Official Overclocking Thread- ALL questions go HERE

[aaryn101]

If I Overclock my FSB on my CPU, without AGP and PCI bus locks, does that raise the AGP and PCI bus speeds thus risking damage and problems?

Another question: If I often OC my video card, will its average temperatures continue to get hotter? (IE: say i get 65C max one month, and then the next month average 70C load)

 

[duffers20]

If I Overclock my FSB on my CPU, without AGP and PCI bus locks, does that raise the AGP and PCI bus speeds thus risking damage and problems?

Its best to lock them as I think when you start ramping up your fsb, it will have dodgy effects on the agp/pci cards.

Another question: If I often OC my video card, will its average temperatures continue to get hotter? (IE: say i get 65C max one month, and then the next month average 70C load)

I think there will be a small temp change, but not that dramatic.

 

[NeptuneUK]

what cooler would you guys reccomend to overclock a 3ghz pentium 4 to 4ghz?
im determined. im getting a new case and system fan next month. and i want to get a new cooler. my current system is running 3ghz at 3.4ghz using a cooler for a 3.2ghz pentium 4. very stable and im sure its safe

 

[jabberwock95]

Something pretty hefty i'd imagine.

How much are you willing to spend? Water cooling would rule but its over budget for most people.

Remember, its not only the processor cooler but total airflow through the case that makes a big difference.

 

[Asus]

4GHz on Air? You would have to have a very good air cooled case.
I'm not sure which cooler could do that but it would probably some like the XP90c or XP120 with a delta fan (very loud).

A good water cooling system would do it.

 

[NeptuneUK]

i only have about 50 pounds reserved for a cpu cooling unit
im not bothered about how high i can get too. i just want to see how high i can get it on my budget!
well what i was thinking, is i am getting a new case, it has a good front and rear fan for good airflow, i will use an exhaust fan taking up on of the PCI slots (those things pump out a LOT of heat!) and a nice cpu cooler (most likely air on my budget)
how how do you reckon i could get it is there any cpu cooler you would reccomend in my price range? its for an LGA 775 socket. and do you think there is anywhere else i can put a fan to maximise efficiency? as long as the fan doesnt buzz or anything (like my old one!!) im not too bothered about noise!

 

[Top Secret]

4GHz on Air? You would have to have a very good air cooled case.
I'm not sure which cooler could do that but it would probably some like the XP90c or XP120 with a delta fan (very loud).

A good water cooling system would do it.

I had my 3.0C to 3.9 for a few months. And there's a guy at OCforums.com that had it to 4.

 

[jondy]

Am I missing something? Just got a new Abit AX8 mobo and 3000+ 64 Venice, and I can't push it up beyond 2.01ghz. Vapochill cooler, temperature's a steady 46c under load at 1.55 vcore.

Lots of people seem to be able to push their Venice cores to 2.5-7ghz no worries; I can't go beyond 2 without 3dmark ****ing itself. I'm not too familiar with PCIe architecture, is there something I'm looking past?

Cheers, Jond

 

[Asus]

Are you locking the PCI/AGP/PCI-Express bus? I have not done it with PCI-Express but I know a board with AGP/PCI you lock it at 66/67Mhz (AGP speed) and 33MHz (PCI speed). My board setting says AGP/PCI lock but the value is for the AGP speed. They are linked so it changes them both equally.

I would put the memory ratio lower so you don't OC the memory too. Not yet anyway. That could limit your OCing.

 

[jondy]

PCIe and PCI buses all locked; but what's this about a memory multiplier? I had a good look around BIOS and couldn't find anything but CAS latency and timings.

 

[jellydoughnut217]

if i have a complete liquid cooling system for my pc plus 1 120 fan and 3 80 fans would it be safe to overclock a 7800gt to a high level and keep it there for a long period of time?

 

[3ssence]

Assuming the temperatures are kept well in check by the cooling (which i would imagine that would), then as long as you aren't getting artefacts and/or system crashes dues to the graphics card, then the card should last just fine. However, repeated crashes and artefacting tend to suggest that the life of the card could end up being somewhat shortened (i know this because i ran a 6800GT at ultra speeds for 7-8 months, starting to get artefacting/crashes, didn't bother lowering the oc, and my card fried and is now a useless ornament)

 

[3ssence]

PCIe and PCI buses all locked; but what's this about a memory multiplier? I had a good look around BIOS and couldn't find anything but CAS latency and timings.

What ram do you have ? make, model, and speed (pc3200, 3500, 3700, 4000 etc..)

 

[jondy]

What ram do you have ? make, model, and speed (pc3200, 3500, 3700, 4000 etc..)

crucial pc3200; forgotten the timings, will look them up

 

[3ssence]

well tbh, 3200 ram doesn't have much headroom for overclocking. In most of the reviews i have come across it seems to be possible to raise the fsb to about 220 with the original timings and maximum 240 with relaxed timings. This may well be what is limiting your overclocking as your ram is not able to run at the speed that your fsb needs to be set at to get a higher overclock on your processor.

There are two ways round this, 1: get higher rated ram with more overclocking headroom or,

2: change the ddr:fsb ratio, this way it is possible to run a higher fsb and therefore clock speed whilst keeping the ram running within its limits.

e.g. if the ram were running at a ratio of 4:5 (ddr:fsb) and you had your fsb at 250, then your cpu would be running at 2.25 (9 x 250), but your ram would be running at 400mhz, its rated speed.

 

[jondy]

well tbh, 3200 ram doesn't have much headroom for overclocking. In most of the reviews i have come across it seems to be possible to raise the fsb to about 220 with the original timings and maximum 240 with relaxed timings. This may well be what is limiting your overclocking as your ram is not able to run at the speed that your fsb needs to be set at to get a higher overclock on your processor.

There are two ways round this, 1: get higher rated ram with more overclocking headroom or,

2: change the ddr:fsb ratio, this way it is possible to run a higher fsb and therefore clock speed whilst keeping the ram running within its limits.

e.g. if the ram were running at a ratio of 4:5 (ddr:fsb) and you had your fsb at 250, then your cpu would be running at 2.25 (9 x 250), but your ram would be running at 400mhz, its rated speed.

Thanks champ, I'll check it out.

 

[D€vIL²]

for the system I have should I over clock my GPU(s)?
from ntune everything is default..

(i havent gone through and read the posts here. Too many to go through.)

 

[3ssence]

Well, you could, but tbh, with a 7800GTX there is no real need to

 

[D€vIL²]

I was getting low framrates in a lot of places on lost coast. is that odd?
with everything on high... at 1152-864 (SLi OFF)

 

[Qonfused]

That would be odd for your system.

 

[D€vIL²]

What should I do? Call tech support and tell them my system isn't getting its full performance? Reformat? Kill someone? Kill myself?

Honestly, I'm pissed about my system, I've had quite a few problems, Its obviously not working to its fullest. I don't know what to do.
I got it from ibuypower.com

 

[jondy]

Re to my previous overclocking stuff, sorted out the DDR ratios in the BIOS; found out you just need to rate the RAM lower and do the math to let you know what kindof FSB overclock lets the RAM catch up.

Thanks to this, I've a 450mhz overclock stable right now but there's a problem; push much past this, and the RAM starts to exceed its 400mhz limitation and screws up the overclock. Obviously the thing to do here would be to push it down another notch to 266 and overclock until it catches up (providing the processor can cope ) but here's the thing... I can't. Every time I select 266 in BIOS, I can't boot up past the AX8 screen the BIOS puts out.

Anyone have a clue why this is?

Cheers, jond

 

[Qonfused]

What should I do? Call tech support and tell them my system isn't getting its full performance? Reformat? Kill someone? Kill myself?

Honestly, I'm pissed about my system, I've had quite a few problems, Its obviously not working to its fullest. I don't know what to do.
I got it from ibuypower.com

How low are you talking about? For example, I have a a64 3500+, 7800GT and 2GB of RAM and I get 40-80FPS on all High, HDR Full, and one notch below max on AA/AF.

 

[D€vIL²]

like and average of 40 and it goes down from there to like 20 then itll go to like 100 few places.

 

[Ren.182]

I had a single 7800GT for a while, with my 3700+ at stock and 2 gig of RAM. I used to get around the 40-80FPS mark too.

Now, after i overclocked my 2.2GHz 3700+ to 2.81GHz, and got my second 7800GT. I get 150+ most of the time. I reached 400FPS in CSS too. *hugs pc*

 

[Mutley]

Quessie:

Can overclocking your processor by 100mhz make a worthwile difference?

Same with GPU, overclocked it by 80mhz for clock, do these small figures help? Thanks guys.

 

[Top Secret]

Hah, I've got my Opteron 165 at 2.6 right now. 300 dollar FX-60. =)

 

[The Brick]

I got my sempron 2800+ from 1600mhz to 2240mhz a while ago, and it's still running stable with the stock cooling I had to lower the HyperTransport to 600mhz though, but it's still way faster.

 

[Reaktor4]

Quessie:

Can overclocking your processor by 100mhz make a worthwile difference?

Same with GPU, overclocked it by 80mhz for clock, do these small figures help? Thanks guys.

It wouldnt be noticable.

 

[TCfromBN]

I'm currently trying to overclock my 3800+ x2. I've run into a few problems though. (Yes, I've read the guide.)

My BIOS don't support overclocking (Foxconn C51GU01 Motherboard), however my nVidia control panel has a whole section for tuning my motherboard settings. In this section are things like System Clocks and Memory timings. The only things I can chance however, are the Reference clock (up to 250MHz), the HT multiplier ( 1x-5x) and the tRAS, tRCD and tRP memory timings. The System Voltages and the CPU multipliers are locked.

What is the best course of action? I've tried uping the reference clock from 200MHz to about 219MHz. Starting at about 221MHz I run into lock ups and restarts (The temps stay below 40C as far as I can tell with a program called SpeedFan).

At this point, should I lower the HT multiplier from 5x to 4x, or change the memory clocks? (Keep in mind that I can only change the tRAS, tRCD and tRP)

Any advice would be appreciated.

TCfromBN

 

[hungryduck]

I'm currently trying to overclock my 3800+ x2. I've run into a few problems though. (Yes, I've read the guide.)

My BIOS don't support overclocking (Foxconn C51GU01 Motherboard), however my nVidia control panel has a whole section for tuning my motherboard settings. In this section are things like System Clocks and Memory timings. The only things I can chance however, are the Reference clock (up to 250MHz), the HT multiplier ( 1x-5x) and the tRAS, tRCD and tRP memory timings. The System Voltages and the CPU multipliers are locked.

What is the best course of action? I've tried uping the reference clock from 200MHz to about 219MHz. Starting at about 221MHz I run into lock ups and restarts (The temps stay below 40C as far as I can tell with a program called SpeedFan).

At this point, should I lower the HT multiplier from 5x to 4x, or change the memory clocks? (Keep in mind that I can only change the tRAS, tRCD and tRP)

Any advice would be appreciated.

TCfromBN

I never had any luck OC'ing with seperate programs from the BIOS.....not sure....

 

[Asus]

You would first want to lock the PCI-E/AGP/PCI bus' so they do not increase while OCing otherwise it would limit how far you can OC. I usually put the HT multiplier one down as well. It won't hurt performance but if you don't lower it then it also could be limiting how high you can go.

Only change 1 thing at a time. I wouldn't OC your memory until you have done all you want with the CPU. In fact I would loosen the timings (make them higher) so they don't get in the way.

Just remember what all the settings were. Of course the bios is the best place to change the settings if you can.

 

[TCfromBN]

Well, I cant lock the bus, because thats the only thing I can change to overclock with this program.

Although I'm not worried about this program anymore, I'm going to be building a new computer soon with a motherboard capable of OC'ing.

On the topic of motherboards, are any motherboards I buy from say, newegg.com, going to be unlocked so I can overclock, or is there something I need to look for when buying? (I'm not quite ready to buy yet)

Thanks in advance.

 

[Tyguy]

Im not going to start another thread so hopefully my efforts will be worth it....

My specs are in my sig, and obviously I want to overclock. I have read up on it a good amount but want to make sure that I dont mess my computer up. My main worry is the amount of voltage Im giving to my processor. I recorded the following from my Bios, and a good amount of it I dont understand.

Here are my options:

AI Overclocking - Manual
CPU FSB - 200
SB to NB Overclock - Manual
SB to Frequency - 200
Adjust PCIE Frequesncy - 100
PEG Link Mode - Auto

Over-Voltage CPU VCore - Disabled
NB VCore - Disabled
SB VCore - Disabled
HyperTransport - Disabled
DDR VCore - Auto
FID/VID Change - Manual
Processor Frequency Mulitplier - 8 changed to 10
Processor Voltage - 1.450V Range is 1.0 - 1.5625V
DDR Clock Skew - Auto
DDR Clock Skew (NOW) - Delay 300ps


This is my Hardware Monitor:

CPU Temp - 56 C (yet my LCD Temp screen says its only 40.9C)
Motherboard Temp - 43C

VCore Voltage - 1.42v
3.3 Voltage - 3.2
5V Voltage - 4.9
12V Voltage - 11.84
Q-Fan Control - Disabled


OK, I know you dont need all this info but I like to be thourough.

My main question is am I only concerned with my FSB and my Processor Voltage? I got my FSB to 260 with a increase to 1.5 Volts, Windows started, but crashed a minute later....so should I keep continuing to increase voltage and how much is too much?


Thanks

 

[TCfromBN]

You're better off starting a new thread. None of my questions get answered here.

I'm not sure about overclocking AMDs, sorry.