Overclocking a Newcastle Athlon 64 3000+: What are my chances?

[PepperBreath]

Basically this is the system I'm running right now:

ECS nForce 3 board
A64 socket 754 3000+ (newcastle) at default clock
(2) Mushkin 512MB DDR 400 (PC 3200) RAM

I've ran this system for a while and I'm satisfied with it. When I originally built it I used a Thermaltake XP-90 heatsink with Arctic Silver in order to put a larger fan on the CPU instead of the noisy OEM one.

I'll likely be upgrading my system late this year so I'd like to push a little more umph from my current build. However, I realize that the Newcastles aren't nearly as overclock friendly as the Venice cores.

Can anyone give me a rough ballpark of what kind of OC I can get if I don't change anything?

Another thing to consider, despite being an nforce 3 board, the ECS motherboard seems to have some overclock settings locked out. At least, when I read that OC guide at the top of this forum, I don't have a lot of the options mentioned. Would nTune be an adequate substitute?

 

[Jeeper94]

PepperBreath, I was able to overclock my 2800+ Newcastle to 2.2GHz back in the day. I would think you should be able to get to 2.4GHz on the 3000+ Newcastle. Remember, these processors run a little warmer than their .90nm brethren. Also remember to use a RAM divider. I would find out what your max FSB is.

Here is a website that will help you get the most of your processor.

 

[myocardia]

The average Newcastle will overclock quite well, with a good motherboard. My CG-stepping Clawhammer* will do 2.7 Ghz, and performs admirably for a Socket 754 chip. CG Clawhammers and Newcastle's usually overclock about the same.




*A CG-stepping Clawhammer is a Clawhammer, with the Newcastle memory controller.

 

[aka1nas]

I have that NF3 ECS board in my wife's rig and it will probably be what limits your OC. The board only goes up to 250HTT and frankly isn't stable for me at much above 225HTT. I am running a .90nm Sempron in it currently.

 

[sthaznpride17]

I remember that ECS nForce 3 Board with 3000+ combo I got at fry's. Mmm OC'ing isn't such a good idea with that mobo, I tried a very very mild OC with that combo (100mhz) and the board died. Returned it and got a DFi Ultra d. I guess you could try to OC it but really don't be surprised if you can't.