Is there a truly hand-holding guide to overclocking for 1st timers?

[clemtiger007]

I've put together a new rig consisting of a Gigabyte P35-DS3R and a Q6600 with 2GB of Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 RAM.

I tried to sort through enough information to do it on my own last night, but I got myself confused due to the varying terminologies and I guess the basic principles of what I was wanting to do.

I only want to do a minor overclock, as much for the experience as for the results, as I have read that the Q6600's are warmer anyway.

My understanding is this:

CPU Multiplier X FSB = Clock Speed. What I don't understand is how the Ram timings are involved, and how you know what voltage to set things to, and which voltage to change and etc etc etc. All that's done is the CPU seems stable right now, and I don't think my RAM is running at a high enough voltage to push the timing down to CAS4. (It's showing as 5 5 5 18 right now).

Searches on the subject just leave me with bits and pieces of the same information (mostly shown above), but I feel I'm missing the magical piece of information to tie it all together.

 

[AceFan84]

Yeah I second this request. I am also putting together a new pc and plan to delve into OC'ing for the first time. My G0 Q6600 is arriving soon, I am hoping I can get a decent OC out of it. A Newbie's guide to OC'ing would be greatly appreciated.

 

[KeypoX]

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=1947261&enterthread=y

 

[f4phantom2500]

dude, the REALLY good articles are super mega ***** long. I found one on Athlon 64 overclocking back when I started, I read the whole thing. It started with defining all of the terms and technologies, went on to talk about how everything affects everything else, and then gave complete documentation of finding the max overclock of 2 different rigs. it took me all night to read. now i understand a64 overclocking as well as anyone else here.

 

[Cutthroat]

First of all in your BIOS set the CPU and RAM to unlinked or synchronous mode, so that the CPU fsb is double the RAM speed. In other words, if the CPU FSB is set at 1333MHZ the RAM should be at 667MHZ, that is 1:1 ratio (4x333=1333 and 2x333=667). Now turn off all optimizations such as Spread Spectrum, Speedstep, etc.

For noob overclocking all you should do is manually set the CPU & RAM voltages and RAM timing in your BIOS to the manufacturers spec. Then increase the FSB and memory clock a little bit at a time so they stay synchronous. You can likely get to nearly 400MHZ FSB without changing anything else.

So the OP has a Q6600 at 1066MHZ FSB (4x266), so he should set his memory to 1:1 ratio which would be 533MHZ. Then increase the FSB to 333MHZ, which would make the memory clock 667MHZ, and the CPU freq 3.0GHZ. You can likely do that without changing any voltages from thier specs.

Thats about as simple and short as I can make it.

 

[Cogman]

Hand holding + Overclocking = Borked. While overclocking isn't too hard, it Takes computer know how to begin with. You would be best off familiarizing yourself with all the setting of your bios and what they mean before reading any overclocking manual. You will want to look up definitions like FSB, Core Voltage, and Memory timings before you even think about changing stuff there. "If you have to ask you shouldn't do it"

Overclockers.com has some good resources all be it they are starting to age now.

 

[PCTC2]

Originally posted by: Cogman
Hand holding + Overclocking = Borked. While overclocking isn't too hard, it Takes computer know how to begin with. You would be best off familiarizing yourself with all the setting of your bios and what they mean before reading any overclocking manual. You will want to look up definitions like FSB, Core Voltage, and Memory timings before you even think about changing stuff there. "If you have to ask you shouldn't do it"

Overclockers.com has some good resources all be it they are starting to age now.

:thumbsup: We can give you a push, but no hand-holding. You can ask, but we can't do it for you.

My first huge extreme overclock was only 7 months ago. I actually became a comp-tech guy first before I really got into overclocking. I just read a few of the guides around AT forums and then dove in. You have to take some pre-cautioned risks but I got my old E6400 up to 3.73GHz. Just read a few and try it.

Yoxxy's guide is actually the one i followed first as a guideline.

 

[clemtiger007]

I appreciate all the replies so far, though I disagree with the "If you have to ask you shouldn't do it" line of thinking, just because I'll never learn if I never ask!

I have started reading Yoxxy's guide now, and I think Cutthroat's suggestion above is mostly what I am after. 3.0 would be plenty of an overclock for me if it would be stable, and I would be very pleased.

Thanks for the replies and I'll keep reading for more potential hand-holding, errrr, pushing into the overclocking realm!