Overclocking...My 2 cents

Nih · Post by **Nih** » 14 Mar 2007, 20:31

I'm a nubcake when it comes to OC'ing, I just got into it a few days ago, but I love it, its exciting to push your computer beyond its limits and with the Core 2 CPU's its hella easy, esp if you have a nvidia 680i motherboard..so here is my experience so far and for the newbies a little explanation on how OC'ing works (at least as far as I have gotten thus far)

There are 3 elements to OC'ing, those are FSB (front side bus), CPU Voltage (aka Vcore in your bios) and the Multiplier. Now to quickly explain each for those that dont know much about them...

Front Side Bus - Essentially the bottle neck of your computer, its basically the spiderweb that connects all your components, the faster this runs the faster your computer will run... e.g. if you have 2 identical computers running 3.0ghz one with 266mhz fsb and one with 400mhz fsb the latter of the 2 will operate significantly faster...the further the gap the more performance difference you will see...

Vcore - The CPU's core voltage, there is a different setting for each processor, normaly the system auto detects the right setting for this, if you want to bump it up you need to research the default voltage for idle and load, its also recommended that you look at what others have their's set at for overclocks of your processor type.

Multiplier - It determines what speed your CPU will run at and has a direct coralation to the FSB... for example if your FSB is a rated speed of 1066mhz... 1066 diveded by 4 (because its quad fsb architecture) is 266, multiply this by the 'multiplier' which is set to 9 and you get 2.4ghz (approx, its never right on)... this is the setup in my computer with the E6600 that I'm running.

There are only 3 things you really have to look at hardware wise when OC'ing, and those are your Motherboard, CPU and Memory... now for an example in overclocking...my computer is running the following...

MB - Asus P5N32-E SLi
CPU - Intel Core 2 E6600 (2.4ghz stock)
Memory - Corsair 2gb DDR800mhz (4-4-4-12 timing)

Using the 'Extreme Tweaker' tab in my bios I changed the Vcore to 1.4 to get a stable voltage from it. Next I bumped the rated FSB to 1600mhz (400mhz effective). Normally you would do increments of say 20-50mhz or there abouts to test for stability, in my case I read that many people had safe temps and stable motherboards at 400+ fsb without any issues, so I jumped right to 400... Now on my multiplier I reduced it from the default of 9 to 8, the reason for this was it reduces stress on your processor and makes your system more stable...so while my processor is still overclocked from 2.4ghz to 3.2ghz my system is stable and my fsb is faster enabling my system to throughput information faster.

Not sure what else to add to this, however I will put more information up as I figure it out...

One last thing before I go, remember that overclocking voids your warranty unless the manufacturers warranty specificaly says you can, which not to many do. Furthermore, overclocking your CPU at all runs the risk of frying it, even though the risk of this is reduced by motherboard safety measures, usually...so in conclusion if you are not sure if you can or how to overclock your computer then dont or read up on your computer parts to see if you can and find more info on doing it before you attempt it.

Post by **Xact** » 15 Mar 2007, 08:45

I really hope your not using stock cooling lol.

OCing is fun until you fry your first CPU, mine was an old 2800+ Barton core... I seered off half my L2 Cache and it started ready as a 2800+ 'Thorton core" (128 l2 cache).

I still have thats CPU as a keyring

Post by **Runetender** » 15 Mar 2007, 11:32

I used to invest heavily in watercooling setups and some expensive 2-2-2-5 OCable memory sticks....back in the hey days lol.

Then CPU speed goes up, heat dissipation stays stagnant, and with dualcores coming out, I don't really find the need to do it now.

Hot summer days, raiding WoW and it crashes lol...
There's a good deal of info here http://www.overclockers.com.au run by local ozzies.

Post by **bakazero** » 27 Mar 2007, 02:17

i got into overclocking back when i made my p90 a p100. i have overclocked everything, was a founding member of insanehardware.com.au and had one of australias first BP6 (dual c300a) boards running at over 1gb.

lapping, water cooling, mineral oil baths.. sigh. what a bother

in my experience, if you cant OC via the multiplier, it isnt worth doing, as your other buses get overclocked too. some cards wouldnt work with weird pci bus speeds, mainly scsi and or nic's.

i fried many a ram stick, many a cpu, many a vid card.
these days i dont overclock ever, it seriously kills the lifespan of any hardware.

these days it doesnt seem to get you much more grunt for those clock cycles, not like the good old days.

that being said, i OC my PSP to 333mhz when i get bored

:D:D

niku

p.s Xact, "apt-get -y install STFUNEWBS"
PFFT package management is for weenies, as is debian

gimme a tarball sourceball anyday

:D

Post by **Serridah** » 05 Jun 2007, 23:27

bakazero wrote: in my experience, if you cant OC via the multiplier, it isnt worth doing, as your other buses get overclocked too. some cards wouldnt work with weird pci bus speeds, mainly scsi and or nic's.

i fried many a ram stick, many a cpu, many a vid card.
these days i dont overclock ever, it seriously kills the lifespan of any hardware.

You're pretty much right there. Lifespan can be pretty seriously affected - you can get 'hot spots' on the CPU, where over-volting (cranking the core voltage up) causes localised heating. Good cooling helps, but the fact of the matter is that chip is rated for run for an eon and a day at its stamped speed; anything beyond that risks eventually letting the magic smoke out, and yourself ending up with a dud chip. I've installed countless CPUs, but only ever replaced 2 or 3 dead ones.

Some chips are gold for overclocking - E4300 Core2s go to E6600 speeds, on air. Also, Pentium D 2.8s were known to frequently make it to 4ghz on air. 4ghz. Oh yeah.

As for the whole multiplier getup, thats nearly almost completely correct; chipset depending, sometimes you can up the FSB/Hypertransport (Intel/AMD) speed. Strictly speaking, AMD64 chips dont even _have_ a FSB. A lot of it is to do with the FSB/Memory ratio these days, and I really can't be arsed going into it, beacuse it varies between chipsets.

If you really want to hit it hard, http://www.overclockers.com.au is where you should be.

Nih · Post by **Nih** » 26 Jun 2007, 16:16

Actually thats not entirely true these days, the motherboard I was sporting at the time I posted this was a 680i Model from EVGA and it allowed you to seperately overclock the CPU and Ram as well as the video cards PCI-E slot. I was able to get the E6600 (2.4ghz) to 3.2ghz running cool on air. I would have tried to get it even higher if my water cooling had come in. In anycase its possible with the right chipset to overclock safely using voltages and FSB increases. I actually had dropped the multiplier from 9 to 8 and cranked the fsb up to 400+. Anywho, as with all things overclocking, effective cooling and knowhow are the key, unless you dont mind experimenting and possibly frying an expensive piece of hardware.