Not sure where to start

[marksampson]

Hello all

I have recently put together a new system. I am interested in trying my hand at overclocking the thing.

Not sure what to start with. Can I start with the ram 1st. Do not have my new cooler yet for CPU so can not start thier.... or maybe I can if the stock cooler will handle it.

When all done I would like to OC the prosesser, Ram and vidieo card. I did a little reseach and I think all of my hardware is very overclockable.

Thank you any help to get me started would be great. My OS is Win XP Pro and my stock temps are:

CPU Idle=42c - Load=50
Mother Board Idle=36c - Load 39c

Here are my system specs:

Case= Thermaltake Shark

A8N32-SLI Deluxe

CORSAIR XMS Twinx2048-3500LLPRO

Geforce 6800GS 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200

2 in Raid 0 - Western Digital Raptor WD360GD 36.7GB 10,000 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive

Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply

 

[ronnystrauss]

nice rig dude you really dont need to overclock. but overclocking cpu and ram is generally ( can be worked around) the same thing. i think your cpu shouldnt get over 50c so why dont you set ldt:fsb ratio to 3x set then put up your fsb in incriments of 5 or 10 mhz till your computer isnt stable. then up the voltage of your cpu .25 volts at a time. do this till it becomes unstable then when you have the max stable ur good till you get a new cooler. normally there wouldbe other steps but were not looking at extreme overclocking here

 

[ronnystrauss]

PS: you shoulda got a 7900 gtx or x1900xt/xtx ( or atleast 7900gt or x1800xt) cause its kind of bottlenecking your pc

 

[loafbred]

I haven't played with a dual core cpu yet, but I think I can give you some good ideas.

1. Don't try to go much higher in actual cpu speed until you get a better cooler. My single core 4000+ completely changed its tolerance for lower memory latencies (for the better) at moderately high HTT when I got a cpu cooler which reduced temps ~10*C.

2. In BIOS, set boot sequence to CDROM only, disabling HDD's altogether, before testing an overclock change. If you don't have a copy of UBCD, you'll need that before you start. UBCD is an ISO image you burn to CD, which contain a bunch of testing utilities. You just boot from it, and select utilities from the menu. *DON'T* boot from your HDD's until you've tested each overclock change. Corrupted RAID 0 arrays don't tend to repair well, and reinstalling is no fun.

3. Lower cpu multiplier and HTT multiplier to test your RAM's limits. Start with minimum voltages, especially on the RAM. Different brands of RAM, and different RAM chips, react differently to increased voltage. My G. Skill 1GB dimms are running at 466 MHz, 2.5-3-3-8-1t with 2.65v (rated 400 MHz, 2-3-2-5 with with 2.6-2.75v). When I was using the AMD retail cpu cooler, it wasn't quite stable at those settings, even with a lower cpu multipier. I assumed, before, that the RAM was the problem, and I'm guessing now that it was caused by the on-die memory controller being too warm.

 

[marksampson]

Thanks for the info. Like you say I really do not need to OC I do not play any games I mainly use flash, photoshop, render video stuff like that. Thats also why I only got the 6800GS. But I cant help myself I have to try the OC thing just to see........

Thanks for your help