Overclocking, where do I start?

G

GreatBigMouth

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Hi guys,

I've decided that it's time to push my budget dual core to the edge. Are there any guides out there (up to date) that provide step by step instructions on how to overclock a CPU without frying it or causing damage to any other hardware?

Here are my system specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.0Ghz) Stock Cooling. - Will it be possible to achieve 2.4Ghz?
2GB DDR2 667 Samsung RAM
Asus M2NPV-MX Motherboard
Inno3D GeForce 9600GT OC
160GB HDD
460W Gigabyte PSU
 
depending on the cooler you have you could even reach 3GHz is you lucky, but aim for 2.6GHz rather.
The first thing you need to do is drop your HT multiplier in the BIOS (will be called HT link speed or multiplier, but it shoudl have 8X/7X/6X/5X all the way to 1X or it could also be writen as 1000/800/600/400/200. Drop it to 3X or 600MHz)
You should then go to the ram speed settings and set them to the lowest which should be DDR400. If all is well try increase the HT speed slowly from 200MHZ (reference) to 220MHz. That should change your ram speed to 440MHz, which is still slower than what your RAM is rated for. Your CPU should now be 2.2GHz.
Depending on temps you can raise voltage from the standard 1.35~1.4V to 1.5V (dont' go anymore) and check out the temperatures. You'll likely need less than 1.5V but just to be safe set 1.5 provided your CPU temps are under 45'C In the BIOS.

Keep increasing HT speed until you can't anymore or you reach 260MHz. That should put your RAM speed at about 520MHz, but your CPU clock at 2.6GHz.

If you need more details, try www.systemshock.co.za
 
Thanks for the info ShockG. So it doesn't matter if my RAM speed is slower than it's default clock? It won't affect gaming performance negatively at all? I assume that the voltage settings are also changed in the BIOS? What if my temperatures are above 45'C, should I still increase the voltage?
 
What are your recommendations for using a program such as NTune? Will it provide me with the same overclocking ability, or is it better to do it manually via the BIOS? :confused:
 
rather the BIOS.
The tests that nTune does to establish system stability are dodge and because you're in windows, nTune can't adjust voltages etc...
If you temps are above 45'C right now don't increase voltages at all, you may have to settle for a lower CPU clock say 2.4GHz but that's still going to outperform the 2.0Ghz you had before even with the lower RAM speed.
 
Killadoob wrong topic dude....
3870X2 is brilliance, because there's two of them :)
 
Right, I checked out the BIOS and found that there is no 3X option for the HT multiplier. It starts from 5X. (I might be looking in the wrong place though.) My BIOS doesn't look very content-rich. Not sure where to go from here.
 
On some BIOSs there is some secret key shortcut combo that you have to press to get the dangerous options. ctrl-f1 or something like that.
 
If it starts from 5X surely it can go down if you hit enter you should be able to select lower than 5X. Select 4C or 3X I'm sure the option is there...
are you using latest bios for your motherboard? Also what chipset is it?
 
Well, after weeks of trying to figure this one out....... still no luck. PC keeps bombing out on me when increasing the FSB. :mad: Gaming performance sucks. I get these horrible stutters which I KNOW is the cpu since I had the same stutters with my previous card, and thought that it was the gpu. I'm not feeling a huge improvement from my 8600GT, and that's just sad. Any other things I can try?

PS: Poor gaming performance started after I first formatted the drive myself after the initial purchase of my PC. I can't help getting the feeling that I'm missing some basic setting which is limiting my CPU performance.....?

Thanks in advance
 
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