SLI1 GPU upgrade to P8600?

I've been rethinking the need [want, desire, lust] to upgrade the CPU on my SLI1. I see these new P series moblile chips. They have a 1066MHz FSB, but I don't think I see any improvement from that since I'm stuck with a 800MHz FSB mobo. [you can tell me if I'm wrong]

But what interest me about these CPU is they are rated at 25w compared to the 35w of the T series [T8400, T9300]. That must mean they run incredibly cool. [again, tell me if I'm wrong]. We all know the SLI1's cooling is less than adequate, to put it nicely.

And that is why I want one of those.

Will the bios update that let's the SLI series run a T9300 permit a P8600?

Edit: Also, since I'm on the subject, 77c on the CPU when gaming [it idles 49-52c] is really bad... right?

 

77C is a little high. Try using compressed air in your vents and maybe get a cooling pad, and of course undervolting. I got mine down from around 78C to 69C under load, all other conditions equal. The undervolting and making sure the vents are clear probably helped the most, but the cooling pad helps enough to make it worth the cost of purchase in my opinion.

Also, I'm 98% sure the P series CPUs will not work in the SLix. Your best bet is to get a T9300 or T9500... they run cooler than the T7xxx series anyway.

And one last thing... If you aren't a hardcore gamer, I would suggest upgrading to 4GB RAM and 64 bit Vista. That's just my preference, but I do think the VistaX64 with 4GB memory experience is far superior to XP except that you give up maybe 5% gaming performance.

Also, if you haven't thought about it, upgrading to a Hitachi 7k200 made a gigantic improvement to the responsiveness of the system for me. The 7k320 should be even better and you'll notice even more difference than a CPU upgrade.

 

I actually made a cooling pad. I got a big plastic first aid kit and cut the top out then cut out a notch on the side and put a usb powered Thermaltake fan. Unfortunately, since the dual 8600M GTs are in one prefab it only cooled one side. One GPU was 55c and the other was 85-90c. I'm saving it for my next gaming laptop and that will either have just one GPU or 2 completely separate GPUs so that I won't run into the same problem.

I had put XP put on this because the specs suited older games and Vista gives gaming hit and there is often a hit to SLI performance. Plus the DX10 performance is marginal at best. So the laptop is for better compatability and performance with old games and DX9, while Vista 64bit is what I have on my desktop.

Maybe I'll P/U a T8400, got to think about. Maybe a bios update will take care of the P8600 in that time. I do have a big backlog of games, Silent Hill 5 on pre-order and need to flip a coin between Fable 2 and Fallout 3 in October.

These are good problems to have.

 

Hey!

Hey!

*reading comprehension, ON!*

How do you undervolt it? [... and to what?]

 

1. You cannot upgrade to a Montevina processor because they use a different socket. Don't ask me how many times Intel has refreshed socket 479. There are like 5 variations of it.
2. Those CPU temps are high for load. My laptop never broke 65c under full CPU load.

-J.B.

 

Oh. I just saw it was a P socket so I figured it would work. I'm sure some of it is that the 177.79 drivers are running hot, I idle around 62-64c now.


SO... would anyone like to tell me what program I need [just assuming that I can't do it in the BIOS] to undervolt and what I should shoot for setting wise?

*... before I make a topic of it*

 

search, it's all been documented on the forum already...

 

I found it. I took it down to 1.0125v and then stress tested it with 5 runs of IntelBurn Test. I could have gone further, but I wanted to try a game. So I just dropped all the other multipliers to the same for now and put on HL2.

And I started not feeling well, cold sweats and nausea like 15-20 minutes. It isn't the first time and I realized that playing any FPS on my SLI1 is the cause of it as it happens almost every time I do. I looked up it and it seems I'm getting "Video Game Motion Sickness" pretty bad. I stopped the game an hour ago and I'm still feeling it. This sucks as I actually can take it to work and I have the time to play there. [nice, eh? Well, at least it was.]

Luckily I don't get it with my desktop since my HDTV/Monitor is farther away from me. I hope it doesn't start happening with that too.

 

You really should lower the voltage from default at every multiplier... you don't want to provide a steady 1.0125V for ALL multipliers because the voltage should drop corresponding to a multiplier drop.

Mine is setup like this:

11x: 1.10V
10x: 1.05V
9x: 1.0V
8x: 0.95V
7x: 0.90V
6x: 0.85V

 

Also, I saw you were looking to undervolt the GPUs in the other thread. It IS possible, but it requires editing the GPU BIOS files and flashing them, which is a high risk low reward proposition for most everyone. You can overclock your GPUs to gain better gaming performance, but doing so will increase heat output.

Also, as to your motion sickness issue, try turning vsync on in your games to make the motion smoother. It helps me and it also lowers GPU temps because it increases idle cycles slightly, but you lose a fraction of performance.

 

1-I am getting like 200pts less in the 3dm06 now and was having sudden drops in FPS on the last two tests with the lower voltage. They were originally all set at 1.175v so I just dropped them down to 1.025 for the expediency of seeing some real-world effects of it. [I bumped it up cause of what the 3dm06 was doing] Intel burn tests for 2 hours gave me no errors.

I'm thinking of putting in a T8400, but I don't know if it is worth it with what the life of the GPUs will be at this point. I don't OC anymore, but I used to and by a lot. 80c is common all the time w/o an OC now on the 177.79 drivers.


2-I deleted all my FPS games. That crap was hitting me real bad, I felt it for like 6 hours after. It hits me even without any big camera movement [like just pushing a box in Alpha Prime. That is, it occurs with barely any camera movement] and it was getting progressively worse from the occasional experience of it to all the time now.

And it is happening with 3rd person games too. It is like I openned a flood gate and now anything involving gaming on my laptop = nausea and dizzyness in 5 minutes flat.