Question # 1:
| CPU is boxed and comes bundled with its own fan and heatsink. Will it be
| necessary to buy an aftermarket cooling system or will it be enough the
| stock one for, let's say, a 3GHz OC?
** Probably you will not need after market cooling. The chances that the
stock cooling will be sufficient are good enough to try it first, then
consider better cooling if you overclock is limited by heat (a fairly simple
test to see if CPU temperature is a limiting factor is to try overclocking
with a much lower ambient room temperature {which should be easy if you have
a cold winter]).
Question #2:
| Regarding the memory, those will be Kingston Valueram @1.8v. I've heard
| that in some cases to improve stability is necessary to overclock the
| RAM as well. Will this be a concerning factor or not, since to reach the
| 3GHz seems to be enough to play just on FSB and multiplier (hence not
| necessary to modify the vcore)?
**It is not necessary to overclock memory for stability; instead, if
necessary you can change the CPU clock : memory clock ratio. Early on with
DDR2 memory the ratio was usually set to 2:1 so that DDR2 667 memory could
be used with a 1333 MHz FSB. DDR2 1333 memory could be used with the CPU
clock : memory clock ratio set to 1:1 for a small increase in performance at
a LARGE increase in price. Several confusing terminologies are used to
identify DDR2 memory; PC 6400 = DDR2 800, PC 8500 memory = DDR2 1066
memory, PC 10600 = DDR2 1333 (sometimes PC2 is used instead of PC, sometimes
PC and DDR2 are reversed.)
You will need to use a FSB of 1333 MHz to overclock an E2160 to 3 GHz. With
your chosen DDR2 800 memory you will need to set a CPU clock : memory clock
ratio that avoids clocking the memory beyond its capability (perhaps an FSB
of 1000 MHz.) Increasing the memory voltage and increasing the memory
operation timings can extend the top FSB speed.
There is NO guarantee that you will not need to increase the CPU core
voltage to overclock. None at all... ever. There is NO guarantee that you
can even reach 3 GHz, no matter WHAT you do with voltages, FSB speed,
timings, and cooling. None at all... ever.
Question #3:
| A further question: why does stability usually get improved raising the
| voltage of the RAM? You can also post a link if it's too bothersome
| explaining it here 
**Overclocking is accomplished on Intel CPUs by trading the safe operating
margins built into the CPUs for higher speed. The CPUs are designed to
operate correctly with less than optimum systems (dirty heatsink fins,
failing fans, poor voltage control, high system case temperatures, high
motherboard temperatures, marginal memory, etc.) You can add to the built
in performance margins by reducing temperatures and raising voltages. A
higher voltage helps transistors switch more quickly; this has a direct
effect on the CPU operating speed. The higher voltage also helps with pulse
shapes and timings.
Question #4:
| P.S.: for gaming (not an heavy gamer though) a configuration like this
| in companion with a 8600GT (standard frequencies) shall run well or CPU
| will show up as bottleneck?
**It is likely that a GeForce 8600 GT will be the bottleneck in a 3 GHz
E2160 system. More important, the E2160 is essentially the Celeron of the
Core2 Duo series of CPUs. It has only half the L2 cache as the E4400 and
only one fourth the L2 cache as a E6600. If you compare the total price of
a system based on the E2160 with a system based on the E4400 the extra cost
of the E4400 over the E2160 (~ $45 US), the increase is small (less than
10%).
*****
I suggest you make use of the posts over the last ten months in this
newsgroup. Information for most of your questions has already been
discussed. It is unlikely you will get an EXACT answer from someone who
already has the EXACT same equipment you describe, so there are many prior
post that will be as useful as any information as you can get from your
questions.
For example, my system with an E4300 1.8 GHz 800 MHz FSB CPU runs very
nicely at 2.7 GHz (a 50% overclock) with LOWER than normal CPU voltage. I'd
rather use 2.7 GHz at lower than normal voltage and temperature than
increase the voltage (and perhaps the cooling) to gain a few more MHz.
Phil Weldon
"Fabio Corazza" <fabio DeleteThis @non-existent.int> wrote in message
news:fm0sbg$pp4$1@tdi.cu.mi.it...
| I've heard this is possible - major doubt is: will it affect stability?
|
| Based on the fact that new Penryn 45nm CPUs will start to have
| reasonable pricing around the end of the year (or, though, not before
| this summer) for the meantime I've decided to go for a cheap CPU with
| good OC possibilities.
|
| Components I have intention to buy are the following:
|
| Motherboard Gigabyte P35-DS3 S775 P35 ATX S775, 1333/1066/800 MHz FSB,
| Intel P35 Express Chipset, supports DDR2 1066/800/667/533 memory up to
| 8GB by 4 DIMM slots
|
| Memory DDR2 PC800 2GB NonECC Kit of 22x 1GB CL5 240Pin
| 128Mx64BitKVR800D2N5K2/2G 1.8v
|
| CPU E2160 1.8ghz
|
| CPU is boxed and comes bundled with its own fan and heatsink. Will it be
| necessary to buy an aftermarket cooling system or will it be enough the
| stock one for, let's say, a 3GHz OC?
|
| Regarding the memory, those will be Kingston Valueram @1.8v. I've heard
| that in some cases to improve stability is necessary to overclock the
| RAM as well. Will this be a concerning factor or not, since to reach the
| 3GHz seems to be enough to play just on FSB and multiplier (hence not
| necessary to modify the vcore)?
|
| A further question: why does stability usually get improved raising the
| voltage of the RAM? You can also post a link if it's too bothersome
| explaining it here
|
|
| P.S.: for gaming (not an heavy gamer though) a configuration like this
| in companion with a 8600GT (standard frequencies) shall run well or CPU
| will show up as bottleneck?
|
|
| Thanks everyone for any reply, your help is appreciated 
)
|
|
| Regards,
| Fabio
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