Athlon overclocking questions

[steve154]

I just ordered an Athlon 700 w/900 core. I think that I am going to get an Asus board. What type of GFD should I get? What is the easiest one to use? What about cache? Where is the the divider set? On this 700 where do I need the cache to be to run 950-1000? I'm Athlon ignorant, this is my first non Intel overclocking project. Thanks

 

[Insane3D]

You will need to set the cache to 1/3 to go over 950, 2/5 to go over 800 or so. I am not sure of the GFD, but I would highly suggest the KA7-100, it is the best o/c Athlon board IMO. I have my 850 running at 1ghz without a GFD on that board...

 

[Mickster]

ditto

 

[Ulysses]

Have you considered the new Athlon/Thunderbird:

http://www.athlonoc.com/slottbird_1.htm

 

[steve154]

I just sold my 550e and board so I could still get a decent price for it. My intentions were to wait a few weeks and get a T-bird. Then I saw that they are going to be locked so I decided that I would go with a classic Athlon and try to get to 1GHz. I will wait for the T-bird and see how the overclocking situation develops. I just didn't want to wait a whole lot longer.

 

[Technonut]

If you are getting a 700 with a 900 core, chances are that you may get one with 2.8 or 2.9ns cache chips. They are very good for overclocking. I have a few Athlons that I have been fooling with that have 2.9ns cache chips, and have one with a 800 core going perfectly stable at 955.72MHz at 2/5 cache, 1.80V. This is on a KA7 that has the FSB at 119, with the GFD set at 800. The memory is running at 155MHz CAS3, medium. The performance is great. Here are the benchmarks to see for yourself what you may get with good memory, and the KA7:

http://www.auctioncabin.com/cpuid119.jpg

http://www.auctioncabin.com/sanmem119.jpg

http://www.auctioncabin.com/sancpu119.jpg

http://www.auctioncabin.com/sanmmx119.jpg

It does take some time and BIOS tweaking, but is worth it. I ran 20 loops of 3DMark2000, played Unreal, and Klingon Academy to test for stability. I used to run a K7-Pro, but have found the KA7 just as stable, and much faster when tweaked.

 

[steve154]

The chip that I am getting is supposed to have 2.8 cache, guaranteed. I was aslo considering a KA7 and am leaning more and more towards it. Can I keep the heat plate on and still use any GFD? I have seen some that say that you can and others that don't mention it. I am kind of worried about removing it. I am also looking for a heatsink. Which ones can be used with or with out the heat plate and cover? I might decide to just notch the case. Is it a pain to put the heatsink on with out the case on? Sorry for so many questions

 

[Insane3D]

To my knowledge, GFD's do not require the removal of the CPU backplate, just the front plastic cover. I would also suggest spending the few extra bucks and getting the KA7-100. You get support for RAID, two extra IDE headers for a total of four, and ATA/100 support. I am using the IBM 75GXP in ATA/100 and it works very well. The KA7/KA7-100 will allow the use of very large heatsinks like the VOS32 without any modifications like are needed on the ASUS boards. You should do very well with that cache, I have the same on my 850. The heatsink attaches to the backplate, so if you are just removing the plastic case, you should have no problem. I would not be surprised if you hit 1ghz, but I would expect 900-950 because all chips are not guaranteed to hit that speed. The KA7 is a very stable Athlon board, I am running at 118mhz (237mhz DDR) FSB and most Athlons don't like over 110 or so. Good luck..

 

[Terp]

<<If you are getting a 700 with a 900 core, chances are that you may get one with 2.8 or 2.9ns cache chips.>>

I can I tell what core I have in my 750MHZ? the numbers on the top of the CPU tell me anything?