Overclock Results - thoughts requested

[jahutch]

Well all, I just wanted to post the results of my overclock thus far. I was aiming for a modest 2.5 GHz, and achieved it without problem.

System:

Nforce 3 Ultra Mobo
1 Gig DDR400 RAM
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Venice core)
Geforce 6800 (stock speed)

Overclock settings:
250 Mhz FSB
4x Hypertransport multiplier
166MHz RAM Divider (Speed 250 * 1.66 = 415)
+.025 volts (Stock my mobo supplied 1.36 - 1.37, now it supplies 1.39 - 1.40)

This is preliminarily prime stable. Prime failed at default voltage - upping it to the setting above solved the problem. I have only done about a 10 min prime test - I will let it run overnight tonight. Temps seem fine - under 40C. I think I could get a lot more out of this CPU - but I'm not sure I see the point right now! Plus 250 seems optimal for hypertransport ratio and for my RAM.

Here are the 3D Mark 2005 results:

Stock: 3517 3D Marks
GT1 - 14.6 FPS
GT2 - 10.4 FPS
GT3 - 18.3 FPS
CPU1 - 2.2 FPS
CPU2 - 4.0 FPS

Overclocked: 3565 3D Marks
GT1 - 15.2 FPS
GT2 - 10.3 FPS
GT3 - 18.4 FPS
CPU1 - 2.5 FPS
CPU2 - 4.7 FPS

A few quick questions on these results:

1) Are these results from 3d Mark 2005 reasonable for my system? Note that the Image Quality setting in the Nvidia drivers is set to "quality." I see people getting more 3d Marks than me - but im guessing they are OCing the video card?

2) It seems odd to me that a 500 MHz overclock increased 3D Mark scores so little. Is this just because this benchmark is heavily graphics card limited?

Any comments on these results is welcome!

 

[jahutch]

Note: Running 3D Mark 2005 with "High Performace" image quality settings increased the GT framerates and resulted in a score of 3719.

 

[n7]

Drop the LDT (HT multi) to 3x & bump up the HTT. You'll likely have to use a lower RAM divider too, but it's worth it if you can get 2.6 or 2.7 GHz of your baby 🙂
Also, you can likely bump the vcore to 1.55V safely.

Don't worry about the RAM speed/timings for now; focus on finding the max CPU 🙂

 

[jahutch]

Hey, thanks for the info!

I know I could get higher if I wanted to.. but for now I want to just stay at 2.5 I think. I wasn't planning to overclock it at all at first, but everyone convinced me I ought to do at least a bit, so I went for it - but I'm still on the modest side with it. 2.5 sounds pretty good to me, I'd rather not push it anymore 😛. I'd tend to prefer to be on the "low end" rather than "pushing the envelope." Also, I like how little of a voltage jump I need here - I'm sure the CPU can take more, but in my worry prone mind, I like it as close to default as possible.

In short, I wasn't looking for a max OC, rather, a modest one that requires a minimum of tweaking. I think that's what I've got right now. It is prime95ing now (I'm on my laptop), so assuming it passes, I think I'll leave it at 2.5 for now. In the future I may bump it up a little more of course.

 

[jahutch]

Ok, so I got greedy, and tried 2.6. Surprisingly it wouldn't go. I kept getting a blank screen and then the comp would reboot and switch the CPU back to defaul (2.0 GHz). This is with 3x HT, and 133 RAM Divider, neither of which should be a problem at 260 FSB. I tried upping the Volts, all the way up to +.175, but then I got a different BIOS error. So, ultimately, I put it back at 250 (which was 10 hours prime stable as of this morning).

The only change I kept is I changed the System Performance setting from "Normal" to "Fastest." I honestly have no clue what this even does - the manual wasn't too helpful either. But Fastest sounds better, so there I am.

I am Prime 95ing it a bit more, just to make sure this change didn't do something weird.

Otherwise though, it seems somewhere between 2.5 and 2.6 is my limit.