oc athlon 64 3400

[sayser]

hay guys i am new to overclocking here but i king of want to try to boost up my computer by maybe 5% just to try it.

Here is what i got
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MSI MB K8N NEOPLATINUM 7030-10 S754 NFORCE3 250GB 8FS I2FR

AMD Athlon 64 3400+,Retail, 512KB L2 Cache,64-bit Processor

THERMALTAKE A1838 AMD Opteron / Athlon64 CPU Heatsink/Fan

Corsair TWINX1024-3200PT(2x512mb)-DDR, XMS3200, 2x64Mx64 non-ECC, 2x184 DIMM, unbuffered,
3-3-3-8, 32Mx8 DRAMs

Video Card: G-Force 4 Ti4200
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i did 3DMark3 test and got 1766 it is low but i guess its because of my video card

I spent about $800 on motherboard/processor/memory combo and this is a lot of money for me so i feel a bit shaky to mess with overclocking, but if anyone has any suggestions what i can do to overclock it just a little bit i would be thankful

Also if anyone knows about "CoreCenter" this came with motherboard that allows me to change FSB in windows but i am not sure how safe it is.

Any suggestions would help thank you

 

[sayser]

ok here is what i tried
I changed FSB to 210mhz so now my system is runing at 2310MHZ
is there anything else i should change like Vcore?
my CPU temp is 45C when i am not doing much and it got to about 56C after an hour of doom
is that ok tem for my CPU?
any tips would help
thank u

 

[Quino]

I do not use core center since it makes my computer freeze . I do it trough the bios. Currently running a 3400 @ 2530 1.55V using a corsair HydroCool200EX 100 Perncent stable I would go to 220 and I am pretty sure your cpu will take it no problem (free upgrade to 3700). Just make sure to change the AGP to 67 (so the agp lock works) and up the voltage a litle

 

[Quino]

Also, the system is begging for a better video card :evil:

 

[Mullzy]

Your video card is definately holding back your 3D gaming performance. With that exact system you'd be around 6000-6500 (at least) with a 9800 Pro or whatever's similarily priced from the nVidia side (is there anything the same price with the same performance?)

Anyway you have the right idea. The basic overclocking formula is to increase your FSB (isn't it really HTT or something in AMD world now?) until either your memory or your cpu start to complain. Increased voltage on either can be the solution and it basically boils down to "how high on CPU voltage are you willing to go."

Sometimes your PC3200 RAM will start complaining around FSB 220 (DDR440) and you have to drop the memory ratio to 5:4 so you can keep pushing your CPU higher without ram being a bottleneck. You have to run a program like Memtest86 to see if your memor is stable.

Search these forums for "torture tests" and "prime" and you'll find some goodies on testing your stability.

Every overclock is a bit of a crapshoot, but in your case you won't get too much more out of that ti4200. As much as I liked mine, newer games cream it pretty badly.

 

[sayser]

ok here is what i tried
i used CoreCenter for this

I got my FSB to 210 mhz X11.0 = 2310mhz
played doom 3 for about 30min, it ran just fine no crashes or anything but my CPU temp got to 56C

is it ok or should i stop pushing it?
also at FSB210 do i need to do anything about Vcore? right now its 1.50

 

[Yanagi]

I would stop it right there seeing your temps beeing at 56C. Buy a better cooler and you'll probably will be looking at 2.5GHz or thereabouts. Seems like most CPUs will reach that speed.