Does oc'd machine run as fast as regular machines?

[MTAX]

If I oc'd a 1.6A to, say 2.53ghz, will it be truly as fast as a 2.53 ghz?

 

[meefmah]

No, it will be faster. 133MHz FSB compared to 158MHz FSB.

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

In most cases faster. For such an exreme overclock you would need to up the FSB which improves overall system bandwidth and is actually more effective at increasing system performance than simply increasing the core clock.

 

[MTAX]

Thanks for the quick response.

I'm sold on the 1.6A then. Any advice on MB and memory?

 

[meefmah]

RDRAM or DDR SDRAM memory. that is the question you need to answer. I do recommend not using SDR SDRAM. RDRAM is currently the highest performing RAM, but can be quite expensive. A specific motherboard recommendation is mult-faceted and requires many factors to consider. Cruise the boards (check out what others are using), make a list of candidates that fulfill your requirements, read the reviews, then look them up on Price Watch. BTW. before making your processor choice, be advised that the 1.6A may not reach the level of overclock you mentioned. It's a gamble with no guarantees. You may get there, but with a stability or reliability compromise. If you do valuable work on it, use a faster non-overclocked processor. If it's an enthusiat's rig and crashes, corrupted data or possible hardware failures won't hurt you, then go with the overclock. I have a 1.6A @ 133MHz FSB=2.13GHz without problems. I had it up to 155MHz FSB=2.48GHz, but I ran into problems with heat and stability. The (air)cooling requirements to run 155MHz FSB were too noisy for me. It's happy and quiet running 133MHz FSB. I also have a 2.2GHz P4 stocker for work. Oh I forgot. I have a Gigabyte GA8-SRX w/512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM and an ASUS P4T w/512MB PC800 RDRAM(this is my work rig).

 

[VBboy]

Yes 🙂 (At LEAST as fast - because when you overclock the bus, as opposed to just the multiplier, you make your RAM and sometimes AGP/PCI buses work faster).

 

[Cuda1447]

When you guys do this kind of overclocking is it neccessary to watercool it? Or is a good regular cooling system just fine? Im curious because I want to OC my Processor/Mobo/Everything when I get my new rig, but I dont really wanna pay $150 For water cooling.

 

[Derango]

Originally posted by: Cuda1447
When you guys do this kind of overclocking is it neccessary to watercool it? Or is a good regular cooling system just fine? Im curious because I want to OC my Processor/Mobo/Everything when I get my new rig, but I dont really wanna pay $150 For water cooling.

Not with a P4 Northwood, unless you want to get it Insanely high. In fact, most people are getting to 2.4ghz ok with the retail HSF and a 1.6A

 

[McCarthy]

Unless you're backing off memory timings for the overclocked bus it'll be as fast or faster if the FSB is higher than that of the 'real' one. Or in the Celeron days disabling the L2 cache to make the overclock or setting it's latency way high, not sure if people still do stupid stuff like that or not.