Well, I don't know where to start.

Uhh, It started a couple of weeks ago when I asked bob-sama for processor/motherboard combinations which I could buy within my budget.

I ended up buying an Intel Dual Core E2180 with a Scythe Katana to go on an ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 motherboard. (£120 total with 1gb of Kingston DDR2 667 ram).

So far, (with complete thanks to bob), I've managed to get this out of it. (2ghz standard).

Overclock

Core Temps

I've got more to come from it apparently, so I'll update this when it's clocked further.

All credits to Bob-sama.

Very nice. I might be trying to overclock mine sometime(2.1 Athlon 64 X2 4200+)..
What theme are you using?

Decent, but I'm sure you can push more out of that baby. Make sure not to increase your memory speeds by too much, too. And run a couple of Prime95 tests, to ensure stability.

Alienware skins.

Uhh, I'll just look for the url.....

http://www.alienware.co.uk/standalone_pages/invader.aspx

Wow that is quite an overclock there; what kind of load temps are you getting? I've tried overclocking mine but im getting bad temps even at stock frequencies.(I think the IHS needs lapping)

Check out the voltage and the temperatures. 1.15V and 32 degrees Celsius idle (I want to see load temps too). Can you post a validated CPU-Z dump? Anyways--get some benchmarking runs in before we go further (next we'll try to loosen timings if they're too tight, and start upping the voltage. I don't know if you'll have to do a voltage mod on the board to get anything more to the VCore).

Good job and remember that you have been doing half the work.

Right, currently online clocking it further. I'll post more info (or Bob will) when we get any further.

I might as well post current benchmarks.

What's been done today, so far...

-We dropped back to stock speed
-We successfully flashed to the latest BIOS version (V1.70, dated 12/11/07)
-At stock speed, we got an idle temperature and then did a quick SuperPi benchmark. No load temperature for stock, though we'll pull out a load temperature when we are done overclocking

Idle temperature, core 1 at 28C and core 2 at 29C. VCore at 1.26V
SuperPi Run #1, minor stressing for under a minute. Average of ~56% load and core 1 at 33C and core 2 at 34C. VCore at 1.25V. This particular board has a bit of a VDroop issue--as has already been seen. We'll have to compare VCore to when we are done.
CPU-Z Validation at stock 2GHz

Stand by for more updates--Lew Blu is going back to FSB244 and will get idle temps and a quick SuperPi run through. After that, we'll try to increase overclock on the stock board (I don't want to go to a board mod, and note that this board has no manual adjustments available to VCore--so it ends up being whatever it's automatically set at. That'll be a bit of a limit.

On this rebuild--I'd consider even 400MHz decent. The primary reason for the rebuild was to make sure that we don't overrun the budget... so we had to keep AGP and have an upgrade option for a PCI Express graphics card later. Asrock isn't known for overclocking (it's actually known for not overclocking) and there are no real manual voltage options.

Please stand by for a word from Lew or an update.

Right, here are the results of increasing the FSB to 244.

Idle temp - Core 1 at 27C, Core 2 at 28C. Vcore at 1.26v.
SuperPi run 2 - 29s =$ *Insert jargon here*

CPU-Z Dump @ 2.4ghz

Something more--a 32M run on SuperPi for an estimate on load temperature.

After 15 minutes... part 1
After 27 minutes... part 2
After 36 minutes (finished)... part 3

More overclocking to come--hopefully.

The core is only ~35 degrees max., unless there's a limiter, you could go far beyond 2.4GHz.

I'll give you a quick preview--it's posting with better than a 25% overclock. Look at the memory timings last time... 5-3-3-9 at DDR2 488 speeds--great timings (as it's only supposed to be 4-4-4-12 at DDR2 533 speeds or 5-5-5-15 at DDR2 667 speeds).

Anyways--this is surprisingly good--I was expecting it to stop at 2.4GHz--but it's still going.

And Toungy--the motherboard and RAM are limiters (DDR2 667). I'd personally like to see what this chip can do on a better-overclocking board. Drop it in on my IP35-E and get it some PCI Express graphics (unfortunately won't be happening) and it should make a significant overclock--even on the $20 Katana 2. It's looking nice so far.

Just set the ratio memory:fsb to 1:1 and the FSB to 333 MHz, that'll pump the CPU up to 3.3GHz, without overclocking the memory.

It's already at 1:1 and the FSB won't go that high. wait for Lew Blu to make the latest post with a SuperPi 1M test.

~Increased FSB to 265.

Pi 1m Test ~ 26.6 seconds.
CPU-Z Dump ~ Hoozah.


Right, I ran Orthos to give it a Torture Test, but only ran through 5 minutes before the processor reached critical temps. I stopped the test at that point.

Heres the results:
55 Seconds
5 Minutes

You guys could try the BSEL mod to get it as 1066FSB at stock. It's a fast and easy mod, just connect two pins with circuit writer.

Hmmm. I'll let Bob comment on that.

Oh I re-ran Orthos and got these results.

Torture Test - Error found after 5 minutes 50 seconds. CPU temp peaked at 51C.

We'll continue later--Blu. I'm not going to suggest mods to anyone except for people already skilled with overclocking & electronics. I won't even put a BSEL mod on a processor--I prefered back in the PGA days from Intel where you could simpyl put wire to connect. Now its conductive ink--and that's hit-or-miss at best. I could also recommend voltage mods.

Anyways--Lew Blu--drop FSB to 260 (2.6GHz flat) and try Orthos again. Cancel at >65C

Ok. I did so.

Orthos test results Ran for 11 hours, 16 minutes, no errors. I stopped the test manually to use my PC.

Good! 11 hours should be enough to ensure day-to-day stability. Anyways--post a CPU-Z validation and run a PCMark06 benchmark.