finally overclocking my E8500

[toyota]

okay first off try to be nice because I am a noob at this overclocking thing. I am not looking for an insane oc but instead just a small boost. at the moment its not even necessary but I am planning on getting a much faster gpu in a couple of months so I will need to oc the cpu a bit just to keep the bottlenecking to a minimum.

ok some mistakes I have made before was just raising the fsb which actually put the memory at 960 which I hope didnt cause any harm. next I tried to mess with the memory timings a bit but that resulted in no booting, obviously my memory doesnt like any thing higher than 5 4 4 12 which are the standard timings.

ok here are some things that worked. I did figure out the 1:1 thing and got the cpu to 3.6(9x400) with memory running at 5 5 5 18 because I left it set to auto. next I tried 3.8(9.5x400) and it ran just fine for prime95. then I set the memory to 5 4 4 12 and left the cpu at 3.8. I ran prime95 for over 30 minutes with no issues and 52 C max temp.

so the exact settings I am using right now with no issues are:
3.8(9.5x400)
core voltage left at auto and its showing 1.312 to 1.296 at desktop and 1.280 to 1.296 for prime95
memory at 5 4 4 12 timings, 2T, 800mhz with voltage left on auto
pci-e set to 100mhz

I am happy with 3.8 and dont really care to go any higher for the time being. please let me know what else I need to change or alter for best long term stability.

 

[GrumpyMan]

Sounds great, leave it like you have it and don't mess with anything else. Mine has been running for over a year like yours, no problems.

 

[BushLin]

Prime 95 for half an hour isn't really guaranteed stability, I've had it crash somewhere after 23 hours, OCCT will usually make such a setup crash sooner and is also free.

Personally, I'd find your highest bus speed at 1.3v or if you're happy at 400Mhz then find the lowest voltages needed to run a long stress test.

 

[Ayah]

Run IntelBurnTest. It'll crash your rig pretty fast if it's unstable.

 

[faxon]

yea use OCCT for "prime95" type testing, and OCCT also has built in linpack (intel burn test) which works really well for a half hour to call it stable test. if it can run for 2 hours without crashing then i doubt you will ever have an issue with it (though you might wanna watch the temps after 2 hours of linpack, shit gets hot lol)

ed: and btw, those voltages seem kinda high for only 3.6-3.8, my Q9650 did 3.8 at 1.25v, 4 at 1.296v, and 4.2 at 1.376, using the same board, and 8GB of ram.