The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

Wow, there's nothing in that build I'd keep if upgrading it to be honest, but as a priority change the PSU. Some Ultra units may be alright, but a fair few certainly aren't. You don't need anything as powerful as the 650TX unless you're after dual graphics, the 520HX will do you fine for modular cables, and if you want cheaper, go with the 550VX, or even the 450.

My turn to be a 'wise guy' here, I'd stay away from overclocking Pentium Ds too far, yours may have just about kept up with the Athlons Russ, but you pushed a motherboard a bit too far, and that was a solid Asus board. Since ECS boards are basically made out of paper, you should be careful!

 

The pentium Ds' were quite decent overclockers for their time. Tomshardware overclocked a D805 to a stable 4 GHz. I ran one at 3.8 GHz for months. It chewed up enough power to probably dim the lights within a 100 Mile radius, but it did great. I wrote a guide on another forum on how to reach 3.6 GHz with a D805 on a three phase board power supply. The Conroe's of course set a new standard for overclockablility but the D series had its merits. The D series just lacked the architecture to truly compete in a time when AMD was beating Intel's butt. The D series both 800 and 900 were based on Intel's netburst technology, and although it was not an efficient one netburst processors could handle high heat and lots of volts.

 

No problem overclocking them, I seem to remember at the time the D805 was a jawdropper for big overclocks, everyone was buying them! But as many people experienced to their cost, the vast amount of power they run can be a bit taxing for weaker power regulators.

 

abuzar1,

Hey man I was just poking fun! I was just pointing out that it was the form factor, rather than a performance difference. Otherwise someone that doesn't know might feel that they should use a Full ATX because it's better, which it isn't, so why even make a meaningless comparison like that? Also the P35-DS3 is old tech (over 2 years old) while the Rampage Formula is new tech! Oh! BTW, I did say that the Corsair would probably be the better buy! Based on 2 1/2 years of experience with mine, the Thermaltake W0093 would still be my first choice because of it's extreme quietness and performance! The rated noise level of 17dB @1300 rpm is very believable, and like I said it's the quietest PSU I've ever owned!

sammorris,

It was a solid MB for a P4, but was never designed for the load of a Pentium D! It was later beefed up to accommodate the Pentium D's after Intel announced that they would port the 865P chipset to the Pentium D's!! The one I got as a replacement from Asus was more heavy duty in the VRM's! Remember also that I had my problems when I still had that PowMax 480 watt PSU. I had it as high as 3.94GHz, ran it for several months at 3.86GHz, but encountered a glitch encoding and dropped it to 3.71GHz. I never had any power problems after the switch to the Thermaltake W0093. I was also able to hit 4.0GHz using it! Sanity took over (along with some serious yelling at from Sophocles LOL!!) and it ran the remainder of it's time with me at 3.84GHz, and ran more than a year at stock speeds for Russell till the MB finally died!

The D-805 was a terrific overclocker, thanks to a high CPU multiplier. We both know a couple of people who overclocked the D-805 to 4.0GHz!

As far as ECS motherboards go, the only one I ever owned was an exercise in futility as they simply lied on the spec sheet. It did not support the 800MHz Prescots as it said it did on the box and in the manual! Considering I bought it from Fry's as a combination MB/CPU with the 3.0/800 Prescot, I don't know who lied worse, Fry's or ECS! LOL!!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Hmm! I seem to recall that you were looking for a fusion reaction on a three phase power supply with yours. LOL

 

Sophocles,

LOL!! Yes, but had I been successful, I wouldn't have needed any power supply at all! Just about 40 Lbs of lead! ROFLMAO!! I can still hear you yelling at me though! LOL!! I fully deserved it as I did know better! I do think you meant Three Phase Power Regulation on the MB! LOL!!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Correct!

I don't remember using upper case (caps) during the entire exchange, but it was an interesting discussion. If you had succeeded we would all have more affordable and cleaner power.

 

hey guys, ive been reading on how to overclock, im getting a q6600. and i was wondering, is the only way to OC is by going into the bios and changing the multiplier and such? is there like a program that can OC?

also, im getting a q6600 from newegg, and i read that the G0 version is better than the B3, how do i know which version im getting?

and im getting a GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3 motherboard, with a corsair 550VX PSU. would i be able to easily OC to 3.0ghz? 3.4ghz?

 

I would bullshit you, but I dont feel like getting banned today.

Get the OEM cpu from newegg, it's G0. Get a decent aftermarket cooler for OCing. All RELIABLE ocing for 24/7 operations is done from the BIOS. If you're setting a record or something you OC from BIOS and then some more in Windows. Or if you have a locked BIOS.

3ghz should be easy, 3.4 will depend on your chip and cooling.

 

thanks abuzar. helped a lot

 

sup!

 

No problem.

Imran, not much. Going to be overclocking a Xeon soon. I will let you guys know how that goes.

 

dragnandy,

For future reference, look at the Manufacturer's Product page, if it's newegg. It will show the exact processor page it's supposed to be from Intel with all the specifications. This way you have some recourse if they "accidentally" ship you the wrong one. All you have to say is that you checked the manufacturer's link before you purchased it and that the link "they posted" must have been wrong, and you usually will be taken care of! Newegg's pretty good about that!

Best Regards
Russ

 

ive been googling some guides on how to OC and i came to this thread.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1198647

what do you guys think about it? that threads pretty old so do you think the process of OC a cpu is pretty much the same? have you ever used Prime95 as a cpu stress tester? how long did it take to get a stable computer? from reading the guide it would take days! they suggested running the cpu stress tester for like 15+ hours on one setting to arrive at a stable cpu.

 

dragnandy,

Most of us regulars here stress test for 12 to 24 hours! Even then, you get the odd glitch that shows up down the road and have to adjust things for it. A real good test for stability is Folding at Home! Chances are very good if you are completing the work units assigned to you, it's stable! You also don't have to beat the hell out of your CPU for problems to show up!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

dragnandy,
I've changed some of how I test... I don't like to stress the crap out of my cpu with Prime95, OCCT, or whatever method you want to use for hours on end!!! What real good does that do?? It's gonna fail using that system at some time, if it's 2 hours or 48 hours or one month. Doesn't make much sense to me. Of course I'm not one of the gurus, and DON'T claim to be either. A couple of hours will normally do what you need to see about stability. If you want to test the cpu you need to use it like you normally would or like Russ said do a little Folding@Home to see how she'll really do.

Ok... my 2¢ are over... lol.

.....gm

 

nice, keep us posted!

 

man, overclocking seems like such a hassle. but its definately worth it

 

re seatign the NB TIM with OCZ freeze has me no more BSODS at 3.2GHz, its dropped my SYSTIN from 50 underload to 38, and from 45 idle to 34.

simpply superb. i dont kwno what PLL and the GTL references do, but i have found out my most stable ones, and its helped. right now im orthosing a 3.3GHz. been about 10misn no, no probelms yet, but ill see in the morning

 

dragnandy,

Just keep in mind that overclocking is something that should be done in stages, working your way up in speed. It also takes time, something the younger crowd here doesn't like to give up easily, and patience! I use Prime95 instead of OCCT or Orthos as their loads are totally unrealistic to any real-world use, in my opinion! Every degree higher in temperature correspondingly shortens the life of any CPU and Microprocessor! At stock speeds the CPU might last 8-10 years, overclocked it might only last 5! I'm trying to determine stability here, not cook Hot Dogs! LOL!! When you are satisfied with your results, do some Folding at home for a few days, and if it completes all the work units, you should be good to go!

Keep in mind that whatever stable overclock you reach, eventually you will have to back it down a bit, because of real world use issues, like Folding, games and so on. That solid 3.8GHz will eventually become 3.6 to 3.7, but it will be Rock stable at the reduced speed. Exactly what you are looking for!

Best Regards,
Russ