The Official OC (OverClocking) Thread!

Is that why I always end up dead?
And I thought it was because I was crap, I knew it must be the tools to blame not me!

I have thought about a gaming mouse/keyboard but never got around to it, my last purchase on that line was an EverGlide Titan mouse mat.

 

Hmm, I must say since changing to a gaming keyboard and mouse I have improved a lot, but then I've had more practice.
Anyhow, this board is odd.
I changed the multiplier to 8, then tried going past 1000mhz again, this time it worked, so i set the multiplier back to 9 and it still worked. Now I can get as far as 1166mhz with 9x multiplier... it's all or nothing, either it boots to windows fine, or it doesn't even POST, no in-between like before where you might get a crash on the windows xp splash screen...

26 second superpi, down from 40 or so with my X2 before, I'm impressed seeing as this CPU cost me half as much as my 4200+.

 

R U running 2x256MB ram or a single stick?
The board should be able to get to a stable fsb of about 475+ giving a q-pumped fsb speed of 1900+.
What BIOS is loaded on the board? & what settings do you have in the BIOS?
Also what stepping is the CPU?

 

A single stick. I ordered 2x512MB but one of the sticks was bad so I'm waiting to get them replaced. I've decided to upgrade from them anyway and ordered myself 2x1GB CAS4.

Edit: http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/633/cpuzhg9.png

 

sam,

You won't be sorry with the better/more memory.

 

Precisely, my PC runs nowhere near as good with a quarter of the RAM (even before the commit charge is above 512M) even though my 3dmark06 score has gone up by 1000.

 

Wow I gonna order those parts now and I hope I could play with it for some time anyway I got a few questions to ask.

1. So does the parts allow overclocking if so do you guys reckon its necessary.

2. I found this site to build my own pc since its my first time and was wondering if it misses anything out. http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/ if its no good what guide do you guys suggests.

3. Are the parts suggested by BigDK enough to build a fully working pc and does it include like windows xp.

4. I take it from all the advice you guys build your own pc so I was wondering if anything go wrong with it, so if your pc stops working how do you guys fix it?

 

If anything goes wrong, ask us here. Most of us rely on our own knowledge to get us out of holes, but there's nothing that can't be solved by looking it up or asking here. The realistic components BigDK listed are pretty decent, but obviously there are a few components in the dream league, so you'll need to scale back to whatever you can afford. Personally I'd recommend:

Core 2 Duo E6600
Asus P5WD-H Deluxe
2x1GB Corsair XMS2 PC-6400 CAS4
BFG 8800GTX OC
Sound Blaster Audigy 4
Thermaltake Toughpower / OCZ GameXStream 700W PSU (the enermax is overkill in my opinion)
NEC ND-5170 DVD writer (I never saw a reason to spend an extra £60 on a Plextor drive)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB - lots of storage, Raptors are again overkill

As for the case, up to you.
check out:
NZXT Lexa
Antec Nine Hundred
Coolermaster Stacker 830
Thermaltake Tsunami
Coolermaster Centurion 530
among others.

 

Good choices. Intel E6600 def. best bang for the buck. Everybody has their own preferances. The asus P5W DH Deluxe already has very good onboard audio and you could most likely do without a sound card (up front anyway). I personally prefer lite-on dvdrw drives. Another case to consider is the cooler master mystique. I really like mine.

 

novadrago,

Trust me when I say at best the guide from buildyourown is poor. It just lacks way too much detail like case fan positioning. Since I have only seen 1 set of screw-in nylon standoffs they should have at least mentioned that they were brass. Then you can't make a mistake. I personally think it's best to install the CPU, memory and CPU cooler before installing the motherboard in the case. In the case of the CPU cooler, it makes a "most-times" trying job easy by the access you have to otherwise tight places with the MB in the case!

Woefully Inadequate guide and not recomended for Newbbs!

Hey Crowy!!
Don't you have an opposite to your "Crowy Seal of Approval"? This guide definetely deserves it. I see what they tried to do, they dummied it down! They just went too far down the scale of what's left! Problem is in doing it they lost so much information needed by a newbbe, to understand what they are talking about. I laugh most times when I read guides like this, but then again I've been building computers since 89, and messing around with them since as early as 83!

From a Timex/Sinclair to a Dual-Core Intel in 24 years! From 3.5MHz to 3.6GHz! Wow!!!

Happy Computering,
theone

 

the guide...hhmmmm...i would say its showing its age (isa anyone?) and not in a good way, but it does seem to cover all the basics.

everyone has there own way to do things and somtimes the situation dictates it you just need to look for any possible problem so you can think your way around it.

i think most of it would stand up to a build today but some of it is now usless. most good cases sold now are "toolless" so things like dvd and hard drives are mounted with push clips or slide rails not screws. these are things you find out when you get the case home as most have quite good guides for instalation.

 

Thanks sammorris for that list, so is the list complete so if I got all the parts thats my pc done?

Also sammorris I realised that you listed alot of different cases and do they all meet the specification for the parts you suggested since I found out certain cases can only fix certain parts.

 

Most cases fit most components, the only problems people ever seem to have with them is that the enermax galaxy power supply is very long and can't be used in conjunction with a top case fan, and that the 8800GTX graphics card is very long and people moan about it not fitting. Usually what happens though is that it needs to be mounted before the hard disks and you'll do alright.

 

There was no operating system listed, you need to decide what you want to use.
Personally I would go with either XP Pro 32 bit edition, or Vista Home premium edition 32 bit.
Either way, go for an OEM version, as the retail is just adding a nice box, a manual and limited support.
All you need is the operating system, and the licence key that goes with it.
If you go with the P5WDH then I can give you a very simple guide to building it, and also plenty of BIOS tweaks to enable over clocking.

As for 'is over clocking required' probably not, but if you can do it why not?

You may want to get an anti-static wrist strap and some Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste, some thermal cleaning liquid and purifier.

Also better off getting an after market CPU cooler.
These are cheap and very effective.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=340995

If you're only playing games and not going to use the system for burning films and games, then it won't matter what make of burner you get, if you also want to produce quality DVds then I would always recommend Plextor as they produce very low errors when burning.
Your unlikely to see any of these errors with the human eye, but if you run the dusks through a scanning program then cheaper burners will give more PIE PIF errors

 

oh ok now im finally starting to buy parts and was wondering where can I find a decent site to do this. I live in the UK so uk sites only please.

 

You save a lot on shipping these days if you get it all from one place (plus it's easier). Try all these sites, of all the ones that have all the components you want (if none do, obviously you'll have to compromise, for my last order I went with Overclockers and Scan) try:

http://www.ebuyer.com - massive wholesaler, cheap prices on some items, not so cheap for others!
http://www.savastore.com - Had some good deals from them in the past, their website's currently down.
http://www.aria.co.uk - good company to deal with
http://www.scan.co.uk - professional company, huge warehouse, decent prices, not always quick deliveries
http://www.overclockers.co.uk - Often some good deals to be had, but beware, recently their deliveries have been very late (1 week + on next day delivery)
http://www.dabs.com - good experiences in the past
http://www.misco.co.uk - not dealt with them, but good word of mouth

there are a few retailers I know, of. Above all avoid http://www.microdirect.co.uk - after experiencing their business practices they don't deserve anyone's business!

 

oh ok so which site has the most options and best deal since shipping time is not a problem for me.

 

Unfortunately, prices change day by day, so you'll have to visit a few of them and the products to the basket and see how much it all come to. I switch back and forth between companies because one gives me a better deal at the time of purchase. Misco is the only company out of those listed that I haven't used.

 

I'm currently choosing a case but stuck cause I read the description but not sure what it can handle.

I was looking at http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=452016 and was wondering if it contains space on the front for an dvd writer a dvd reader and others eg usb ports

 

Cases like that have openable doors that cover the drive bays. For that case:
Here is where the drive bays are...
and the front USB ports are located on the right hand side.