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4Ghz Core 2 Duo vs M.A.M.E. 0.120 (benchmark results)

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Neverending Project:

Well, I am almost there. I got my new cooler installed (thanks to NewEgg for stepping up and paying for the return shipping) and began incrementing the multiplier and voltage. I got 3.8GHz stable (400MHz 9.5X) but couldn't hit the magic 4GHz with a 10X multiplier. First shot it gave me a BSOD at boot. I bumped the voltage a little and got it to boot, but it gave a BSOD after a few minutes. Bumped the voltage a little more and got it to seem stable. Then I ran Prime, but it quit after about 15 minutes. One more bump to the voltage and got Prime to run for over 2 hours with both CPUs between 45-55C (according to CoreTemp). But alas, when I woke up this morning, it had crashed with a BSOD. The CPU voltage under load as reported by CPU-Z was 1.424V.

So my questions: should I bump the voltage a little more and go for the gold at a 400MHz 10X multiplier? Or try to get 500MHz at 8X stable? If it is the latter, I couldn't get it to even boot - so something was funky with either my voltage setting, memory timings, or both. If I try 500MHz, how do I set the memory timing (DDR2 PC6400)?

Neverending Project:

OK, I went ahead and bumped the voltage one more tick, and I am now a member of the 4GHz club.  :)

I tested last night for 10 hours using the Prime Blend test and the temperatures were very reasonable, and the voltage under load was at 1.454. I am going to call that good enough for me!

isucamper:

Tomorrow, this thread will officially be 2 years old.  Am I to believe that getting a core 2 duo and overclocking it to 4Ghz is still the only way to get max performance in MAME?  Has there been no advance in processor technology in the last 2 years for running a nearly single threaded application like MAME?

Neverending Project:


--- Quote from: isucamper on October 27, 2009, 12:20:39 pm ---Tomorrow, this thread will officially be 2 years old.  Am I to believe that getting a core 2 duo and overclocking it to 4Ghz is still the only way to get max performance in MAME?  Has there been no advance in processor technology in the last 2 years for running a nearly single threaded application like MAME?

--- End quote ---

I can't speak for everyone, but I went with the Core 2 Duo because it is cheap. I bought an E7500, which came out at the beginning of the year. The introduction of the "i" line of chips helped drive down the price. For my 4GHz rig I spent under $400 (excluding OS) and was able to overclock it fairly easily. 2 years ago it would have cost twice that, and been significantly more difficult to overclock the same.

These days processors are all headed to more cores, and MAME is still being developed to take better advantage of this. Some might say MAME will never be optimized for many cores, while others think it is just a matter of time.

My guess is that in 2 more years we won't see anything with fewer than 4 cores in it, and MAME development work will be heading in that direction also (more than it is already).

mlalena:

For MAME, the next best thing after the Core 2 Duo is the Core i7. While these are faster, they are MUCH more expensive. The chips are $500, the motherboards start at $250, they use triple channel RAM... Intel is just now coming out with the lower end i5 & i3 chips which will eventually phase out the Core 2 line by the end of 2010.

Since there is so much knowledge about overclocking the Core 2 Duo, I think it is still the way to go today. Note that Intel keeps improving these processors and model numbers have changed over the past 2 years. They are not the same exact chips and they overclock better than they did 2 years ago.

If you were to wait 6 months to a year, you will want to go with one of the i5 processors. Right now, they are too new for me. The chips themselves might not be expensive but motherboard costs are higher. If you want to look at the i5, check out this link: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i5-750-overclock,2438.html

Like the previous poster, I got to 4GHz with an E8500 very easily and spent about $400 for the whole system after rebates. I could probably push to 4.4GHz, but right now I don't have a reason to. I'm only running the CPU .00625V above stock and all the MAME games that I play run fine. What I really need is a good DirectX 10 video card for SF IV for PC. I have a crap video card (MAME doesn't care) and with everything turned off I only get 30 FPS (15 FPS with everything maxed out).

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