loving my e8400, btw hate to sound noobie, but what's the default e8400 voltage? At auto it was set to 1.26/1.28, Right now I manually set it to 1.24 and I'm running prime, crashed yesterday with 1.23.
Click to expand...

what clock speeds are you running at that voltage? right now im at 3.6ghz and 1.2volts
 
That looks like a nice chip you have (and you too dnottis).
You should be able to spank my 4.13GHz @ 1.4V (set in BIOS, not measured).
I dont recommend exceeding 1.4V unless for a quick test and dont exceed 1.45V ever as transistor gate damage 'can' occur quickly - unless you have high end cooling.
 
Wow thats amazing! Do you have to use water cooling to get it that high? I would imagine so right?
 
Hi i just bought an e8400 batch q814a241, hopin to oc it decently on my abit ix38 quadgt, got 2x1 gb Patriot ddr2 extreme ram (444-12 at 2.2, 800 mhz), and coolermaster hyper 212 with another 120mm fan going on in push pull. Do u think that ram will be a bottleneck to hit 500fsb? if i loosen the timings, how much ? and what volts?
 
looks like you got a better chip than mine... im having issues running 450x9 @ 1.42v on a IP35-Pro board

runs stable at 430x9 @1.30 tho :confused:
 
Wow, to answer your question 500 FSB would be a VERY high OC for the e8400. That would kick it up to 4.5Ghz and probably require over 1.45v. Unless you have water cooling I doubt you will see 500FSB.

Also about the ram. I can't get my G.Skills over 1000Mhz. 960 is the highest they can get. So I might buy some higher stock clocked ram and see if I can kick it up a notch with a divider.
 
jai739 said:
Hi i just bought an e8400 batch q814a241, hopin to oc it decently on my abit ix38 quadgt, got 2x1 gb Patriot ddr2 extreme ram (444-12 at 2.2, 800 mhz), and coolermaster hyper 212 with another 120mm fan going on in push pull. Do u think that ram will be a bottleneck to hit 500fsb? if i loosen the timings, how much ? and what volts?
Click to expand...

Only you will be able to find out if your DDR2-800 ram will work as DDR2-1000 and the settings needed.
You only need a 444MHz bus to hit 4GHz with an E8400 fyi.
 
gr!m said:
Yeah, unfortunately a lot of reviewers have come to find that the 7200 does not overclock nearly as well, same goes for the 8200. The 8400 was only $10 more and happens to be the best ocer.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Pre-views showed it to be awesome. But the reality has been a bit low. We'll see. :)

Glad your 8400 is rockin, though. Thats awesome.
 
OP, mind posting some pics of you BIOS?

i have a C0 E8400 and i cant get it past 3.7GHz :(
 
gr!m said:
Wow, to answer your question 500 FSB would be a VERY high OC for the e8400. That would kick it up to 4.5Ghz and probably require over 1.45v. Unless you have water cooling I doubt you will see 500FSB.
Click to expand...
Using a Gigabyte P35-DS4, both my e8400's have been much happier running 500 x 8 rather than 440 x 9.
The first one- the golden chip I should never have let go- was 10 hour OCCT stable at 1.265v while the new one requires 1.35v.

This might just be a quirk of the board/chip pairing but there seems to be a FSB range between 440 and 499 that just isn't copacetic.
I've adopted a 1.36v vCore cap (better safe than sorry, kids!) and, even though she'll boot at 500 x 8.5, it's not stable enough to really consider.
Same with 510 (and over) x 8...boots but craps out within minutes during stress, so I think 500 x 8 is my personal sweet spot.
 
I've set mine to run on a 400mhz fsb for 3.6ghz... kept the volts at 1.26v default. Temps never changed from the 28C idle I got before the oc! Great cpu these... I may try and push it up a bit more!

Edit... I can actually run it at this speed for only 1.18v... sorted!
 
I got to about 4.4, but the system would post and then get bsod. but the stable i got was 4.05 at about 1.3 vcore. stable. i think my ram will bottleneck, but the EPP or something states that it should be able to do 1000 mhz at 5-5-5-15 timings with 2.3v or something. i dont wanna overcook the ram, since at 2.2 they are running pretty hot. But the timings im getting is 4-4-4-12 at 900 mhz for the 4.05 oc. i think above 960 mhz or something CL4 fails and you have to increase your timings or something, im not sure.

Whats the max vcore recommended? im running a hyper 212 in push pull. cant seem to measure the true temps exactly. anyone knows about this?
 
Not to sound like a huge noob, but what are the benifits of overclocking an E8400 for a person who primarily uses their computer for gaming? I recently purchased one, and am quite happy with the performance. I got the CPU to 3.6ghz at stock voltages, but in the end reverted back to 3.0ghz because I saw no noticable performance increase (in games atleast).
 
It depends on which gfx card you have and how many of them you have.
If your CPU isnt fast enough, your gfx card wont run to its full potential.
If you already get what is considered to be the max framerate in games for your gfx card, you dont need a cpu upgrade.
Also if clocking the CPU makes little to no difference to framerate, you are already running fast enough.

3GHz is fine for nearly everything.
The clinch point for the 8800 single card series is around 2.5GHz for a C2D, I recommend 2.7GHz cos you get a few % fps more :)
A few games do require more CPU and will benefit from overclocking the CPU more.
You need to check reviews to find what is needed and/or do your own tests
 
dook43 said:
Some of us' P965 can't touch 3.0ghz much less 4.5. :) My E6400 can't even break 3.0, effing Allendales. Also, this DS3 simply can't run 45nm....sucks.
Click to expand...

Yes, :sigh: my DQ6 doesn't support 45nm either :( I was really hoping it would when the e8400's came out, but they don't which is fine because my FSB doesn't like going over 1700 or so anyway. I'll be sticking with my trusty E6300 for now.
 
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