KVR Audio

reflekshun · Post by **reflekshun** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 1:13 pm

Would any of you recommend for or against overclocking if stability is a major priority for me? I heard core2 chips are very capable of being very stable, but only from a few people. Can anyone report on how stable it is to use an overclocked core2 cpu in the audio environment?

fluidz · Post by **fluidz** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 2:58 am

I've managed to clock a core2duo e6400 over by about 400mhz using stock cooling, which has been put through lots of cpu intensive tasks without crashing. The stock cooling is the round fan that comes with the core2duo's in the retail box. However i've got a cool ventilation airflow in my tower case, so make sure that you've a couple of fans to keep down the overall temp before oc'ing.

Sam@Megablastic · Post by **Sam@Megablastic** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 10:35 am

Get 6400 ddr2 ram, and buy an E6300 and just run it at 2.8ghz on stock cooling.

I've had no heat issues or instability at all. I've now bough a Zalman Reserator 2 passive watercooling just because I hate noise and need a silent pc. But an overclock from 1.83ghz to 2.8ghz is a very big one. I bumped up the voltage to cpu by just 1 bit (the smallest amount my motherboard would let me).

My motherboard is a Gigabyte 965-DS3, all I did was run the front side bus at 400mhz and the ram at it's default 800 mhz.

Shy · Post by **Shy** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 10:35 am

Overclocking both Core2 and Athlon64 processors will often result in unstable operation. It's most apparent when you do cpu and memory intensive tasks like video encoding. Many people get either crashes during encoding or corrupted files. and that doesn't happen when you don't overclock. The same goes for any task that is highly cpu + memory intensive, and even ones that aren't very memory intensive, like audio coding. I've received many complaints about corrupted files, when asked if their system is overclocked, the answer is yes. Overclocking off, corruption off.

Ever since overclocking became popular around Pentium 1 era, I've been experiencing as well as hearing exactly the same kinds of problems as I do now. Corruption of data being number 1. It's most annoying when that corruption is not very apparent and you only find out about it much later. Number 2 is random crashes in various drivers or applications. That's just annoying, but not nearly as much as data corruption.

In short, if you really care about stability and reliability, and you don't use your computer just for unserious stuff like gaming, beware of overclocking like the plague. Search the net and do yourself a favor.

Sam@Megablastic · Post by **Sam@Megablastic** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:00 am

I don't agree, I work at 88khz and push Cubase 4 and Sx 3 to the limit, I don't have any stability problems at all. In fact my pc has been on for 4 days and not a single problem.

I've also converted my dvd library to divx for play on my laptop and no problems at all? If you don't go to silly extremes like overclocking your graphics card, pci/pcie slots and ram then you shouldn't have any problems with the core duo chips.

They clock so well, I'm overclocking my E6300 by 1ghz which is a huge amount, and I run at 80% cpu in Cubase 4. I'm running 4gb of DDR800mhz ram so no overclock there needed and an X1950pro graphics card, my cpu on air cooling never went over 53 deg C on full load.

If you buy a motherboard that can't take overclocking well then you will run into trouble, make sure you buy a setup that can clock easily like the one I posted earlier. I could take this chip to 3.4ghz stable if I wanted, but 2.8ghz is fine for me and very reliable.

Aldo · Post by **Aldo** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:08 am

reflekshun wrote:Would any of you recommend for or against overclocking if stability is a major priority for me? I heard core2 chips are very capable of being very stable, but only from a few people. Can anyone report on how stable it is to use an overclocked core2 cpu in the audio environment?

There is no answer to your question, overclocked chips may or may not work properly. Depends on the the individual chip.

Said that, if you want stability and reliability you should not overclock.

Modeler · Post by **Modeler** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:40 am

Aldo wrote:There is no answer to your question, overclocked chips may or may not work properly. Depends on the the individual chip.

Said that, if you want stability and reliability you should not overclock.

Totally agree with that, pushing a CPU beyond its design specifications will affect stability (even if this is not evident) and shorten its lifespan. In other words you don't get anything for nothing.

I have never understood why anyone would take the "pimp my PC" approach to building a DAW - the 'W' is for 'Workstation' right? i.e. you do work on it; work you don't want to lose to the BSOD. We used to overclock our old 486s to squeeze a few extra FPS out of Doom II, but that was back in the days where it was fun to be taking your PC apart every weekend. If you need more horsepower, buy a faster CPU.

Sam@Megablastic · Post by **Sam@Megablastic** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:45 am

The thing is though, I use my pc hard every day and have yet to have a crash or instability using my 1ghz overclocked E6300. The reason for overclocking this setup is simple, 2 x 1ghz (dualcore) is a huge improvement. I wouldn't be able to run a lot of my mixes at stock speed.

So why don't I buy a faster chip? well at £110 for 1.8ghz compared to £610 for 2.93 ghz. I'm running my 1.83ghz cpu at 2.8ghz so that's a HUGE financial saving.

If the chip only lasts for 2 years instead of 3 years... so what, I would have upgraded it after a year anyhow

Atomikk Squirrel · Post by **Atomikk Squirrel** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:59 am

Overclocking depends on many things 1) is the cpu is it oem or boxed. 2) is the motherboard solid, is it a cheapo bargain board with some overclocking settings. 3) Cooling of the case and cpu be it water, or fans. 4) The speed and ratings of the ram itself. I would also like to point out the term increasing yeild by cpu manufacturers is simply their name for factory overclocks. They take the core and see how far the can puah it. If it dosen't make it as an e6700 extreme it gets bumped down a bit then again untill it is either discarded as a defect or it stays stable. I run an asus p5b delux wifi mb, 2gb of centon ddr 2 533 and an e6600 2.40ghz conroe cooled by an cooler master hc31 heatpipe. The case is an antec 900 with a 200mm blowhole fan. I run the 2.40 ghz at 3.20 stock voltage. No problems no stability issues. I f you overclock hard you can't be cheap a computer is only as good as its crappyest component.

Ubiety · Post by **Ubiety** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:07 pm

Anybody ever heard of overclocked CPU chips frying the PSU?

Aldo · Post by **Aldo** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:12 pm

The point is that *your* chip works well (and may work well for the next 20 years) at that operating frequency, not every E6300 1.83GHz.

Sam@Megablastic wrote:So why don't I buy a faster chip? well at £110 for 1.8ghz compared to £610 for 2.93 ghz. I'm running my 1.83ghz cpu at 2.8ghz so that's a HUGE financial saving.

Ubiety · Post by **Ubiety** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:20 pm

Ubiety wrote:Anybody ever heard of overclocked CPU chips frying the PSU?

Anybody?

Atomikk Squirrel · Post by **Atomikk Squirrel** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:28 pm

only if you psu is under rated or at its limit. if you system requires 400 wats to run normaly you can burn out weak and or damaged psu's. Try overclockers.com for info. Antecs true power runs well and stable. as well as some enermaxes, ultras and cooler masters psu's. my system under nornal load needs 440 watts to 500 watts roughly. The cpu i have is a 650 antec true power to compensate for the overclock. The better the psu the easier it is for it to provide power during an overclock. The psu will also run closer or be able to exceeds its rating for short spikes. You also need verry stable positive and negative rails.

P220ST · Post by **P220ST** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:46 pm

If you run a clean, dedicated DAW OS/Apps drive w/ dual core processing (say 2.4GHz) and 2GB quality RAM, when would overclocking become necessary?

Sam@Megablastic · Post by **Sam@Megablastic** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:57 pm

P220ST wrote:If you run a clean, dedicated DAW OS/Apps drive w/ dual core processing (say 2.4GHz) and 2GB quality RAM, when would overclocking become necessary?

When running out of cpu I would imagine.

The thing is, the E6300 can overclock to stupid amounts without even changing the core voltage, which means it will last as long as it was supposed to. It's well known that these processors overclock extremely well.

Plugins like Nebula can really eat into your cpu especially at higher sample rates. So much so that I will probably buy a quad core as soon as the July price drop happens.

For me a saving of £500 is well worth the overclock.

Overclocking Core2 - stability?