A8N-sli Premium, Opt 165, 2Gb OCZ Plat - overclocking noob questions

[vgozz]

Hi,

I am a complete overclocking noob - been reading plenty of forums about htt multipliers, CPU multipliers, memory dividers, etc. etc. and I am totally confused. This forum in particular seems to have many helpful and knowledgeable members.

Wondering if any kind soul here can give me a few settings I can try on my system for a decent overclock.

I have:

Opteron 165 dual-core (0551vpmw stepping)
A8N-SLI Premium
OCZ 2GB (2* 1024) Platinum (OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K)
Evga GeForce 7800 GT
and some HDD's, SATA DVD's etc.

I'm hoping to get around abut 2.5 ghz or so to justify buying the Opteron over the
X2 4400+

I am using the stock HSF that came with the Opteron (but man, what a hsf it is!).

Can anyone help me out with what settings to attempt (for each of the main variables...). I realize different settings vary for each person, but just want to get an idea of what will probably work on my system.

thanks in advance,
Vgozz

 

[atybimf]

lol, didn't mean to come off harsh . But yeah, see how high you can raise the HTT keeping everything else at stock and go from there.

Edit: just noticed, you have a very similar stepping to mine. These things seem to be good to about 2.5 on stock volts then need steadily more voltage as you go higher.

 

[vgozz]

Ok - been mucking around a bit and got up to 2.25 with the following settings:

FSB: 250
Mult: 9
Mem: 333 (2-3-2-5)
HTT: 4

All at stock voltages and stock hsf.

So now I am at least a little bit above the 4400 X2

I still have no idea what I'm doing - how can I get it up to 2.5? I guess the thing I'm most confused about is the memory multiplier. If I increase FSB to 300 (300 *9 = 2.7 ) what do I need to set memory and HTT to?

UPDATE: Ah crap... got BSOD during a game of UT2004. ah well - back ot the drawing board..

 

[vgozz]

anyone?

 

[OVerLoRDI]

make sure your temps are good (at or below 50C is decent). Also as you increase the FSB make sure to increase the voltage a little bit (example if your cpu's stock voltage is 1.35 increase it to 1.375). As you crank up the fsb and thus the cpu, it needs more voltage. Another thing to be aware of is as you increase the fsb, your ram speed increases. Make sure to use dividers to keep your ram below or at its max stable speed other wise you will get bsod's real fast.

Check the stickies on this forum for a quick over view of a good process for seeing how high your system can go stabily and for tools for checking stability.

 

[vgozz]

thx for the reply!

I guess the one thing I am mainly confused about is the Ram dividers. I have PC3200 ram, so if I increase fsb to 250 (say), what divider should I use so I am not overclocking my ram?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

with FSB at 250 you should use DDR333 that will give you around 200mhz
If you want to go higher drop to DDR266 and drop the HT multi to 3x, with FSB at 300 and DDR266 this will again give you 200mhz on the ram

 

[vgozz]

hmmm, yeah, that's what I tried, but when playing Ut2004 I noticed framerate was bit choppy (not too bad but noticeable), and then it crashed on me with BSOD. Could that be b/c I was using stock voltages? do you think I need to raise voltage a bit? And if so, what voltage do I modify? Vcore?

I have Antec 2.0 550W PS, so power shouldn't be a prob.

 

[atybimf]

Try the same settings but with the HT multi at 3x.

Then bump the vcore if you still have errors.

 

[vgozz]

gave it a shot - no errors (yet) but game is still a bit jerky - or rather, not as smooth as it is when I don't o/c. Don't understand what's going on, b/c the PCI-E freq. is locked, so why is it affecting framerates?

UPDATE: AHA! I think I may have found a solution to the problem - seems to be a common issue for some people:

Link

Will try it tonight and see if that solves it (hope so...I will o/c some more if this works!)

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: atybimf
Try the same settings but with the HT multi at 3x.

Then bump the vcore if you still have errors.

i was gonna suggest the same exaxt thing.
Change your HTT to 3x. According to Zebo's OC guild, your HTT X FSB shouldnt be over 1000.

 

[vgozz]

thx for the suggestions!

I understand you shouldn't increase it above 1000, but does it matter how far below 1000 it is? i.e. should I use 2x instead of 3x?

 

[aigomorla]

no. not unless u plan on getting a FSB close to 500. :X zebo's guide says u should be as close to 1000 but not exceede it. Theres a lot of technical reasons behind it, but im starting to wonder if it applies to the new AMD chips

 

[starwars7]

Originally posted by: vgozz
gave it a shot - no errors (yet) but game is still a bit jerky - or rather, not as smooth as it is when I don't o/c. Don't understand what's going on, b/c the PCI-E freq. is locked, so why is it affecting framerates?

UPDATE: AHA! I think I may have found a solution to the problem - seems to be a common issue for some people:

Link

Will try it tonight and see if that solves it (hope so...I will o/c some more if this works!)

That link looks very nice!!

 

[vgozz]

yeah, it's a pretty good summary of how to fix stuttering issues - but unfortunately didn't help for me... still getting issues...maybe it's the graphics card, dunno, need to do some more investigating