Comments On The Hardware

I will start with my motherboard. I really, really like the ASUS P5K Premium. I've been enjoying the great motherboard temperatures, super-solid voltages and its great layout. Not much I can complain really.

The only gripe I have is the RAM dividers. I would naturally prefer to have RAM dividers. Oh, there is also the issue of ASUS' Windows-based overclocking utility, which didn't work at all. ASUS really needs to look into these two issues.

The ABIT IP35 Pro (based on the Intel P35 Express chipset) that Max_87 and Chai use is a really good motherboard. It is a whole lot cheaper than the ASUS P5K Premium and ABIT's µguru utility actually works.

The three of us tend to let loose some friendly smack talk and in this regard, I was always on the receiving end everytime I excuse myself online to go restart my PC! That wouldn't have been necessary had the ASUS' overclocking utility actually worked as advertised.

However, the ABIT IP35 Pro's PWM area gets pretty hot, especially when there is poor air flow (in the case of watercooling or tower heatsinks). I am thankful I chose the ASUS P5K Premium with its cooler 8-phase PWM.

PsYkHoTiK's Conclusion

It has been a while since there was a processor with this kind of potential. The last one that comes to mind is the Intel Pentium 4 2.4C from a few years ago. The Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 is a real overclocking gem. The other two Revision G0-based Core 2 Duo processors do not seem to be as consistently overclockable as this particular model.

The Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 should keep the overclocking community really happy until Intel rolls out their 45nm Wolfdale and Yorkfield processors. Though I am still kind of piffed about not being to get it to 4 GHz stable, I will try again once I get my OCZ Reaper memory modules back. Hopefully, they will make a difference, at least enough to hit 4.0 GHz!

Questions & Comments

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