The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

I highly recommend replacing the oem cpu hsf with a performance hsf even for moderate OC's. you will definately need to for any mediocre or high OC.

What sam means is increase the cpu frequency (266mhz is default/stock). as you increase it you will also need to increase the cpu vcore which inturn will increase the cpu temp (thus the need for a performance cpu hsf). keep an eye on your cpu temp. you also need to keep the memory freq at or below 667mhz at least until you reach your desired cpu OC.

there are other settings in the bios that need to be adressed prior to any overclocking. disable (or leave on auto) any unneeded special settings. set the PCIe freq to 100. set the PCI clock to 33.33mhz. set your memory voltage and timings to rated voltage and timings. reboot and proceed with OC.

 

it's something to consider, but not of course something you should force upon people. If it's an option, I'd recommed choosing the Arctic Freezer 7 Pro. Cheap, relatively light and significantly better than the standard HSF. Not the ultimate choice, but certainly worthwhile. It got me my 3Ghz OC at least.

 

no force intended, only recommended. you should agree and well know that OC'ing the cpu will generate heat and 1st step to a sucessful OC is adequate cpu cooling. oem cpu hsf's will significantly limit the OC.

personally I won't even run an oem cpu hsf on a stock cpu. I have several oem cpu hsf's still in the retail cpu box. It's all about keeping your cpu cool and I've seen the improvement in cpu temp using a performance cpu hsf even at stock settings. worth every penny.

 

I've never run a stock heatsink on a PC I spec'ed myself. I went straight for the Zalman CNPS7000 on my X2 and straight for the Freezer 7 Pro on my Core 2. I also changed from the stock cooler to an Arctic coppersilent2l on my XP 3000+, what a difference it made!
When I have some free time (very soon) I'm going to continue work on my silencing project. I'm going to swap the Silverstone fans I recently bought for the Scythe ones I now have, install a Thermalright Ultra 120 heatsink, and perhaps suspend my hard disks. A Corsair PSU is also on the cards at some point, but that may have to wait since I'm debating changing to a Gigabyte DS3 from this motherboard.

 

sammorris,

I had to in the Dell 3000 which has it's own big Copper heat sink in an air duct to the rear case fan, when I installed the 3.0 Prescot in it. I also had to when I built Gina's as it made no sense for her to ship me the Arctic as I wouldn't ship a computer with one installed. It worked OK but a bit noisy, I got it to 3.0 that way and then she installed her Freezer 7 Pro when it arrived in Chicago. It was pretty cool here at the time so temperatures weren't a problem.

Clock On,
theone

 

My mobo is an original intel DG965WH mobo

 

from what reviews I have read on your mobo it doesn't allow much for OC'ing. some intel mobo's are bad about that. probably better leave as is until or unless you can replace it with an enthusiests mobo. it also doesn't appear to like DDR2 800 memory which is ok since you're running DDR2 667 memory.

 

wotdefcuk,

Not to pick on your choice in motherboards but my advice would be to sell it to someone who doesn't want an overclocked machine. Lots of people don't! Get you another board that you "can" overclock! You're gonna waste a good processor otherwise! The Intel board doesn't have any bios options for any kind of overclocking at all!

I'm using a GigaByte GA-965P-DS3 v1.33 MB, with an Intel E4300 @3.276GHz and it was easy! The whole thing didn't take me 2 hours Including installing XP Pro, to put together and get it up to 2.5GHz. I can see Mort81's E6600 @3.6GHz in the distance now! lOL!! Very fast machine at 3.76! Native 1333 fsb so it's ready for Quad Core now!

Clock On,
theone

 

Ok peeps the wait is finaly over and the other half is screeming because the bank is empty again but hey Ive got all the parts to build my pc! If I get the chance Im going to mod the case this weekend and start building next week. Need to test the water cooling out before any kind of power up tho.
Spec list is preety long but I thought Id post it to see what you guys thought of my choices?

Thermaltake Bach VX case
Asus Comando Mobo
E6600 CPU
Corsair Dominator PC8500 (1066mhz) ram
Nvidia 7600GS sonic graphics card (Im not a gamer)
X2DC 1000lph water pump
150mm Magicool Reservior
120mm Radiator and 240mm Radiator from Thermaltake Big water 745 kit
Thermaltake Volcano 4005 CPU water block
EK Asus1 NB and SB blocks
EK Asus mosfet Block
Thermaltake VGA block
Dangerden Fillport
Thermaltake 750w modular PSU
Weston Digital Raptor 36gb (Only used for fast system drive)
3x 500gb Seagate Baracudas
1x 750gb Seagate Baracuda

Theres some fans ect to be mounted and Im still trying to track down a UK supplier for the side panel with 23cm fan that Thermaltake have just released for my case. This is my 1st custom build so it might take me a while to get to the over clocking stage but Im hoping I have all the parts in place to have some fun and push the envelope a bit and still keep things sensible?

 

I wish all that stuff was sitting on my now empty workbench!

I want to start watercooling so it's interesting to look at your list. I'm using the same RAM in my E6700 with an EVGA 680i A1 board. I've been bumping up the CPU tonight and I'm typing this at 3.6 Ghz on air, lol. I'll start working on RAM speed and timings tomorrow. I think that Asus Commando board allows unlinking the RAM from the FSB so that makes it easier. At least it does for a newbie like me.

 

fasfrank,

The independence of the memory bus unlinked to the fsb, is both a blessing and a curse. You do get more black holes, but they are wierd! I've heard of cases with MBs with this feature where 1MHz made a difference in whether it booted or not, but then again, the Comando is quite a MB. Asus could have solved a lot of problems by the money invested in this MB, and did! That alone would justify the price!

Clock On,
theone

 

TO: fasfrank,

Hey there guy, I was gonna get that CPU when new but budget said E6300 and then soon opped for the mid ranged E6600. I would like to get one today but how well do the new revisions of this OC as to the new 6600's of equal battch production period? How old is yours? If newer, how high of FSB can you get on the 6 or 7 multi? Have you ever got to run it on a !975X? My 2nd set may be the E6700 (if good to OC, or at least better then current 6600) on the ASUS Camando or open to the Striker Extreme.

I end up disabling SLI on my nVidia for dual video editing and output to HDTV in regular single GPU gaming.

 

well bummer
so can i overclock my memory and graphics card
its a Gigabyte x1650 (not PRO or XT)

 

That would be mine then...

Tinytom:
http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=607578
http://www.idealcomputing.co.uk/products.asp?recnumber=93362
http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=607577
http://www.idealcomputing.co.uk/products.asp?partno=29012467

I've never heard of an X1650 that isn't a pro or XT, are you sure? As for overclocking, download a program called ATITool. Run the 'find max core test' and when you get to the max it'll probably crash and reboot. Observe what frequency that happens at, and pick the one before. Then do the same for the memory test, but instead of waiting for it to crash, wait until you see the slightest graphical glitch in the furry cube animation. (for me it's random yellow pixels). Try setting both, then running 3dmark06, if everything looks as it should, keep the settings. If there are noticeable artifacts (for example, the orange doors in return to proxycon are sometimes rendered black) or you get a crash, down the setting once more, typically Core if it crashes, memory if it doesn't look right (this is not always the case).

 

**sammorris**

Thanks for the links but they are for the full tower kandalf or armour with 25cm fan. The Bach is a mid tower and the fan in the side panel is only a 23cm.
Ive only ever found those side panels yet they have the one for mine on the thermaltake webisite, I have alot of people looking and asking for me now. For the little money it has to be worth a try?

 

Ah right, didn't even know such a thing existed. My apologies. It may be a recent addition to the product they haven't started shipping yet. I can't find them in the US, let alone the UK

 

Hi everyone,
theonejrs,
About the black holes, I'm finding that by leaving the memory set in bios at 800Mhz, I can adjust the FSB/CPU speeds without running in to them, or so it seems to me.
I've only been doing this for a few weeks now so whatever you and the rest of the more experenced folks tell me I'll look for.
I'm going to work on the memory as soon as I reach my highest stable cpu speed.

NuckNFuts,
CPU-Z says my E6700 is a:
Family 6
Model F
Stepping 6

It's 50 minutes into an Orthos run at 3625 Mhz @ 1450FSB with a 10X multi. Vcore is 1.575. I did try it previously with a 9X multiplier. I started getting unstable at around 1440 FSB so I thought I'd go back to the 10X and work at keeping the Vcore lower.
I was hoping that 3.7 might be reachable but I'm not getting there at the rate I'm having to increase Vcore to keep CPU stability as I up the FSB.
I have an E6600 on a P5W-DH board, pretty much like Mort's signature PC. Very stable at 3.5 Ghz with the 9X multi.
I like the Asus boards but I think the EVGA 680i board is excellent too.

sammorris,
Thank you for the videocard OC info you posted. I was wondering how testing was done. I do not want to fry my 8800s!

 

It generally isn't possible to fry a GPU by overclocking any other way than it's possible to fry a CPU when overclocking, giving it too much voltage. I saw an interesting clip once when a guy decided to triple the voltage of his GPU when it was running. He set up a video camera pointing at the open side of his case. The result was nothing short of spectacular, the GPU basically became a flamethrower, pulses of fire came bursting from the VRMs towards the front of the case, slowly smouldering and eventually lighting the IDE cables!
But on a more serious note, 1.575Vcore? Seems a bit high for a C2D. I'm concerned about 1.42 being too high, but there you go.

 

atitool works on nvidia cards aswell as atis but i would recommend rivatuner from 3dguru as it has much more info for the nvidia cards than the atotools does, albeit a bit confusing at first.


nvidia cards tend to give odd colours to some textures when you push your oc to far, like showing bright pink instead of a shiney texture, or a yellow tint to transparant effects.

a good way to pick on these changes is to run 3dmark, or which ever in game bench you are using, at stock clocks then you get to see how it looks and also how well you score. then as you raise your clocks you can see your gains

 

fasfrank,
Sammorris said:

I agree with Sam, 1.575 is too high! Think of it as that lightbulb that gets very bright, just before it burns out! LOL!! 1.187 to 1.325V is the recomended low and high voltages as per Intel, for the E6600. Myself, I keep it just below 1.40 at 1.392V. Over time you will have to lower the OC a bit anyway as you get some electronic breakdown because of time and heat. The more heat, the faster the breakdown!

If it was me, I would back that puppy down to where it will run just under 1.40V, which seems to be the recommended High from most folks in this forum. It will still be very fast, run cooler and last longer. Mines capable of running 3.394 but I have to raise the voltage to 1.475V Runs fine but it makes my individual core temps go crazy! Since I'm not too fond of seeing my core temps above 65C and staying about 15C higher than the CPU, I back it down to 3.276GHz where it's almost as fast, the DDR2800 runs at a solid 910MHz at a 2.50 multiplier at a 4:5 ratio. There's just not that much difference in performance once you tweak everything up after finding the right fsb. For me it's 364MHz x4=1456MHz. I overclocked my memory by making the multi 2.50 for 910MHz. I overclocked my XFX 7600GT to just better than the 7600GT Fatal1ty model to 653MHz Clock and 1600MHz Memory. It should run like this for the next 3 or 4 years or so. Just the way I like it! Fast, cool and quiet!

Clock On,
theone :}