novice O/C question...

[Wigwam]

hope i dont elicit too many sighs with this question AGAIN....
i want to try my hand at o/c'ing my new system [2100+ on A7n8x deluxe].
i appreciate that people are posting their timings and stuff and that is great for my future reference but just to take a step back: to do a step-by-step O/C i know in principle that the FSB and multiplier can be increased but not too sure about when voltages etc need to be adjusted.

i would be most appreciative for a pointer in the right direction: be it a brief summary or a link to the relevant part of the forums.

thanks

 

[brucehao]

Most processors these days have locked multipliers, meaning you can't alter them. Therefore, overclocking begins with increasing your fsb. The higher the fsb, the faster your processor will process, for lack of a better word. However, you will eventually reach a speed where it can no longer effectively process information and begins to make errors. At that point, increasing the voltage to the cpu will allow it to process information accurately again.

So, you should begin with your stock vcore, increase your fsb until your system is unstable, then increase your vcore a notch or two until your system is stable again. Continue this cycle until you reach a point that increasing your vcore no longer offers any stability benefits.

At the same time, remember that increasing your vcore will decrease the life of your processor. The more you increase the voltage, the more detrimental the effect. Small to moderate increases should not be terribly detrimental. But, in the end you will want to balance the speed of your processor with an amount of voltage you find acceptable.

I am myself an Intel guy, so I can't give you too many specifics in terms of AMD.

You can use Prime95 and Memtest86 to test for stability. 5 hours of Prime95 and 10 loops of Memtest86 should be adequate for most cases.

 

[drewski]

the thoroughbred cpu will be unlocked on your nForce 2 board.

to test max FSB, you can really lower the multiplier and then up the fsb until you get instability.

for the best performance you want to run your FSB & Memory timings in sync so if FSB = 200MHz, make the memory 200MHz as well! some bios use a % (100% = sync) and some use a ratio (1:1 is what you're looking for).

conversely you can run async to test the max for your memory, like running fsb @ 166 & memory @ 200 or higher. this removes a chipset that can't run a high FSB out of the equation.

higher FSB will be better performing for the same clock rate (i.e. 200x10 is better than 100x20).