Looking for opinions on a conservative overclock

[Rodknock]

The specs of my machine are in my sig. I've never really tried to OC before, this is actually my first 'dedicated' gaming rig, so I'm looking for advice about anything and everything. Is 1333Mhz on the FSB too high (brings the CPU to 3ghz) and the ram to 1000Mhz. Everything is on stock voltage at that level. I'm also wondering, why was my ram set at DDR800 (before overclocking the FSB) when it's advertised as 1066? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[yiranhu]

why don't you try FSB of ~2000 MHz with mem ratio of 1:1... LOL
That will give you 4.5 GHz with memory at 1000 MHz. If I had spent so much, i would certainly shoot for the star on this config.

 

[Roguestar]

I'd suggest a memory ratio of 4:5, multiplier at 9x and an FSB speed of 400Mhz. That'll give you 3.6 on your clock and your memory will run at 1000mhz.

 

[The I]

Your memory is set at 800 mhz standard because the frequency depends on your fsb, 266 mhz quad-pumped, and a multiplier. The standard memory-fsb-ratio on C2D is 266 mhz fsb and 800 mhz memory but you can set it higher in the BIOS.
Some people would advocate that running the memory and fsb 1:1, that is for example at 1066 mhz with the fsb at 266 quad pumped, which is basically the same as 1066 mhz. If you wish to overclock it's probably better using the 4:5 multiplier (which is the standard one) as your memory will probably bottleneck you before the cpu does (I doubt your memory will take 1333 mhz though I'm no expert on the field, while the C2D should be able if you overvolt a bit).

As long as you're on stock voltages and have reasonable temps (<70 degrees measured in core-temp or Intel's TAT should be alright I think, that's about 52 degrees in a tool like speedfan, at least on my mainboard) there's nothing to be afraid of. I personally hit a ceiling somewhere around 3.1 ghz on stock voltages, and since I'm probably not cpu-limited anyway I don't bother going further than 3 ghz because of the extra heat and noise (actually I have mine on 2.4 right now).

I've heard overvolting substantially can cause 'electro-migration' causing your cpu to loose the ability to overclock over time (>1 year I think), but I don't know that much about it.