Quick question: E8400 @ 4ghz

[MaxAwesome]

I've found this is the most stable OC i can get with my current RAM, and I have speedstep enabled in the BIOS.

When OCing, is it recommended to keep it on or off? any advantages or disadvantages to this? Does it affect stability?

When idling, the CPu does clock down, but the voltage stays the same, I guess I might as well turn speedstep off?

 

[kyle2020]

Speedstep has always been something I have turned off, and always been advised to turn off. It serves no practical use really, and I dont like the thought of my quad fluctuating in frquency so much.

Just whack it off my man

 

[sneekypeet]

speed step is usually cntrolled by two functions in bios both EIST and C1E are for the multiplyer and the voltage drop if any.

Up tp this point I usually leave it all on, but with my latest E8600 I did have stability issues under testing for stability. I have since also updated the bios, andI have not went back to enable it and test correctly yet.

I suggest you leave them off, and verify the CPU is stable. If all is good enable speed step and see if she still plays nice.

 

[Lozan]

Yeah, I've always disabled Speedstep in both my system and my fathers. It's no use having it enabled.

 

[Kursah]

I've gone both routes, personally I leave the power saving stuff (speedstep/eist/c1e) enabled, I don't have any issues and haven't with quads or dual cores. But it does help to leave them off while finding your overclock, ensuring stability then turning them back on, though I haven't done that route in a very long time and I have had pretty good luck overall. I know it probably doesn't save too much and my PC really isn't ever idle between gaming and folding/crunching 24/7 lol! It's rare that my CPU or GPU idle long enough to drop speeds.

 

[h3llb3nd4]

Speed step doesn't help OCing
it hampers performance, CPU and HDD

 

[sneekypeet]

Speed step doesn't help OCing
it hampers performance, CPU and HDD

What? Please elaborate, Im interested in this one.

 

[h3llb3nd4]

sorry
It slows The read and write speeds of the hard drive SSDs

 

[sneekypeet]

durring idle maybe, but my drives test on spot with or without speed step active.

Also since I see you dont own a SSD, is there a link to this information, as Im really having trouble understanding how dropping a CPU multi affect and drives performance.

 

[phanbuey]

sorry
It slows The read and write speeds of the hard drive SSDs

That's not speedstep that does that... its the chipset power features that do that. But i know what you mean.

I turn off EIST and C1E because they mess with my vdroop on my MB too much. So for me it does affect stability significantly.

 

[h3llb3nd4]

doesn't speedstep turn off unused cores?

 

[sneekypeet]

doesn't speedstep turn off unused cores?

Nope!, just lowers the multi and possible the voltage, and not by much on the voltage.

 

[phanbuey]

doesn't speedstep turn off unused cores?

it downclocks the entire cpu. I think only nehalem can downclock individual cores... what messes with the SSD's is the chipset going into low power mode. Some high end mobos with "special power features" have this, and yes... it will SSD performance pretty bad.

 

[h3llb3nd4]

Ahh that means that I got it mixed up with another powersaving feature

 

[phanbuey]

Ahh that means that I got it mixed up with another powersaving feature

@OP when I turned speedstep off, some of my benches improved by a bit. No power management is always faster than having it.

 

[unclewebb]

If your motherboard does not lower your core voltage when EIST / C1E are enabled then there is no reason to leave these enabled. A Kill-A-Watt meter shows a power savings of between 0 and 1 watt. You'll save more energy by taking beers out of your fridge two at a time instead of just one at a time.

 

[sneekypeet]

If your motherboard does not lower your core voltage when EIST / C1E are enabled then there is no reason to leave these enabled. A Kill-A-Watt meter shows a power savings of between 0 and 1 watt. You'll save more energy by taking beers out of your fridge two at a time instead of just one at a time.

is even the difference of a tenth (0.10V) of a volt worth the savings, what would that equate to?

 

[phanbuey]

is even the difference of a tenth (0.10V) of a volt worth the savings, what would that equate to?

like taking out 4 beers at a time instead of two.

 

[sneekypeet]

like taking out 4 beers at a time instead of two.

Hahaha, thanks. Ohio winters here I must save a ton. I just set the 6 pack on the window sill as I overclock with all my windows open. I was more wondering the savings in say monthly usage, if it was only loaded say 6 hours a day of gaming and benching. If its only $5 then what are you out, but 1 6pack for an OC session really per month. If its like $20 a month, now thats a sober OC session every week, cant have that

Not that I drink heavily, just keeping with the beer theme.

I myself find myself in Word and Excel a lot of my time sitting here, and maybe a bit of Photoshop or PaintShop Pro. So having 4.5GHz with a 9X multi is sort of wasted. Leaving SS on gives me a desktop idle clock of 3GHz with a 6X. Just seems more fitting to my style of use. In the end, if it is stable, it is personal preference.

 

[h3llb3nd4]

so beer is the new water for you?

 

[phanbuey]

im trying to find this review that i saw which has the difference between leaving Speedstep on and off over the long run...

 

[unclewebb]

Most motherboards, as soon as you start overclocking, will not lower your core voltage when Speedstep kicks in. Mobo manufacturers are scared to death of getting a bad reputation that their board might be unstable so they lock the core voltage when overclocking. Intel Core CPUs are pretty efficient at idle so the power savings from just lowering the MHz is pretty hard to measure.

If your motherboard drops the core voltage then I think the savings is somewhere around 10 watts at idle. I'll have to see what the Kill-A-Watt says. On my board, I'll need to return it to default MHz so this feature works like Intel intended.