The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

I got it a month before the price drops, otherwise I'm not THAT stupid, I would have opted for a E6750 lol. I'll post the temps when I get home.

 

sammorris,

You have to remember, I owned an FX5200 long before there was a Radeon 9200! My first one was PCI! My first nVidia card was ISA! LOL!! Before that it was Trident and Genoa that ruled video! That was back in the day when 1 MB of video memory was a lot!

abuzar1,

I wasn't implying that you were stupid! I was just curious. Sometimes I tend to forget how quickly prices change. Seems like only yesterday that the 6750 came out! LOL!! It's only been 6 or 7 months since I've had my E4300! Gotta get my Crystal Ball fixed, that's all there is to it! LOL!!

Clock On,
theone :>)

 

I know you werent implying that, I was just ssaid that... well I dont know why I said it, but it wasn't because I thought you were calling me stupid.

 

Wow, the memories. I used to run Vodoo 3DFX on 1st gen PCI with double stack. The origional Crossfire method. I also ran the early GeForse Riva TNT2 when new and later the MX4000 (great OC'r in their day). But moved to ATI 9800 8X Pro for integration with the new TV Wonder on my 1st P4C800. I had the nVidai FX5900 Ultra on my AMD and found I realy love them top end nVidai cards for good OC stability and upgradability. I still have it running on the P4C800 today but the TV Wonder is falling more out dated. My older TV Wonder doesn't even offer any XP driver support & can just barelt use the Rage Pro I had then to. The MX4000 is still running in an OC'd P3 and looks good.

But now I'm still on the older nV 7950 SLI set and wanna move to a single 8800 if any money left from this project. but I'd go for the Audigy on PCI-E first as I'm more of an audio guy.

 

Try me, january 2004 is when I got mine, and the PC was built several months before that because it was an ex-display model, they both came out at pretty much the same time. Radeon 9200s were mostly PCI, AGP was a luxury really.

 

I built my P4 Northwood 3.2 in June of 2K3 and the Redeon 9800 AGP 8X Pro was already out. In fact it was my 1st and then the FX5900 Ultra by the end of the year, but I got it for my 1st AMD A64 (s754). It is a great card (ATI) and I stil have it on an old Abit IC7-MAX3 & P4 3.4E Prescott. Nicely enough, that mobo was Prescott read in late Jan of '04 when I dropped it in. My P4C800-E w/ same core needed a BIOS flash.

Still Clockin'

 

My first video card is a 7600 GT yay! I don't know if my first pc(Pentium mmx 233 mhz) had a video card or not, but I've pretty much been using integrated graphics before now.

 

To All,
No laughing now!!! My first build in 1989 was an AMD 386/33. Why AMD? Because Intel only had a 25MHz Chip and AMD had a 33 and was about 25% faster and it was cheaper! LOL!! It had a Trident video card with 512 MB of ram! Double LOL!!! I bought this huge card from some company called Ad-Lib for sound! The computer had 1 MB of memory and 256K of on board cache! The Monitor was 600x800 (Windows Standard) and cost about $300! The hard drive was a WD 40 MB! I thought I had died and gone to Heaven! ROFL!!!

EDIT due to faulty memory! LOL!!

Clock On,
theone :>)

 

My first PC was an IBM back in 1992. It was an Intel 25MHz chip (can't remember if it was 8086) with a trident video card, 85MB HDD (still working to this very day) and 6MB of RAM at $2000!!! I added 4MB of RAM my self at $300! And to think, 1GB isn't even over $100 now.

 

Hi theonejrs & Everyone Else,
You'll all have to forgive me for the long delay in replying, I'm on Australian time!. Anyway, heres my rig specs in more detail:

Gigabyte 3D Aurora 570 Case
Seagate 320gig 7200RPM SATA-II 16M cache Hard Drive
Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 MotherBoard
CoolerMaster IGreen Power 600W PSU
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 - 2.670Ghz (1066FSB/LGA775/4MB Cache)
X2 Kingston DDRII800 1GB RAM (1024 MBytes+0+1024 MBytes+0) (Module: 1+2+3+4)
Bios: Award Software International, Inc. Version:F9

Like I said before I'm somewhat of a newbie when it comes to overclocking so I would appreciate any information at all on how to go about overclocking this rig without blowing it up!, A step by step guide would be good or an explination of what settings do in the bios.
Many Thanks in advance.

 

sheeny33,
Looks like you made some good choices! Nice case! I'm glad you bought the one with the side vent instead of the clear window case. Makes for better ventilation all around as the clear window has no vent or fan! I also noticed what appears to be two 9 bladed fans on the rear. They look suspiciously like my Silverstones. Maybe they make them for GigaByte!

Anyway! I would put it all together and let it run for several hours at stock speeds (my preference, as I've learned that patience has it's own rewards). Gives it a chance to burn in a bit and make sure everything is working correctly. I would leave the bios alone and not flash it to the latest, for now! Being that your MB is almost the same as mine, I would recommend the F10 bios if you encounter any problems, depending what bios revision comes with it! Once you have established that everything works properly, then you can go into the setup and start making some changes. My first stop would be at 3.0GHz. Raise the base fsb to 300 (300MHz x 10=3.0GHz) and set the memory multiplier so the memory is running as close to 800MHZ as possible.

It's all easier than it sounds! basically you are trying to ultimately find the limits of the CPU and keep the memory close to stock speeds and timings. Keep an eye on your temps, and I would strongly recommend a 40mm fan for the Northbridge heat sink! I use a Silenex 6 cfm, blowing down into the heat sink. I've tried it on my DS3 both ways and blowing down works best!

Once everything runs all right at 3.0GHz, Go into your setup and make sure Speedstep, CIA2, and EIST are disabled! Then you can make small increases in the fsb until you either get too high a CPU temp or the system becomes unstable. You may have to raise the CPU voltage a bit, but I don't recommend going over 1.40v. I'm sure you will have more questions, but I'm just trying to cover the basics. It's all a question of balance between the fsb, memory speed and timings, voltage and temperatures. You should have no difficulty getting to 3.40GHz and perhaps higher. I've tried to keep this as simple as possible, so it shouldn't be difficult This should at least get you started! Good Luck!

Clock On,
theone
:>)

 

Great Post Theone!, Big thankyou.
Im going to try it out in the morning!, in the meantime....

Can anyone find out what my Kingston DDRII800 1GB RAM rating & Timing is. the product code is (KVR800D2N5/1G). I've looked everywhere and cant find any mention of timings or rating.

 

Sheeny

CPUZ can show the timing tables in the DIMM, and you can get
some info from there. Try the SPD tab and see if there is more
than one set of numbers.

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

If you set the overall memory timings to manual, but leave the
individual settings at Auto, then the BIOS may do the math for
itself. Then check CPUZ later, to see what the memory is being
run with (memory tab). Basically, you'd be selecting DDR2-800
with the memory on Manual, but leaving tCL,tRCD,tRP,tRAS at Auto,
so the BIOS can work it out.

 

sheeny33,

I highly recommend a good aftermarket performance cpu hsf (zalman cnps 9700, zalman cnps 9500, arctic freezer 7 pro) especially if OC'ing but even if you don't. the oem cpu hsf's aren't too woopy and will hold you back temp wise on your OC. as you increase the vcore (which will be required as you raise the cpu freq) the cpu temp will also increase. make sure your dram voltage is set correct and lock the PCIe freq to 100 if using a vid. card.

 

sheeny33,

If I were you, I would see if I could exchange that Kingston memory for something like this! Tell them you misread something, anything to get them to exchange it! It will be worth the few days wait! These are 2x1 GB cas4 with timings of 4-4-4-12 and are about 25% faster stock than the Kingston memory you have!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231087
The price is right and I know it works well and seems to be prefered by a lot of buyers of these motherboards! If you are going to overclock, cas4 is the way to go!

I even went to the Kingston site and all they say is cas5. They don't even list the timings. I'm not a big Kingston fan to begin with. Too many bad experiences back in the old days! This is my first experience with G.Skil memory and it won't be my last! I'm very pleased with it's performance!

Clock On,
theone :>)

 

ck5134,
Just so you know for the future, CPUZ is not a very good way to check memory speed. More often than not it's info is incorrect. With my memory set to cas4 it reports it's cas5! You will get far more information using the Memory Bandwidth test in SiSoft Sandra, as it lists the proper set cas latency, as well as the sub timings and actual speed!

Best Regards,
theone :>)

 

plus it looks like he bought 2 1 gig sticks instead of a 2 gig dual channel kit, so wouldnt overclock as well

 

ah it reported my timings right for my geil, managed to get them down to 3.2.2.2.6 1T not bad for a 2 gig value kit and they run 1 - 1 @ 240 fsb with my 4200 x2 ) bargain,

Not clocking it at the moment as this x2 has one core at 10ºc higher than the other even when idle so im guessing the IHS isnt making good contact with both of the cores so decided to back it right off


I just said cpuz as it would have given him a starting point before actualy tightening the timings.

but noted about cpuz thx.

 

ck5134,

It shouldn't matter as long as both sticks are the same spec! Where you can run into problems is when adding memory down the road. Then it can be a bit harder to match! Just for s's & g's, I've run xms cas2 with cas2.5 Value Select in my old D-940, at cas2 timings with no problems at 940MHz!

Best Regards,
theone :>)

 

theone,

I concur about the kingston cas5 memory. I'd opt for corsair xms2 cas4 or the gskill you mentioned. BTW, I,ve never had any problems with cpu-z readings for memory specs. actually I rely on it. now the vcore reading is a different story. don't even rely on what it says.