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

[ghettodish]

I got this emailed from Tiger Direct today:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=4492004&sku=B69-0029&SRCCODE=WEM1865CU&cm_mmc=Email-_-Main-_-WEM1865-_-barebone

[taz-nz]

I got this emailed from Tiger Direct today:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=4492004&sku=B69-0029&SRCCODE=WEM1865CU&cm_mmc=Email-_-Main-_-WEM1865-_-barebone

Look like a good deal if you after a media storage box, probably not the most suitable setup for MAME and for the same money you can build budget MAME monster.

I wouldn't trust the no name power supply either (even if it does have a brand). Of the first 5 customer review for it, 3 complain about the sata connector not fitting, 1 talks about how his earlier unit of the same brand failed, and the 5th and only all good review was comparing it to one of those dell 200watt gutless wonders that they put in there pc's.

[Silverwind]

I run my E8500 at 4250 MHz  (8.5 x 500) with 1.38 vcore, I hear they are safe up to 1.45 vcore for everyday use.  At this speed I've tested orthos, prime95, and memtest for over 2 hours each. I can even run at 4500 MHz but it starts to run hot in orthos. I'm using a Zalman 8700 NT heatsink, which is probably holding me back a little.

That auction on ebay, if you dont care about a fancy case or a bleeding edge video card, or a 1TB hard drive, you could probably put that same system together for like $700.

Any games that do not run smooth on  that?  I have an E0 E8500 on the way.

[Bigtymer781]

The most demanding games I've tried would be games like San Francisco Rush and NFL Blitz. When I use MameUI .121 (64-bit) they run real smooth. As far as regular PC games, I'm only limited by my graphics card as of right now.

[savj14]

I'd love to be able to play Blitz and NBA Showtime on my machine. Has anyone test NBA Showtime? I assume it will run just fine though.

I recently upgraded my Motheboard, and I am really considering getting a new CPU and anything else I need so I can play Blitz and NBA Showtime. I am a noob when it comes to Overclocking, so below are my machine specs. I am hoping someone can tell me if this can be done and what I'll need.

My Motherboard: http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=G31M3-F&class=mb
RAM: http://www.directron.com/kvr667d2n5k22g.html
PS: http://www.directron.com/w0070ruc.html

I was looking to get the following CPU: http://www.directron.com/bx80570e8400a.html

I only have the generic heatsink/fan, so I assume I would need something better? What do you suggest I get?

Will I be able to do this with my machine?

[taz-nz]

I'd love to be able to play Blitz and NBA Showtime on my machine. Has anyone test NBA Showtime? I assume it will run just fine though.

I recently upgraded my Motheboard, and I am really considering getting a new CPU and anything else I need so I can play Blitz and NBA Showtime. I am a noob when it comes to Overclocking, so below are my machine specs. I am hoping someone can tell me if this can be done and what I'll need.

My Motherboard: http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=G31M3-F&class=mb
RAM: http://www.directron.com/kvr667d2n5k22g.html
PS: http://www.directron.com/w0070ruc.html

I was looking to get the following CPU: http://www.directron.com/bx80570e8400a.html

I only have the generic heatsink/fan, so I assume I would need something better? What do you suggest I get?

Will I be able to do this with my machine?

Sorry to say the odds are stacked against you on this one, chipsets with intergated graphics are limited in the amount you can overclock them before the onboard graphics start to give you grief, the G31 chipset is not know for it's overclockablity, and due to the entry level nature of the board it's probably going to be harder to get stable.

On top of that your ram is DDR2-667 which mean if you fit a E8400 CPU with a 1333 (333mhz) FSB  the ram will be running and it maximum factory spec before you even start to overclock the CPU, which means you will have to overclock the RAM as well, which increase the difficulty of getting the system stable.

The Power supply should be fine as long as you don't add a half dozen Hard Drives of a Radeon HD4870 to the system.

If you are going to try and overclock on this board I'd suggest you get a Core 2 Duo E7500 , with it's lower 1066 (266Mhz) FSB and high 11x multiply, you will be able to get a high CPU Clock speed without the need to crank the FSB to high (which is likely to cause you issues with the motherboard and RAM you have).

Since you like to shop at Directon, I'd suggest you get the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Heatsink fan, otherwise I'd suggest the Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer.

But the best advice I can give is to save some extra cash and upgrade the motherboard and RAM at the same time as the CPU.

[BASS!]

I just tried showtime out on my rig and it runs damn near perfect. I am on the other hand having emulation issues though, the game does have weird lock up issues where the music just plays and the screen is frozen.

specs of machine

Gigabyte g31m-es2l
Core2 e8400 3.0 ( @ 3.96ghz ) w/ stock fan heatsinks 33c idle 57c peak load.
2gb 1ghz ram
xp x64
wd black 640gb hdd
Radeon x850 xt ( running soft 15khz)

On a side note a new heatsink would be nice but I am officially out of money. I will have to come back to this part in a bit. I don't really ever max this out right now unless I am running prime95.

[savj14]

@Taz, first off thanks for the nice reply, very very helpful.

I do have an older Radeon Video card......it's a ATI Radeon X300 SE, it's decent for running MAME games right now. As I have used Powerstrip to add some custom resolutions for my Arcade monitor.

Do I need to upgrade my Video Card? I was thinking about getting an Arcade VGA, not sure if that is good enough.

I just bought the Motherboard/Ram not too long ago, but I suppose I could upgrade them. Is there any way I could just upgrade the RAM and be able to pull this off? If so what RAM do you suggest?

If not what Motherboard and RAM should I purchase from Directron?

I'll post what Video card I havel, to see if that needs to be upgraded as well.

Thanks again for the help

[massive88]

Mame doesnt use any 3d acceleration, so even base level cards will work fine.

The deal with the onboard video is that it creates problems when overclocking, not that it is insufficient for Mame.

A dedicated card you can keep at the AGP bus speed (separate from the FSB) and thus you take it out as a mode of failure for overclocking.

That said I recently snagged a 9800 GTX+ so that I can run PS2 games on my arcade machine  =D

[savj14]

@uprightbass360

How far into the game were you able to get before it locked up? Did it lock up every time you played(in the same spot)?

Sounds like it might be an issue with the ROM itself........Has anyone else tried playing NBA Showtime?

[u_rebelscum]

Mame doesnt use any 3d acceleration, so even base level cards will work fine.

Wrong, and has been wrong since 0.107.  Mame does use 3d acceleration, just not for game emulation.  Scaling res, scaling color depth, rotating screen image, overlay & artwork, scanlines, and other video stuff are all done in the 3d card now.

The deal with the onboard video is that it creates problems when overclocking, not that it is insufficient for Mame.

Yup, that's the deal.

[Goatz18]

How would say a quad core 1.8 Mhz pc do for playing games in Mame64 on either XP x64 or Vista x64? Overclocked of course to whatever she can handle. Just speculating out loud for future cab pc prospects.

[massive88]

Wrong, and has been wrong since 0.107.  Mame does use 3d acceleration, just not for game emulation.  Scaling res, scaling color depth, rotating screen image, overlay & artwork, scanlines, and other video stuff are all done in the 3d card now.

Well ok, but any direct3d/ddraw card should be able to to handle those, you dont need a beefy GPU for that, that was my point.

Its not like Dreamcast, N64, PSX or PS2 emulation, where your GPU is likely to be a bottleneck.

[BASS!]

@uprightbass360

How far into the game were you able to get before it locked up? Did it lock up every time you played(in the same spot)?

Sounds like it might be an issue with the ROM itself........Has anyone else tried playing NBA Showtime?

I don't doubt that it could be a rom issue ( I did get the chd from a torrent site so that could be so ) The issue is usually when you go to start a game, after you pick your characters. It doesn't happen every time, but when it does you have to re set the rom.

[u_rebelscum]

Wrong, and has been wrong since 0.107.  Mame does use 3d acceleration, just not for game emulation.  Scaling res, scaling color depth, rotating screen image, overlay & artwork, scanlines, and other video stuff are all done in the 3d card now.

Well ok, but any direct3d/ddraw card should be able to to handle those, you dont need a beefy GPU for that, that was my point.

You don't need a beefy GPU; I didn't mean to imply that. 

But intel's current onboard video chip does slow down mame under most modern setups (LCD widescreen 19" or bigger, with mame's default settings).  AFAIK, as of xmas, only one onboard chip was strong enough to not be a slow down (until the res got 1080p class or bigger, that is, where no onboard was strong enough, but that's the same with some cards).

So it's not "any" direct3d chip, not even "any" directX 9.0 chip, anymore.  Sure, almost any card, and (unless it's changed) only one onboard chip, at most resolutions, won't make a difference.  I know, lots of qualifiers, but that's the point.

Its not like Dreamcast, N64, PSX or PS2 emulation, where your GPU is likely to be a bottleneck.

True 'dat.

[savj14]

Would any of these bundles be good for overclocking and making a nice MAME macine?

http://www.directron.com/spring-motherboard-combo-6.html

http://www.directron.com/holidaycombo2.html

http://www.directron.com/holidaycombo8.html

[Silverwind]

Upgrade arrived!
Core voltage is 1.280v.


http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=530032

[Iron Maiden]

Hey peoples. I got myself a couple of goodies for my new MAME rig..

Core 2 Duo E8400
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R rev2.1
Gskill 2 Gig 800Mhz (might get 2 gig of 1066Mhz cuz I stole this from my main PC)
8500GT PCIe

My question is 1: will the 8500GT be ok? It should be right? I'll overclock the CPU to 4GHz so...? And 2: is 800Mhz ram ok cuz I'll just try and keep it at stock speed so as not to disrupt the overclock.  My aim is to play all the MAME games that work at the moment..
Cheers
Steve

PS Great thread BTW 

[taz-nz]

Would any of these bundles be good for overclocking and making a nice MAME macine?

Not really, almost any system can be overclocked to some degree, but to get a good overclock you need to get the basics right, that means a good motherboard, CPU, RAM and heatsink.

If your shopping a Directron I suggest the following:

Intel Core 2 Duo E7400
Cooler Master Hyper 212
Gigabyte GA-P45-DS3L motherboard
Corsair DDR2-800 2x1gb kit.

Total $297 less $13 mail in rebate on the ram brings you to $284, not as cheap as any of the combos but a better base for overclocking. You can use the old X300 you talked about in your earlier post for graphics, it should do the trick for MAME, but probably isn't Vista ready.

Upgrade arrived!
Core voltage is 1.280v.

Very nice Volts, and great overclock too, probably has a more to give with a little more voltage. 
I've really got to replace my old engineering sample C0 stepping E8500, it's likes the volts a little to much and I'd really want to be at 4.5ghz+ stable at sane voltage on a day to day basis.

Hey peoples. I got myself a couple of goodies for my new MAME rig..

Core 2 Duo E8400
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R rev2.1
Gskill 2 Gig 800Mhz (might get 2 gig of 1066Mhz cuz I stole this from my main PC)
8500GT PCIe

My question is 1: will the 8500GT be ok? It should be right? I'll overclock the CPU to 4GHz so...? And 2: is 800Mhz ram ok cuz I'll just try and keep it at stock speed so as not to disrupt the overclock.  My aim is to play all the MAME games that work at the moment..

1) The 8500GT will run MAME no issues.

2) The DDR3-800 ram will be an issue unless you want to overclock it too, to get your E8400 with it's 9x multiplier to 4ghz you'll need to run a FSB of 445Mhz, which mean your RAM will end up running at 890mhz or DDR2-890, so I'd suggest the getting the DDR2-1066 ram, that way you don't have to run your ram out of spec to get to 4ghz and it also mean you can look at running a 500Mhz FSB with the CPU multiplier at 8x to gain a some more FSB preformance.

What heatsink are you planning on running ?

[Iron Maiden]

Hey peoples. I got myself a couple of goodies for my new MAME rig..

Core 2 Duo E8400
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R rev2.1
Gskill 2 Gig 800Mhz (might get 2 gig of 1066Mhz cuz I stole this from my main PC)
8500GT PCIe

My question is 1: will the 8500GT be ok? It should be right? I'll overclock the CPU to 4GHz so...? And 2: is 800Mhz ram ok cuz I'll just try and keep it at stock speed so as not to disrupt the overclock.  My aim is to play all the MAME games that work at the moment..

1) The 8500GT will run MAME no issues.

2) The DDR3-800 ram will be an issue unless you want to overclock it too, to get your E8400 with it's 9x multiplier to 4ghz you'll need to run a FSB of 445Mhz, which mean your RAM will end up running at 890mhz or DDR2-890, so I'd suggest the getting the DDR2-1066 ram, that way you don't have to run your ram out of spec to get to 4ghz and it also mean you can look at running a 500Mhz FSB with the CPU multiplier at 8x to gain a some more FSB preformance.

What heatsink are you planning on running ?


[/quote]
Thanks very much for your help.. Yes, I was unsure about the overclocking of the RAM as this Asus MB that I have as my main PC ( Asus P5N32-e SLI) allows me to run the RAM and the CPU at independent speeds. I've got my Q6600 Quad running at 4Ghz and I can run the Gskill 800 at 800Mhz... So this Gigabyte board is different in that respect? I have tried this Gskill ram right up to 910 but it does have the occasional lockup with it that high.. 890 is still a little high so I  just leave it at 800 and have the timings at 4,4,3,5... Anywho....I'll look at some 1066Mhz stuff then.. Any brand will do seeing as I wont be overclocking it yeah? I was thinking of running a Cooler Master Geminii S Universal CPU Cooler. What do you think? At the moment I have the stock intel cooler from my Quad core bolted on.. Its a little bigger than a stock intel Dual Core cooler and has a bigger copper footprint, but as yet I havn't fired anything up cuz I'm waiting on the 8500GT...
Again, cheers for the help.  I've been pointing many newbies to this thread... I think it should be put up on a pedestal.

[taz-nz]

Thanks very much for your help.. Yes, I was unsure about the overclocking of the RAM as this Asus MB that I have as my main PC ( Asus P5N32-e SLI) allows me to run the RAM and the CPU at independent speeds. I've got my Q6600 Quad running at 4Ghz and I can run the Gskill 800 at 800Mhz... So this Gigabyte board is different in that respect? I have tried this Gskill ram right up to 910 but it does have the occasional lockup with it that high.. 890 is still a little high so I  just leave it at 800 and have the timings at 4,4,3,5... Anywho....I'll look at some 1066Mhz stuff then.. Any brand will do seeing as I wont be overclocking it yeah? I was thinking of running a Cooler Master Geminii S Universal CPU Cooler. What do you think? At the moment I have the stock intel cooler from my Quad core bolted on.. Its a little bigger than a stock intel Dual Core cooler and has a bigger copper footprint, but as yet I havn't fired anything up cuz I'm waiting on the 8500GT...
Again, cheers for the help.  I've been pointing many newbies to this thread... I think it should be put up on a pedestal.

The Intel 3 & 4 series chipsets have a minium FSB to RAM frequency RATIO of 1:1, so you can't run your RAM at a slower rate than you FSB. You may well find you can get more out of your memory on the Intel chipset, the Nvidia 680i SLI chipset has the single worst memory controller in the history of computing in my books, any motherboard with that chipset should have come bundled with memory that had been individually tested for compatibly with that board.

Any brand of DDR2-1066 will do, but I suggest sticking to a good brand name or memory modules on compatible list for the motherboard.

The Cooler Master Geminii series coolers are great for making quiet systems, but aren't that great for overclocking, a CPU will run about 5+ Deg C hotter with a Geminii S cooling it, than the same CPU cooled with a Sunbeam Core Contact  Freezer for example.

Yeah, the old Pentium-D style copper cored coolers that came with the early Core 2 Duo's are much better, than the shortened all aluminum heasinks you get with the later Core 2 Duos, but I wouldn't recommend using one to cool a heavily overclocked CPU.

No Problem. Yeah this thread has taken on a like of it own, I remember posting it and thinking I'd be lucky if it got a couple of hundred views and a dozen replies at best before it dropped off the first page and was forgotten, but now some 36000+ views and 380 odd posts later it still going strong.

[Iron Maiden]

Thanks very much for your help.. Yes, I was unsure about the overclocking of the RAM as this Asus MB that I have as my main PC ( Asus P5N32-e SLI) allows me to run the RAM and the CPU at independent speeds. I've got my Q6600 Quad running at 4Ghz and I can run the Gskill 800 at 800Mhz... So this Gigabyte board is different in that respect? I have tried this Gskill ram right up to 910 but it does have the occasional lockup with it that high.. 890 is still a little high so I  just leave it at 800 and have the timings at 4,4,3,5... Anywho....I'll look at some 1066Mhz stuff then.. Any brand will do seeing as I wont be overclocking it yeah? I was thinking of running a Cooler Master Geminii S Universal CPU Cooler. What do you think? At the moment I have the stock intel cooler from my Quad core bolted on.. Its a little bigger than a stock intel Dual Core cooler and has a bigger copper footprint, but as yet I havn't fired anything up cuz I'm waiting on the 8500GT...
Again, cheers for the help.  I've been pointing many newbies to this thread... I think it should be put up on a pedestal.

The Intel 3 & 4 series chipsets have a minium FSB to RAM frequency RATIO of 1:1, so you can't run your RAM at a slower rate than you FSB. You may well find you can get more out of your memory on the Intel chipset, the Nvidia 680i SLI chipset has the single worst memory controller in the history of computing in my books, any motherboard with that chipset should have come bundled with memory that had been individually tested for compatibly with that board.

Any brand of DDR2-1066 will do, but I suggest sticking to a good brand name or memory modules on compatible list for the motherboard.

The Cooler Master Geminii series coolers are great for making quiet systems, but aren't that great for overclocking, a CPU will run about 5+ Deg C hotter with a Geminii S cooling it, than the same CPU cooled with a Sunbeam Core Contact  Freezer for example.

Yeah, the old Pentium-D style copper cored coolers that came with the early Core 2 Duo's are much better, than the shortened all aluminum heasinks you get with the later Core 2 Duos, but I wouldn't recommend using one to cool a heavily overclocked CPU.

No Problem. Yeah this thread has taken on a like of it own, I remember posting it and thinking I'd be lucky if it got a couple of hundred views and a dozen replies at best before it dropped off the first page and was forgotten, but now some 36000+ views and 380 odd posts later it still going strong.

Mate, I have to say..Thank you for all your help with my questions and with this whole  entire thread. As I've said before I don't think there is a place on the net with this much information dealing with the system specs required for a good MAME rig. You showed me the ingredients that I needed to make my MAME machine a winner and to put a huge smile on mine and my 7 year old sons face.
  My 8500GT came in the mail yesterday.. It was the last peice of the puzzle that I needed before I could fire this thing up.. I ripped the box open and shoved the card into the PCIe slot, as it was all ready and waiting for the card to come.
  I fired it up and bang, it came to life... I went straight to the Bios to check on everything and found that the board had been running at 2.8Ghz before me...So I know its had a nice easy life. Everything had been found, and was running as spec.. After setting it to 3Ghz I rebooted..
  I then installed Windows Vista 64.. The OS of choice ( until windows 7 is good to go. The benchmarks I've seen from windows 7 shows a 50 to 70% increase in speed over Vista and a 150% over XP with rock solid stability.. And thats just a beta..Anyway).. after the install was complete, I did a basic setup of windows to set it up the way I like it, then installed the video, chipset and audio drivers. Then opened up Everest to see what I had under the bonnet....VERY NICE, VERY NICE INDEED...
  Then, onto MAME... I run MAMEUIFX64 as my MAME of choice. Now at this point I have to say that my e8400 is not overclocked.. it's still running at the stock 3Ghz..The next fastest machine that I've played MAME games up until now is on may main PC which is a q6600 quad running at 2.4Ghz (but sometimes overclocked to 4Ghz with watercooling)..I can say right away that this dual core running at 3Ghz with its 6meg of L2 cache is faster than my q6600 running at 3Ghz.. I put this down to the lack of L2 cache.. 2meg..
  I started out playing MAME games over 10 years ago with a celeron 300Mhz overcloed to 450MHZ (arr the good ol days). a Riva TNT2 Ultra card, and 512meg of sdram. Games were choppy, and chads didn't exist...For the fact that the consumer didn't have access to technology to run chds yet...
  Iv'e spent alot of money over the years, upgrading and upgrading.. Hoping that "that next upgrade" will see me playing all the games available to us. 1.3Ghz Durons, 1.8Ghz Seprons, 3 Ghz P4s etc etc etc... UNTIL NOW
  On this day, I can say that I can play the larrgest amount of MAME games than I ever been able to play before.. and I know with overclocking I have even more overhead to play with.
Mate, you are a legend.. If I see you in the street.. I'll buy you a beer. These are good times indeed.
My Machine:
CPU: Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R Motherboard rev2.1 LGA 775
RAM: 2G Gskill DDR2 800Mhz (but may upgrade to some 1066Mhz peices as these may not suit an overclock)
Video card: nVidia 8500GT PCIe
Power Supply: Codegen 550w
CPU heatsink: Stock Intel Quad core. (they are larger than the stock intel dual core items..)But this will change with overclocking as this heatsink my not be good enough.

[Iron Maiden]

Welp, with a quick attempt at an overclock 4GHz seems to be out of the reach of the RAM as the only option is to run 800Mhz at 890Mhz and I kept getting blue screens on load up of windows.. The PC boots, but won't load windows.... Backing the FSB off a little 3.7Ghz is running quite easily.. 3.7Ghz over the stock 3Ghz makes a world of difference to games like Sanfran Rush and Guantlet.

[Bigtymer781]

What multiplier are you using?

[Iron Maiden]

2x for the ram and 9x for the cpu. 2 x 445Mhz gives you 890 for the ram and 9 x 445 gives you the 4Ghz for the CPU. 2x is the lowest setting I can choose for ram so i think I'll need 1066Mhz ram to do the job right.. 890 for 800Mhz ram is to unstable..

[Iron Maiden]

@Taz-nz. Whats your opinion of these two CPU coolers. I'm still in the market for one.

Cooler Master Eclipse
http://www.virtual-hideout.net/reviews/Coolermaster_Eclipse/index.shtml

and

ThermalRight Ultra 120 eXtreme
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2244

[Silverwind]

@Taz-nz. Whats your opinion of these two CPU coolers. I'm still in the market for one.

Cooler Master Eclipse
http://www.virtual-hideout.net/reviews/Coolermaster_Eclipse/index.shtml

and

ThermalRight Ultra 120 eXtreme
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2244

I hear a lot of good things about thermalright 120's.  Very popular HSF.

[Silverwind]

Very nice Volts, and great overclock too, probably has a more to give with a little more voltage. 
I've really got to replace my old engineering sample C0 stepping E8500, it's likes the volts a little to much and I'd really want to be at 4.5ghz+ stable at sane voltage on a day to day basis.

Forgot to list my parts.

Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R mATX motherboard
E0 E8500
Swiftech MCX159-CU Northbridge HSF
Alpha PRE9060T CPU HSF  (It is one heavy sucker) http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1398/cpu-alp-05/Alpha_PRE9060T_-_Socket_775.html
2 x 2GB Mushkin ascent ram
corsair HX620

I am using an old school case.. Inwin Q500 full tower, bought originally for a celeron 300A.

[taz-nz]

@Taz-nz. Whats your opinion of these two CPU coolers. I'm still in the market for one.

Cooler Master Eclipse
http://www.virtual-hideout.net/reviews/Coolermaster_Eclipse/index.shtml

and

ThermalRight Ultra 120 eXtreme
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2244

I've running a Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme myself, so you can guess which one I recommend, but I suggest getting the newer Thermalright True Black version, if for no other reason than that it comes with two sets of fan mounts, so you can run a dual fan push pull setup, saves running a single noisy High RPM fan.

Forgot to list my parts.

Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R mATX motherboard
E0 E8500
Swiftech MCX159-CU Northbridge HSF
Alpha PRE9060T CPU HSF  (It is one heavy sucker) http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1398/cpu-alp-05/Alpha_PRE9060T_-_Socket_775.html
2 x 2GB Mushkin ascent ram
corsair HX620

If your still running the intergrated graphics your doing well, from all accounts I've seen the intergrated graphics normally cries blood murder somewhere in the mid four hundred FSB range, and going my your clock speed your running a 450mhz FSB, so your probably almost at the point where you'll need a standalone graphics card to go any faster. Still a great overclock and really nice volts.

Hows your heatsink hold up under a burnin test like orthos ?, while MAME isn't as good at heating up your CPU as Orthos and alike, there are a number of ROM that will happily pin both cores to a 100%, so you need good cooling to make sure the system is stable in MAME and not just on the desktop. Your low volts are possibly your saving grace on this one, but I'd be interested to know what temps you are getting.

I am using an old school case.. Inwin Q500 full tower, bought originally for a celeron 300A.

Celeron 300A now that's old school overclocking, my mates still runs his old 300A overclocked to 450Mhz as a internet gateway and print server, The system is on it's second or third power supply and about it's forth hard drive but the CPU it just keeps going and going.

[Silverwind]

If your still running the intergrated graphics your doing well, from all accounts I've seen the intergrated graphics normally cries blood murder somewhere in the mid four hundred FSB range, and going my your clock speed your running a 450mhz FSB, so your probably almost at the point where you'll need a standalone graphics card to go any faster. Still a great overclock and really nice volts.

Hows your heatsink hold up under a burnin test like orthos ?, while MAME isn't as good at heating up your CPU as Orthos and alike, there are a number of ROM that will happily pin both cores to a 100%, so you need good cooling to make sure the system is stable in MAME and not just on the desktop. Your low volts are possibly your saving grace on this one, but I'd be interested to know what temps you are getting.

For graphics I currently have an ATI 1800xt 512mb.

IDLE is normally around 27C depending on ambient temp.  After a couple hours of Team Fortress 2 it is about 43C.  Orthos gets it up to about 50C, higher if it is hot in the room.

[Iron Maiden]

Welp, with a quick attempt at an overclock 4GHz seems to be out of the reach of the RAM as the only option is to run 800Mhz at 890Mhz and I kept getting blue screens on load up of windows.. The PC boots, but won't load windows.... Backing the FSB off a little 3.7Ghz is running quite easily.. 3.7Ghz over the stock 3Ghz makes a world of difference to games like Sanfran Rush and Guantlet.

Soooo I ended up buying some Team Xtreem DDR2 PC-8500 1066 5-5-5-15 2x1Gb RAM and the 1066Mhz speed did the trick.. Even on the stock quad core intel cooler I acheived 4Ghz first pop. It seems that because of the limits of the multplier for the RAM with this Motherboard, running 800Mhz at the lowest speed of 890Mhz (with 2x multiplied FSB ) was just to much for the ram... But the CPU runs fine at 4Ghz and probably will go higher... Now.. Just for a cooler... What do you think of this one  IceAge 90 CPU Cooler ?

[taz-nz]

Soooo I ended up buying some Team Xtreem DDR2 PC-8500 1066 5-5-5-15 2x1Gb RAM and the 1066Mhz speed did the trick.. Even on the stock quad core intel cooler I acheived 4Ghz first pop. It seems that because of the limits of the multplier for the RAM with this Motherboard, running 800Mhz at the lowest speed of 890Mhz (with 2x multiplied FSB ) was just to much for the ram... But the CPU runs fine at 4Ghz and probably will go higher... Now.. Just for a cooler... What do you think of this one  IceAge 90 CPU Cooler ?

Nice RAM, I find overclocking RAM is far more hit and miss than overclocking CPUs, I've seen cheap DDR2-800 hit DDR2-1200 with only a little extra voltage, but I've also seen expensive DDR2-1066 kits that called it quits at DDR2-1100, it's why I prefer to avoid overclocking memory if I can, and with current memory prices there is little reason not to buy the fast stuff and keep life simple.

Welcome to the 4ghz club, just watch your temps until you replace the stock heatsink, hate to see you cook your CPU.

As for what I think of the Iceage 90 cooler, if have a space restriction that limits you to a 92mm FAN heatsink then it's probably ok, otherwise I'd say it's so so, the larger Iceage 120 result are 3 deg hotter than a Sunbeam Core contact freezer, so if you scale the cooling preformance down to the 92mm fan and heatsink and allow foronly 3 heatpipes vs the larger versions 4, your going to see a noticable drop in cooling preformance compared to a larger solution like the core contact freezer. It will still be better than the stock item your using now, but I prefer to keep CPU tempatures as low as possible when overclocking, it gives you a larger safety margin for loss of heatsink preformance due to dust, hot days, etc.

[Iron Maiden]

Nice RAM, I find overclocking RAM is far more hit and miss than overclocking CPUs, I've seen cheap DDR2-800 hit DDR2-1200 with only a little extra voltage, but I've also seen expensive DDR2-1066 kits that called it quits at DDR2-1100, it's why I prefer to avoid overclocking memory if I can, and with current memory prices there is little reason not to buy the fast stuff and keep life simple.

Yes, thats my thoughts exactly. And if you look at overclocked RAM the performance vs stability is not worth the hastle..

Welcome to the 4ghz club, just watch your temps until you replace the stock heatsink, hate to see you cook your CPU.

Cheers mate. It's good to be up here  .I'd hate to see me cook it also... I've read that 65 would be the max limit yeah? Would that be for each core reading, or the overal CPU (in everest )

As for what I think of the Iceage 90 cooler, if have a space restriction that limits you to a 92mm FAN heatsink then it's probably ok, otherwise I'd say it's so so, the larger Iceage 120 result are 3 deg hotter than a Sunbeam Core contact freezer, so if you scale the cooling preformance down to the 92mm fan and heatsink and allow foronly 3 heatpipes vs the larger versions 4, your going to see a noticable drop in cooling preformance compared to a larger solution like the core contact freezer. It will still be better than the stock item your using now, but I prefer to keep CPU tempatures as low as possible when overclocking, it gives you a larger safety margin for loss of heatsink preformance due to dust, hot days, etc.

Well lucky I didn't win the auction on ebay then. On reading your reply, Ive decided to pull my Thermaltake Bigwater 735 cooling system out of my main PC (Q6600) and do swapsies. I haven't overclocked this old girl for a month or more so this 3 radiator system (ya need multi radiators with these quads.. especially at 1.7v) needs to be put to good use. The intel fan thats on the e8400 is the stock one from this q6600 so it gets to go back to its daddy.

I should see some pretty high numbers in doing it this way I think. Especially now with the 1066Mhz RAM.

[Todd H]

Which would be better...Vista 64 or XP 64? I have Vista 64 already installed but I can get a copy of XP 64 for free (one of the perks of being a MCT). I have yet to install MAME and the other game software as I haven't yet mounted my monitor. Would there be a speed difference between the two?

[BASS!]

The biggest difference is the windows shell. Speed is pretty much the same, but you can completely hide the xp shell and replace it with the frontend of your choice. You can't really do that with vista.
I'd use either this post: http://forums.maximusarcade.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=506 or mala instant sheller.

[massive88]

Which would be better...Vista 64 or XP 64? I have Vista 64 already installed but I can get a copy of XP 64 for free (one of the perks of being a MCT). I have yet to install MAME and the other game software as I haven't yet mounted my monitor. Would there be a speed difference between the two?

Personally I noticed no speed difference in Mame between XP64 and Vista64 in my benchmarking.  If you already have one and are happy with it, I would just stay with it.

[Iron Maiden]

Which would be better...Vista 64 or XP 64? I have Vista 64 already installed but I can get a copy of XP 64 for free (one of the perks of being a MCT). I have yet to install MAME and the other game software as I haven't yet mounted my monitor. Would there be a speed difference between the two?

About the biggest thing you'll find is the lack of driver support for XP 64. I went from XP 32 to XP 64 (for one day) then on to Vista 64.. It's the drivers that let you down with XP. No drivers for my SOund Blaster Live sound card was the biggy, but then there were others...

XP is a smaller OS and will take less space on your HD. It loads faster, and uses less ram to operate. If you have 2 gig of RAM vista will put some of itself into your ram, and the other part into the swap file.. If you have 4 gig, vista will load all of itself into ram (for you as a courtesy from Microsoft) and use 1.6gig straight up. Speed wise in MAME, pretty much the same... I just put my MAME emulator .exe in the start folder and when I turn on the cab at the wall the PC turns on and auto loads into MAMEUIFX64 and there is my list of games. Sure I can see it's windows but it's only for 10 seconds or so..

They each have their pros and cons. If it's free for you, I'd try XP and see if you have any issues... Then hold out for Windows 7. If your stuck, try Vista. .

[Ortizimo]

Ok, as I see, there are no AVGA 64bit drivers so what can I do if I'm running xp64? Can I run XP32 and just run MAME64? Please clarify...if ne1 has the xp64 AVGA drivers please contact me...thnx!

[BASS!]

Man, I have been trying for ever to get win 7. I really wanna see what my 4ghz monster can do with it. I really don't wanna go for an old torrent. I do have a serial for the x64 ultimate thought that microsoft sent me, but they just do not host the files any longer.

[taz-nz]

Ok, as I see, there are no AVGA 64bit drivers so what can I do if I'm running xp64? Can I run XP32 and just run MAME64? Please clarify...if ne1 has the xp64 AVGA drivers please contact me...thnx!

The Arcade VGA is basically a ATI radeon 7000 or 9200 graphics card with a custom BIOS, and tweaked drivers. ATI only supplies 64bit drivers for the Radeon 9500 and newer graphics chips, so your probably out of luck.
 
No you can't run MAME64 on 32bit XP , 64bit apps can only be run on a 64bit OS.

Try contacting Andy at Ultimarc andy@ultimarc.com just incase he has some 64bit drivers tucked away. 

There are Vista 64bit Drivers for the Arcade VGA2 which you can download here: www.ultimarc.com/avga2_vista.zip

If you can't get 64bit drivers you have three options:
- Stick to 32bit windows and MAME32. (not really a solution, more like putting ones head in the sand)
- Sell your old Arcade VGA to someone here that's happy to stick to the older MAME versions and replace it with a newer Arcade VGA2 (and run Vista 64bit if needed)
- Buy a cheap entry level ATI graphics card that is atleast a radeon 9500 or newer which has 64bit driver support, and run Soft-15Khz to get the required screen resolutions & refresh rates for your arcade monitor.