# Preserving E2200 with acceptable performance



## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

Well, with the worsening economic situation (mine in particular) I've had to trim back my recent plans to upgrade a bit. Instead of spending $500 on a 750 watt Corsair PSU, an E8500, a new HDD, and some other goodies, I'm going to have to settle for just a 650 watt Corsair (since my current Rocketfish PSU is a piece of junk that I expect to fail within the next few months) and nothing else.

Now, I've been overclocking my Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 2.2GHz to as high as it can take, running it into the ground in expectation of getting a new CPU soon. Since that isn't going to happen I'm going to have to be more careful with my overclock so I don't kill this CPU.

Currently I have it at 3080MHz (FSB: 280MHz, Multi: x11, VCore: 1.525V). This gives me acceptable performance, perhaps 5-10% less than an E8400 taking into account the reduced L2 cache and slight architecture improvements. However at this high of voltage I'm worried about wearing this CPU out faster than I'd like. 

My question is, at a guesstimate, what kind of overclock settings would result in the most performance without it dying in the next 18 months or so? I don't want to go lower than 2.5GHz, because then the performance hit is too much and it bottlenecks my 4870. I know all CPUs are different, but a rough estimate of how much given voltage levels will shorten the processor's lifespan would be helpful.

This CPU ran at stock under light-moderate loads in an old HP Pavilion for two and a half years, and has been running overclocked at close to current settings for around five or six months. Current idle temps are ~25C and load temps are ~40-50C.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

1.52 is alot of juice on the cpu ..............I would be more apt to stay around 1.45


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

Ok, now running at 2750MHz (FSB: 250MHz, VCore: 1.4625V). Not *too* much of a performance decrease from 3.1GHz, though it was a bit slower booting Vista and maybe it takes a fraction of a second longer to load some programs... acceptable though. I'm not an expert on CPUs though, do you think it will still last a long time at that voltage? I know standard is something like 1.34V, and maximum is supposed to be a bit over 1.5V (so I was really pushing it before), but I don't know how steep the danger curve is.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

Hve you tried just dropping the vcore? some cpus will overclock without having to increase the vcore. Mine does but I increased it to allow for power to 1.2 I have had it running at 1.218 but dropped it due to the high temps at the moemnt which are resulting in high ambient temps.

I would recomend going near the top end of the scale of voltage that cpu can take otherwise you may cook it faster than you could fry an egg.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

at voltages of 1.5 and higher I would expect the cpu to give up in about 18 months / 2yrs

at 1.45 volts the cpu should last 3-4 years which is all anyone needs out of any build unless you can take doggy performance beyond the 4 year life span ?


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

No, this is a good level, I think. If what you're saying is correct, I could go up to 1.52 again and not have to worry *too* much about it giving up on me before I can afford a new one, but I want to play it safe, especially since it's already a few years old. I think I'll maybe mess around a little bit more, but this is probably a good level.


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

Actually... Hang on. My mobo's hardware monitor shows my actual VCore about 0.252V lower than what I set it to in the overclock tab. Gah, ****ty Rocketfish PSU. Good thing I'm ordering the new one tomorrow (finally).

Right now I'm running at 3190MHz (FSB: 290, VCore (ACTUAL): 1.43V). If I up the FSB to 300 it won't boot at that voltage. I'm going to try taking it up as high as 1.45 or .46 and see if it boots at that, then run Prime95 to see if it passes.


EDIT: Won't boot at that high a clock. Oh well. I'm at 3190 right now, but my temps are a little high, so I'll back off a bit.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

I would stick with 2.8ghz ......especially on a cpu that at least two years of service now

all motherboads have what is called "v-droop" the voltage in the bios is always different than what windows says ....... thats normal ..........but its what the bios says that you go by; as far as for caring for your cpu


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

Ok, settled on 2860MHz at 1.43V. Idling, my core temps in Speedfan are 25C, I'll check my temps in bios next time I reboot.

I got this CPU... Hm... In early 2006 maybe? So call it three and a half years old. I've only been overclocking for the last six months or so, though. It was in an old HP Pavilion, the first computer I really started upgrading. The CPU and HDD are the only parts to survive to this build.


One final question: I have 4GB (2x2GB) of OCZ Platinum DDR2 1066. Right now it's clocked at 1080MHz (I think, would need to go into BIOS to check) with 5-5-5-15 timings at 2.12V (auto set it to 5-6-6-20. It was advertised stable at 1066MHz 5-5-5-18 @2.10V). My motherboard has about two dozen other settings for RAM timing, though. I know RAM doesn't have a huge impact on performance, but I was wondering if it's considered worthwhile to tweak timings other than the first four?


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

Some corrections: RAM is at 1040MHz, and is rated at 2.2V (which is what I have it at).

BIOS temps at idle are 26-27C, so pretty good.

I've been running Prime95 for a half hour and my peak temp so far was 56C, no errors yet. Whoo! 

Just for fun, after another half hour of Prime95, I'm going to run 250 instances of rthdribl and see how my GPU holds up...


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

Phædrus2401 said:


> Some corrections: RAM is at 1040MHz, and is rated at 2.2V (which is what I have it at).
> 
> BIOS temps at idle are 26-27C, so pretty good.
> 
> ...







sounds like you are where you need to be to achieve system longevity...........i would not mess with the ram timings; the diff in performance from one step lower on the CAS number is not going to be "seen" in your use of the system; if you were talking being able to reduce the CAS by a number of 2 or 3 I would say do it, but not for one


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