Old school overclocking

[dkm777]

Hi guys,

Today I built the core of what is going to be my HTPC. I have an ASRock 939A790GMH mobo and an Athlon 64 3000+ Venice CPU. After installing Windows I noticed that web browsing can be a little sluggish at times, which is to be expected with a single core CPU, so I decided to overclock it a bit. But soon I just couldn't help myself and arrived at a stable 2.5GHz. How far can these chips can be pushed? Mind you I didn't raise the voltage, just increased the bus speed and set an appropriate memory divider. I use a Phenom II BE stock cooler and the temp didn't exceed 56 degrees C. while Prime testing.

 

[Concillian]

It won't get a ton further. Some could hit 2.8 GHz or so.

 

[chubbyfatazn]

Yeah, you're probably not going to get much farther than that. I'm impressed that you made it to 2.5 on stock volts, though.

I maxed out at 2.75 with 1.48v on my 3700. Fun times.

 

[Absolute0]

I had a 3000+ venice core that primed at 3.0 on my watercooling. How much further u can get tho really depends on how much vcore you need for 2.5. In general the better chips will do 2.8 or more but that's if ur lucky. From experience tho, I can tell u that these chips are very temp sensitive and lose stability fast when they go beyond 50 or 60c. Get a better cooler if you want to OC any further.

 

[dkm777]

I'm at 1.4V right now. There's a warning in the BIOS that says I shouldn't use higher than 1.45V. How true is it?

 

[aaksheytalwar]

I'm at 1.4V right now. There's a warning in the BIOS that says I shouldn't use higher than 1.45V. How true is it?

True unless you have super cooling and/or don't plan to use more than a few months at these settings and mostly idle most of the time when in use during these months

 

[dkm777]

True unless you have super cooling and/or don't plan to use more than a few months at these settings and mostly idle most of the time when in use during these months

OK, then I'll just leave it at 2.5GHz, since all the heavy lifting will be done by a GPU and browsing the web now feels totally acceptable.