ant_1984

Hi dicko, I'm in Melbourne too. Not interested in upgrading my cooler at the moment, I just want to achieve the best possible on the hardware I have. I know HT shows no benefit in FSX but it does in other apps. Long term I may tinker and turn off HT and lower the voltages, but for the time being I might just leave it on and if I'm concerned with temps I'll either lower the overclock or turn HT off etc. Your specs look pretty decent, you happy with the way FSX is running? I just ordered a saitek pro flight yoke system off amazon to add to my new pedals and existing joystick. Can't wait to finally be all set up and do some flying.

Thanks Ben. :good: Dicko, My temps are with HT on and also with not as good cooler as yours, hence why they are higher. Cheers.

Thanks Dazz. Ok well it's good to know that my Vcore of 1.368 according to CPU-Z is the measurement to go by. I'm still curious exactly as to what VID is. I've been googling but I can't really see a black and white answer to what it is. My understanding is that each individual chip will have a different VID but that's as far as I've got so far. Any ideas? Also, does a temperature jump from 71*C at 4.5Ghz up to 82*C at 4.8Ghz sound about right? Just seems like a big jump for only 300Mhz. I know that under normal gaming the temps won't go this high but I'm just curious.

Thanks, thats what I thought it was but I was a little confused as CPU-Z was reporting Core Voltage as 1.368 volts but then VID in realtemp and AIDA 64 was reporting VID as 1.48 volts. Unfortunately the BIOS on this Alienware doesn't show me what the values are for voltages etc. It's a bit of a bummer but something I'll just have to live with for now. I've read that HT does nothing for FSX, not sure about other games but if I can leave it on I think I'd rather do that for now, but time will tell if I change my mind. Am I correct that with HT off you need less voltage than if you have HT on? And lower voltages would then mean lower temps? Do you have an thoughts on my temps etc? I know they are not as low as they could be but I think they are probably acceptable. What are your temps like?

Hi, It's all in the topic title really,I just need some advice for my first overclock on the 2600K. Normally I like to build my own PC's, but I picked up an Alienware Aurora R3 for next to nothing (was too hard for me to refuse!) and have added my own upgrades/components to make it what it is in my sig. The Alienware came overclocked to 4.1Ghz but I wanted to go higher, so knowing what these chips can do I did some research and set off on my first overclock. Only thing I discovered was that the options actually open to me to change in the BIOS on the alienware are fairly limited, but I did find another thread elsewhere where someone had overclocked one of these: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=687628 So I embarked on my first overclock and I have now noted down settings for stable overclocks from 4.5Ghz through to 4.8Ghz (When I mean stable it means numerous runs of IBT and running Prime 95 Blend for 24 Hrs give or take). Given the limitations of the BIOS and the CPU Cooler (Corsair H50 with a fairly decent Delta Fan) I was fairly surprised how easy it was to overclock. Now here comes my real question. The cooler Isn't great and I'm sure that because I don't have more control over my vcore it is affecting my temps. At the stock 4.1Ghz max temp was 69*C, 4.5Ghz was 71*C, 4.6Ghz was 77*C, 4.7Ghz was 79*C and 4.8Ghz was 82*C. (Note: all temps are while stress testing and Ambient temps were consistently between approx 22*C & 25*C, HT was also on). I've since made some mods and adjusted the fan config on the radiator of the H50 so it is pulling cool air into the case. I had also previously made some mods to the top of the case and added 2 x 120mm fans to blow cool air in, but these have now been reversed to exhaust the hot air off the radiator. This very slightly dropped my temps at 4.8Ghz but not significantly. So...... 1 - What do you think of the temps at these overclocks, I know they are on the higher side and as per Word Not Allowed's guide they should be okay, but what is your opinion of these? Are they likely to shorten the length of my chip? I don't run this PC 24/7 as I have another more basic PC for that. This will be purely for FSX and gaming. 2 - From experience, is the jump from 4.5Ghz up to 4.8Ghz worth it performance wise in FSX? How much difference am I likely to see? The temparature increase while stress testing was fairly significant so I'm just wondering if it's worth it? 3 - What exactly is VID? While stress testing Real Temp would show this is approx 1.48-1.49. Is this high or dangerous? If you guys can help my out, bearing in mind that I'm not looking to upgrade any hardware etc, but just looking for opinions purely based on what I have, it would be much appreciated. I'm looking forward to putting this rig to good use with the new Saitek Combat Rudder Pedals I picked up yesterday! Man I'm lucky my wife doesn't mind me spending money to pursue my dream, lol Hoping to get accepted into the RAAF later this year (I'm in the selection pool at the moment), so in the mean time I want to get in as much simming as possible and also try add a few hours to my log book. Sorry for the long winded post. Thanks in advance!

Well I still haven't had a chance to test FSX but I did install the card and do a quick run of BF3. I have to say I was impressed. Compared to my SLI'd GTX 560 Ti's it was a much smoother experience. With the SLI setup I'd get stutters even though fps were high. I should have time this weekend to test out FSX and report my findings. Now I'm wondering what the benefit of the 4GB model of the 680 would be. lol. (What can I say, I like new shiny toys haha). Since I'm only running one monitor at 1920x1080 I'm guessing it wouldn't really be much benefit to me though.

Lol. Well I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who does that! haha Luckily I also have 2 PC stores close to work in case I'm in need of supplies. lol Didn't get a chance to install and test it last night so hopefully tonight will be the night.

Well my GTX 680 got delivered to work today so I can't wait to get home to try it out. It actually worked out cheaper for me to order it online from the US than it was to buy at a store here in Australia. Hopefully I'll see a performance increase in FSX, but if not I'll still be happy to go from an SLI system to one with a single powerful graphics card which is going to offer me the same if not better performance.

For me the card won't be purely for FSX so I'm happy to spend the money on it. On another note, as far was warranty from ASUS, MSI, EVGA, PNY. What's are peoples opinions/experiences with these? I'm probably looking at going EVGA or ASUS but just wondering what others think.

Just thought I'd chime back in since I started this post a couple of days ago. My main aim with this change of cards from 2x 560ti in SLI to the 680 was to hopefully gain some slight performance in FSX whilst atleast maintaining the performance of my SLI'd cards in BF3 etc as my top card in SLI had been running a little hotter than I would have liked in my confined case. I've already sold one of my 560 Ti's and hopefully the other one will sell for me soon so I'm on the way to getting that 680. Hopefully the stocks are ok here in Australia once I have the cash ready. Not sure of the implications to FSX but in this review comparing 2 SLI'd GTX 480's the key thing I could see was that the minimum frame rate when running the single 680 was higher than the minimum frame rate when running the 2 480's. Surely this would have to benefit and reduce any stuttering. http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1511766&mpage=1 Whilst I'm certainly no expert and this isn't necessarily my opinion, I've also read elsewhere on a couple of sites/forums (cant remember exactly where), that the GTX 680 isn't currently saturating the PCIE2.0 bus providing your running at x16 so that PCIE3.0 really shouldn't factor in performance wise for a single card, but if you're running in SLI and this drops down to x8 then you may notice a difference. Personally, when I get my card it will be runing on PCIE2.0 at x16 for the time being.

Thanks All.Well I think I'm likely to take the plunge and go for a GTX680 although it may take me a couple of weeks to gather enough cash for it. I've already got one of my 560 Ti's up for sale to help out in that regard.I'm not expecting a massive jump in FSX but it will give me great performance with less heat/power usage than my 560 ti's.

Thanks guys, I know FSX is mainly CPU bound but just curious to see what people are experiencing with the GTX 680. I'm sure it must be some improvement over a 560 ti.Paul - I'm new to overclocking but have looked into it somewhat. My system is an Alienware Aurora R3 which I was lucky to pick up for pretty much free so the current overclock is through factory settings only. Any tips/sites you could recommend to bump up my OC?I initially had some trouble with high temps with my SLI setup due to the fairly confined space in my aurora case. I did sort it out but temps on the top card can still get a little on the high side sometimes. Hence the reason I'm thinking about changing to a single card solution with the same sort of performance of the SLI'd 560ti's.Thanks :Peace:

Heat is one thing I was thinking about.My case is a little crampt with my SLI set up so whilst it workds just fine I can get the top card pushing some pretty high temps, so a switch to a single card with similar performance would be desirable.It would be good to see some more comparisons that are FSX specific though as this would be run more than any other game.Cheers.

Hi Jason,Thanks for that. What are the rest of your system specs like?I'm on i7 2600K @ 4.1Ghz, 16GB DDR3 RAM, 120GB SSD (for OS), 1TB HDD (FSX).Has there been much of a difference in FPS or are you able to bump up Image Quality settings higher (IE AA etc).Thanks

So has anyone been lucky enough to get their hands on a GTX 680 yet and stretch their wings in FSX?I'm curious to know what the comparison from your old card has been. I'm currently running 2 x GTX 560 Ti's in SLI (which I know has no benefit to FSX), so if I can get my hands on a single card solution that's going to benefit my FSX and have similar performance to my old cards in other games then I'm definitely going to consider it.Just after peoples thoughts/experiences thus far.

Well I'm at work here in Australia but am itching to get home to try it out. Interestingly I'm only just getting into FSX coming from FS2004 as I've had a recent PC upgrade, so hopefully this should allow me to look at it with reasonably fresh eyes.A question to those lucky enough to have tried it out, is there any supoport for SLI?