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Looking for some recommendations on an External Hard Drive, at least 1TB. I haven't really kept up with the current market lately—does anyone know if they mostly come with Type-C now, or am I still stuck with the classic USB-B style?
Budget is around $60.
Mainly just going to be using it with my tablet and phone to move photos and videos around.
quote: They still haven't mentioned which motherboard was used
The board from the test is an Abit AW9 Max.
Read this if you actually want a decent motherboard,
Overclocking -
Overclocking a Core 2 Duo processor is a relatively straightforward task, though I suppose it largely depends on your motherboard—specifically, its ability to push the CPU to its absolute limits. Our first attempt at overclocking was, frankly, a disaster. The Epox board we were using, which featured a P965 chipset, just wasn't up to the job. It lacked any real overclocking potential, and even though that chipset is usually reliable in this department, things were made worse by some questionable design choices regarding the memory. For some strange reason, the manufacturer decided to omit the current memory frequency relative to the FSB in the BIOS. This meant the user was forced to manually calculate the clock speeds based on the FSB and the memory multiplier. It’s a clumsy setup, especially for anyone just starting out. In the end, we gave up on Epox and switched to the aforementioned Abit board, which we knew could actually handle some pressure.
Hitting 2.8 GHz without raising voltage
When you're overclocking, there are a few things you really ought to watch out for. Ideally, you should find the maximum FSB frequency the motherboard can handle right away. To do this, you should lower the CPU multiplier so the actual operating speed doesn't compromise system stability. You also have to be mindful of memory ratios (1:1, 4:3, 5:4, etc.) and the NB strap values in the BIOS; you essentially try to keep the memory frequency as close to its rated speed (533, 667, or 800 MHz) as possible by balancing those two values. Experienced users might also identify the maximum possible memory frequency, which becomes a key target. Once that's settled, we return the CPU multiplier to its highest setting and gradually ramp up the FSB, keeping a close eye on the memory frequency and testing the overall system stability, particularly the CPU. Just to warm things up a bit, without bumping up the voltage, we pushed the CPU from its default 1.8 GHz to 2.8 GHz, roughly 1000MHz. The processor handled the strain without much fuss, which led us to get a little too optimistic about what was possible.
Ceiling at 3.3GHz
As you can see from the results, 3.3 GHz was the final stable frequency we managed to squeeze out of this processor. Beyond that, it simply wouldn't go, regardless of how much voltage we threw at it or what combinations we tried. From what I've read online, these processors can reach 3.6 GHz or even higher, but our very early Intel test sample wasn't exactly in the mood for extra effort. The last frequency where we could actually boot into Windows was slightly under 3.6 GHz, but there was no way it would stay stable enough to run a single test. The ideal scenario for overclocking is when you hit the maximum stable CPU clock combined with the highest memory frequency at the lowest possible latencies. In practice, if you have memory that hits a max speed of 900MHz at 4-4-4-15 latencies, you try to maximize the CPU speed while maintaining those specific memory settings. That way, you end up with a high CPU clock paired with fast, low-latency memory for the best results. But that's just the tip of the iceberg; performance depends on countless other details we won't dive into here.
Super PI at 3.3GHz
Even though the voltage shown in the image is 1.55 volts, this test sample is actually capable of running normally at 3.3 GHz with just 1.45 volts; the higher voltage in the photo was merely an attempt to chase even higher speeds. The maximum temperature the CPU reached at this clock speed was 42 °C, though that was achieved in an exceptionally well-ventilated case (with 3x120 mm fans) and under a Zalman cooler, so the conditions were more than adequate. One of the main complaints in other tests is usually the operating temperature at max clock speeds, but that didn't seem to be an issue for us. Interestingly, the CPU hits 3.0 GHz easily at factory voltages, but once you try to go faster, you immediately need to bump the voltage above 1.4 volts. Judging by the various results floating around the web, I guess that's just a general rule of thumb.
My rig:
CPU: DualCore Intel Core 2 duo E4300 1800MHz & 2656MHz
MBO: MBO ASROCK 4COREDUAL-VSTA
RAM: 2 x RAM PC-5300, 1024MB, DDR2, Crucial 667 MHz
HDD: WD160 GB SATA , WDC 200 GB SATA
VGA: Sapphire Radeon X1650 Pro AGP 256MB
Power Supply: CHIEFTEC 400W, 12cm fan, ATX2 ver 2.0
OS: Microsoft Windows
Other: LCD TV Samsung SM940MW Wide LEADTEK WinFast TV2000 XP Expert Creative Audigy 2 Platinium ex en ....
Does anyone on this forum happen to be running the same CPU and motherboard combo? This ASROCK 4COREDUAL-VSTA is... honestly, it's garbage. I only picked it up because I wanted to keep using my old Radeon card from a previous build. The highest FSB clock goes from 297MHz to 2673MHz.
You can't even adjust the CPU voltage on this thing.
Current status: overclocking
Processor Information:
Processor DualCore Intel Core 2 duo E4300
Core Conroe-2M CPU
CPU stepping L2
L2 Engineering Sample Yes
CPUID (processor name) Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 4300 @ 1.80GHz
CPUID revision 000006F2h
Core Voltage 1.325 V
CPU Speed:
Processor Speed 2655.8 MHz (original: 1800 MHz, overclock: 48%)
CPU Multiplier 9.0x
CPU FSB 295.1 MHz (original: 200 MHz, overclock: 48%)
Memory Bus 295.1 MHz
DRAM:FSB ratio 1:1
CPU Cache:
L1 instruction cache 32 KB per core
L1 data cache 32 KB per core
L2 cache 2 MB (On-Die, ASC, Full-Speed)
Motherboard Information:
Motherboard ID 63-131-0000010-00101111-013007-VIA$4CDVT131_4COREDUAL-VSTA BiOS P1.40
Motherboard Model ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA (4 PCI, 1 PCI-E x16, 1 AGP, 2 DDR DIMM, 2 DDR2 DIMM, Audio, LAN)
Chipset Information:
Motherboard Chipset via Apollo PT880
Memory Timings 4-4-4-12 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS)
Command Rate (CR) 2T
SPD Memory Modules:
DIMM1: Micron Tech. 8HTF12864AY-667E1 1 GB DDR2-667 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-15 @ 333 MHz) (4-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz) (3-3-3-9 @ 200 MHz)
DIMM3: Micron Tech. 8HTF12864AY-667E1 1 GB DDR2-667 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-15 @ 333 MHz) (4-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz) (3-3-3-9 @ 200 MHz)
BIOS Information:
System BIOS Release Date 01/30/07
Video BIOS Release Date 08/03/06
BIOS DMI Version P1.40
Graphics Processor Information:
Graphics Card Sapphire Radeon X1650 Pro
GPU Code Name RV530 (AGP 8x 1002 / 71C6, Rev 00)
GPU Core Clock 594 MHz (original: 600 MHz)
Memory Frequency 688 MHz (original: 700 MHz)