Abit IP35/Q6600 overclock question

[mjavid]

Hi,
I used the OC Guru windows program to increase the external clock speed to 332 MHz, trying to achieve a 3 GHz overclock. I did'nt mess with anything else. When I ran CPU-Z, it said that the memory (I have 2 X 1 GB 667 Kingston) was running at 415 MHz.

My idea was that I would get 3 GHz using 9x multiplier (default for Q6600) with an external clock and memory at 333.

So where did the 415 come from???????

Will it be a problem with my DDR2 667 RAM????

I am new to overclocking and may have missed out something really basic, so please bear with me!

M Javid

 

[21stHermit]

I'm 90% sure that when you increased the FSB to 332, you also increased the RAM a proportional amount. Your MB BIOS has settings to decrease/ratio the FSB to Memory speed. Select a ratio that get the RAM back into spec.

HTH
Hermit

 

[stevty2889]

Your memory runs at a ratio to the FSB. When you overclocked the FSB to 333 you overclocked the ram. If you want the ram to run at 667mhz(333x2), you need to set it to run at 266(aka 533) in the BIOS.

With your FSB at 266, and the ram set to 333 it's running at a ~1.25x ratio. At 266fsb you'll actually be running the ram at 333. When you overclocked to 333, and left the ram setting at 333(1.25x) you overclocked the ram to 333x1.25 which is ~416mhz(or 832mhz).

It's possible your ram is running ok at that speed with default voltage and timings, but I would run memtest to verify the memory is stable. Otherwise just change the bios setting to 266mhz for the ram, and it will actually run at 333mhz(1:1 ratio, ram will run at same speed as FSB).

 

[mjavid]

Thank you!
By the way since I seem to have inadvertently overclocked the RAM, is there any advantage to just leaving it that way? What impact will this have on the system performance (if any?) Will this overheat the RAM?

M Javid