The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

The Vmods are pretty easy to do with the right tools.

The main issue is having a small enough tip on the soldering ironing and a steady hand, otherwsie you run the risk of shorting out pins with too much solder.

I also use a temperature controlled iron to keep the heat down to minimum.

Parts are normally available from Maplins.

I've built and repaired loads of electronics before so I'm used to working on that sort of thing, I've modded quite a few boards now for both myself and others that don't want to risk messing things up.

Some mods can be done with a basic pencil, just by adding a layer of graphite to certain areas, personally I prefer to do it 100% with components.

I have an X3120 CPU but I have never OC'd it, it went straight into my business machine and everything runs at stock.
If I ever upgrade it (unlikely for now) I'll have a tinker with it to see what it can do, but the PC is too important to me to risk messing things up.

 

yea russ i did get them upto 3.6ghz but it was only for bench runs,it needed too much voltage for 24/7 and with the vdroop on this board i needed to give it way more than it needed to keep it it going under load.

for this chip to stay orthos stable it does need more volts than in the superpi screen above, 1.32v or above, but the board cant handle the fsb and ram speeds and ramdomly crashes. i had to drop my ram to 900 to get that screen, i have also dropped pcie speeds and it too seemed to help but just not enough.


edit

can you show me where the true out did the ifx with the same fans? and iirc its not be on the shelves for anywere near a year, but....

@ mort

its the heatsink on my nb that stops me having it the other way but in this case i get better temps with it pointing up anyway, it was the same with my f7p before this. if the mobo cooling was stock it fitts both ways.

 

Alright so I decided to UNDERCLOCK my Q6600 while my new GPU comes in. Right now I am not doing anything but surf the net and watch videos. So now my Q6600 is at 1.2Ghz and set at 1.0v. Everything else is left at stock, no overvolting. FSB is 200, CPU multi is 6x, and Mem multi is 4x. This is a shot of everest showing my temps(which didn't go down as much as I expected). It seems prime 95 stable SO FAR(10 mins).

 

That's exactly what I'd expect - your CPU is pretty much at ambient temperature so it isn't going to lower, and unless you also undervolt the chipset, that's not going to be much cooler than normal anyway.

 

Yeah but the chipset was overvolted to +.2 before and I took it down to normal and the temp only went down 4C. Let me try adding a fan.

 

Abuzar1,

You expected it to keep Ice Cream frozen? ROFL!! There's nothing wrong with those temps! They are right at ambient. The cores won't get any cooler as the reading is from a sensor attached directly to each core. You have to expect some heat, at least a couple of degrees above ambient!

I don't think a fan is going to do much as the chipset temps are much higher than the older 965P chipsets. I've gotten used to chipset temps in the high 30s, low 40s. A far cry from the 25C temps of the 965P!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I can't find where I saw that about the IFX, I thought it was anandtech but can't find it. may be I'm all wet.....................

 

Indeed, chipsets run warm these days, but look at what they can do... Just played Assassins Creed on my PC with crossfire, at 2560x1600 all max details my frame rate is reliably in the twenties - an excellent result seeing as I couldn't get it playable at any setting that looked good with a single card.

 

i think sam will be recommending dual card setups in the future

 

I too, saw that, that it hadn't beat the Ultra 120 eXtreme yet. The iFX-14 has been out for just almost 1 year today. I 1st saw one in the lab in Feb last year. It may have been a sample, but it was for sale for sure in April, cause a m8 of mine baught it end of April '07. He hasn't had an Ultra 120 eXtreme to compare it to.

I read a few forums that claim the same. However I do believe a lot are in favor to the 120 eXtreme because they baught it already and find it hard to except new. I'll keep posted if I do find the reviews and notes.

I'm all for new if it really is cooler at less noise. I do like the massive look and would love to read if it is at least is equal or maybe can beat a the 120 eXtreme by a tad. I still never read any reviews of wether the iFX-10 add on helped any and by how much. We do know it (iFX-10) didnt fit the DQ6 I had last year to let him (my m8) test. So we never tested it.

On a good note, for AM2 ASUS users, it can be mounted in traditional manner (fan air front to back) where as the Ultra is (as is stock) limited to the orientation of your mobo AM2 hole pattern or if 2 extra blank holes can be drilled out like most ASUS.

 

Haha not really, my PC reboots itself or crashes several times a day now. The improvements in graphics are useful, but I miss being able to rely on my PC for solid performance - it's been a while since I've had to worry about the risks of my PC crashing every time I do anything with it. From what I hear though that's only because Catalyst 8.2 is unstable. Hopefully when 8.4 comes out the problems will be solved. As for 8.3, crossfire just doesn't work, full stop so there's no point in using it.

 

How about the Omega Drivers?

 

With Catalyst 8.2 it's about 3 or 4 crashes a day, with the omega drivers about 20. PC crashed if I even looked at the screen, very poor, the omega drivers were supposed to be good...

 

Alright PC acted up again with the freezing and screeching noise. Idle temps are withing healthy range, and a 24 hour Prime95 stress test ran without error. Also memtest86'ed all the sticks of RAM I was using for 24 hours without error. Could a bad BIOS flash be causing problems like I am having? I tested all the RAM modules in hte same DIMM slot could it be a bad dimm slot? (never heard of that happening though?!). I'm at wits end, it really is driving me nuts not knowing when or why my PC would freeze up.

 

You can't go lower than Catalyst 8.2?

 

Just try a BIOS reflash.

 

Good thing I'm not doing Crossfire then!

Ok onto a serious question. I still need to sell my motherboard and I'm working on it. After that it's the P5E! Can I install my 8800GT in the OTHER video card slot? Since both are 16x, I can use either right?

 

yeah im sure you can, but isnt it always best to put it in the first mechanical x16 slot

 

Yes you can, there's no harm in doing that if the other PCI express slot isn't being used.
core2kid: Earlier revisions than 8.2 basically have the same problem as 8.3, crossfire hardly ever gives a benefit.

 

ThermalRight iFX-14 + iFX-10 Keep in mind this is designed to use 1 sinlgle 140mm fan in center as push/pull. 2 will require good space either behind the heat sink or in front. However, 3 140mm should really be able to give one an edge over the Ultra 120 eXtreme if given the amount of room in a large tower case.

I think even 3 140mm in low quiet should equal one high cfm 120mm on 120 eXtreme.