Basic Question Regarding Overclocking

[flakcannon]

Im sure this is a simple question, but Its something that I need to clarify In my head.

When does it become necessary to unlock a CPU manually? By way of the pencil trick, or conductive ink... I know this isn't for all boards, but how do you know if your board is capable of this? Or that It needs it done manually in order to overclock?

I know for example the ECS k7s5a doesnt need anything manually done unless you're trying to modify the voltages. But k7s5a is a poor example of an overclocking board.

Asus or ABit let say, Do Athlon XP's need to be manually unlocked in order to change their internal multiplier to achieve higher cpu speeds? Or can the bios control this? Ive seen how to unlock them, and how to change their multipliers, I just dont know when you need to manually unlock, if at all?

Thanks in advance for the replies 🙂

 

[johndoe52]

Yes for all XP's you need to manually unlock the chip so you can change the multipier in the bios. So to answer your question it's a combination of the two. I am however lazy so I simply raised my fsb to achieve higher clock speeds.

 

[gaidin123]

You can overclock your computer in 2 ways: FSB overclocking and increasing the CPU multiplier.

In modern Intel CPUs the multiplier is hard locked. You can't unlock it so your only overclocking option is to increase the FSB speed thereby getting more Mhz for your multiplier.

In current AMD CPUs the multiplier is locked by default but as you've seen it's pretty easy to unlock it. So, with AMD you can overclock via the clock multiplier or via the FSB, or using a combination of both.

If you want to keep your PCI peripherals completely in spec (ie running at 33Mhz) you must run your board at 133Mhz FSB (or 166 if it supports a 1/5 divider). Overclocking by upping the CPU clock multiplier is the only way to go. By increasing your FSB you increase the PCI bus speed as well as the AGP bus speed as both are a function of the FSB. Running your peripherals out of spec can cause instability. In general, the best overclock will be a combination of either raising or lowering the clock multiplier while finding your maximum FSB speed.

The CPU multiplier adjustment area of any motherboard's BIOS is dependant on whether your CPU is unlocked or not. If the CPU is locked, it will stay locked no matter what you set it to in the BIOS.

Hope this helps,
Gaidin

 

[flakcannon]

Giadin -

Thankyou! That was an excellent description and it really cleared some things up for me. Thanks everyone else also for your responses...



-FlakCannon