Intel duo core etc... but ive never had to balls to overclock a chip; until now
Just wondering if anyones done the same on a production comp, obviously with the excessively heavy cpu load i dont want to cause a fire!
Thanks in advance
Overclocking
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MINIMALTECHNOHOUSE
- mnml maxi
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Overclocking
Im building a new comp.
Intel duo core etc... but ive never had to balls to overclock a chip; until now
Just wondering if anyones done the same on a production comp, obviously with the excessively heavy cpu load i dont want to cause a fire!
Thanks in advance
Intel duo core etc... but ive never had to balls to overclock a chip; until now
Just wondering if anyones done the same on a production comp, obviously with the excessively heavy cpu load i dont want to cause a fire!
Thanks in advance
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SomeoneWhoIsntMe
- mnml newbie
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2007 6:57 am
I used to be pretty into this scene. My current computer is an AMD Opteron 144 overclocked to 2.7ghz from it's stock 1.8ghz.
With proper cooling, you'll be fine as long as you keep an eye on your temperatures.
What you should do is this:
Figure out what chip people are overclocking these days. There's usually a line of processors out that overclock exceptionally well. People will be talking about them on hardware forums and the like.
Research that chip, and find out what speeds most people are reaching on air (water, phase change, LN2 cooling are all silly, so don't worry about them). Next, figure out what the processor's multiplier is. Divide the speed that processor is known to overclock to by the multiplier. The number you get is the front side bus (FSB) speed you'll need to achieve that overclock.
FSB * Processor Multiplier = Processor Speed. The processor multiplier is generally locked (except on chips specifically designed to overclock, like AMD's "black edition" processors), so you're going to need to increase your FSB to overclock the processor. Since your RAM runs at twice the FSB speed, when you overclock the processor you're going to have to overclock the RAM, too. So, buy RAM that is rated to run at twice the speed of the FSB you need, or close to that.
Finally, get a motherboard that is known to overclock well (again, check forums and reviews), and some good air cooling.
If you do your research, it's really just a matter of increasing the FSB in small increments and running tests to check if it's stable. Increase the FSB until it's unstable, then back the FSB down a little and double check to make sure to your overclock is stable.
Because that was a little wordy and hard to follow, I'll give you a real world example: my last build.
I started surfing forums, and saw that this new processor, the socket 939 AMD opteron had just came out. People were overclocking them by quite a ridiculous margin, so I jumped on that bandwagon and bought a processor from the first batch that came to north america. I saw that people were hitting the high 2ghz range on air cooling. The opteron 144 that I bought had a multiplier of 9x, so to get to 2.8ghz with it, I needed a FSB speed of 312. So, I bought RAM that was rated as DDR600 (300mhz x2). I grabbed a DFI socket 939 motherboard, as that was what everyone was overclocking with at the time. To cool the processor, I got a big fucking 120mm fan and put it on a thermalright heatsink. Everything arrived, I built it, and it clocked up to 2.7ghz stable (50% overclock
), where it's run at for the past two years.
edit: a few more things I forgot
when you're overclocking, make sure to keep an eye on your temperatures. if you get to more than 60 or 65 *C under load, it's probably too hot. back off the voltage (which I'll get to in a second) and clock speed, or get better cooling.
to reach higher clock speeds, most of the time you need to increase the processor's voltage. overclock on the stock voltage until it's unstable, then up the voltage a notch and see if it'll overclock any more. remember: overvolting a processor is MUCH worse for it than overclocking it, so never ever ever use more voltage than you need. only increase your voltage one notch at a time, and you should stop adding voltage if the returns start diminishing too much (a notch of voltage up only getting you an extra 50mhz stable or something like that).
With proper cooling, you'll be fine as long as you keep an eye on your temperatures.
What you should do is this:
Figure out what chip people are overclocking these days. There's usually a line of processors out that overclock exceptionally well. People will be talking about them on hardware forums and the like.
Research that chip, and find out what speeds most people are reaching on air (water, phase change, LN2 cooling are all silly, so don't worry about them). Next, figure out what the processor's multiplier is. Divide the speed that processor is known to overclock to by the multiplier. The number you get is the front side bus (FSB) speed you'll need to achieve that overclock.
FSB * Processor Multiplier = Processor Speed. The processor multiplier is generally locked (except on chips specifically designed to overclock, like AMD's "black edition" processors), so you're going to need to increase your FSB to overclock the processor. Since your RAM runs at twice the FSB speed, when you overclock the processor you're going to have to overclock the RAM, too. So, buy RAM that is rated to run at twice the speed of the FSB you need, or close to that.
Finally, get a motherboard that is known to overclock well (again, check forums and reviews), and some good air cooling.
If you do your research, it's really just a matter of increasing the FSB in small increments and running tests to check if it's stable. Increase the FSB until it's unstable, then back the FSB down a little and double check to make sure to your overclock is stable.
Because that was a little wordy and hard to follow, I'll give you a real world example: my last build.
I started surfing forums, and saw that this new processor, the socket 939 AMD opteron had just came out. People were overclocking them by quite a ridiculous margin, so I jumped on that bandwagon and bought a processor from the first batch that came to north america. I saw that people were hitting the high 2ghz range on air cooling. The opteron 144 that I bought had a multiplier of 9x, so to get to 2.8ghz with it, I needed a FSB speed of 312. So, I bought RAM that was rated as DDR600 (300mhz x2). I grabbed a DFI socket 939 motherboard, as that was what everyone was overclocking with at the time. To cool the processor, I got a big fucking 120mm fan and put it on a thermalright heatsink. Everything arrived, I built it, and it clocked up to 2.7ghz stable (50% overclock
), where it's run at for the past two years.edit: a few more things I forgot
when you're overclocking, make sure to keep an eye on your temperatures. if you get to more than 60 or 65 *C under load, it's probably too hot. back off the voltage (which I'll get to in a second) and clock speed, or get better cooling.
to reach higher clock speeds, most of the time you need to increase the processor's voltage. overclock on the stock voltage until it's unstable, then up the voltage a notch and see if it'll overclock any more. remember: overvolting a processor is MUCH worse for it than overclocking it, so never ever ever use more voltage than you need. only increase your voltage one notch at a time, and you should stop adding voltage if the returns start diminishing too much (a notch of voltage up only getting you an extra 50mhz stable or something like that).
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SomeoneWhoIsntMe
- mnml newbie
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2007 6:57 am
A few more things:
get a good power supply, it'll make everything more stable.
while you're at it, you might try your hand at overclocking your graphics card too. it's quite a bit easier, as you do it through software. you should be able to squeeze some extra clocks out of it pretty easily. keep an eye on the temperatures (remember that graphics cards always get a good deal hotter than CPUs), and if you notice artifacts (weird graphical fuckups while playing 3d games), back off the clock speed and memory speed until it goes away.
I remembered the application I used to test if my overclock was stable, it's prime95. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime95 http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm
I used to lurk hard forum ( http://hardforum.com/ ), to get info. The site owner is a dck, and they've been proven to have rigged reviews (by messing with benchmarks if I recall correctly), but the form it's self has quite a few knowledgeable people on it.
get a good power supply, it'll make everything more stable.
while you're at it, you might try your hand at overclocking your graphics card too. it's quite a bit easier, as you do it through software. you should be able to squeeze some extra clocks out of it pretty easily. keep an eye on the temperatures (remember that graphics cards always get a good deal hotter than CPUs), and if you notice artifacts (weird graphical fuckups while playing 3d games), back off the clock speed and memory speed until it goes away.
I remembered the application I used to test if my overclock was stable, it's prime95. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime95 http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm
I used to lurk hard forum ( http://hardforum.com/ ), to get info. The site owner is a dck, and they've been proven to have rigged reviews (by messing with benchmarks if I recall correctly), but the form it's self has quite a few knowledgeable people on it.
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denniswhite
- mnml newbie
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whatever you do, dont do what i did and spend £600 on the cpu, RAM and motherboard and then £10 on a PSU.
PSU blew on the third time of starting up the pc and melted my motherboard. RAM was reusable, CPU and Mobo were history.
lesson learned.
personally, i cant be arsed with building my own pcs now so i just spec them on dell and when i get them, reformat and do it all meself again.
PSU blew on the third time of starting up the pc and melted my motherboard. RAM was reusable, CPU and Mobo were history.
lesson learned.
personally, i cant be arsed with building my own pcs now so i just spec them on dell and when i get them, reformat and do it all meself again.
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MINIMALTECHNOHOUSE
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MINIMALTECHNOHOUSE
- mnml maxi
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