Overclocking questions galore!!

[PRESIDENTEJEREMY]

I will be building a new system and I plan to overclock it. I have never overclocked a system before and I have been spending hours reading articles. The problem is that many articles have information in them that I still dont understand. Here is my planned system:

Intel 2.4c
Asus p4p800 deluxe 865pe (or) Albatron px865pe pro II
At least 512 mb memory, preferably 1 gb
PSU ??
Thermaltake A1715 P4 Spark 7 fan

-everything else I aready have
liteon 52x cdrw
liteon 16x dvd
ati 9600pro
creative pci 512 (I need to trash this and get something better)
Logitech 400watt speakers


Now here are some questions I have:

1. I want to overclock to at least 3 ghz (250fsb), preferably more like 275fsb. What kind of memory do i need to do this. Will pc 3200 work, or do i need 3700 or 4000 even?

2. What are these CAS settings I keep reading about (ex: 2.5-3-3-6)? I honestly have no idea what these settings stand for and how they relate to the memory bus speed and the cpu bus speed?

3. I know i need a p4 compatable psu. But do i need a higher watt (450 or 500) psu if i intend on overclooking to a 275fsb?

4. I've also never installed a cpu on a motherboard. Is there a preffered kind of grease i need to use when placing the heat sink on the cpu?

If these questions do not belong here, could someone at least point me to where I can read about them, especially #2? Thank you ahead of time for any help...

 

[Ronin]

Originally posted by: PRESIDENTEJEREMY
I will be building a new system and I plan to overclock it. I have never overclocked a system before and I have been spending hours reading articles. The problem is that many articles have information in them that I still dont understand. Here is my planned system:

Intel 2.4c
Asus p4p800 deluxe 865pe (or) Albatron px865pe pro II
At least 512 mb memory, preferably 1 gb
PSU ??
Thermaltake A1715 P4 Spark 7 fan

-everything else I aready have
liteon 52x cdrw
liteon 16x dvd
ati 9600pro
creative pci 512 (I need to trash this and get something better)
Logitech 400watt speakers


Now here are some questions I have:

1. I want to overclock to at least 3 ghz (250fsb), preferably more like 275fsb. What kind of memory do i need to do this. Will pc 3200 work, or do i need 3700 or 4000 even?

2. What are these CAS settings I keep reading about (ex: 2.5-3-3-6)? I honestly have no idea what these settings stand for and how they relate to the memory bus speed and the cpu bus speed?

3. I know i need a p4 compatable psu. But do i need a higher watt (450 or 500) psu if i intend on overclooking to a 275fsb?

4. I've also never installed a cpu on a motherboard. Is there a preffered kind of grease i need to use when placing the heat sink on the cpu?

If these questions do not belong here, could someone at least point me to where I can read about them, especially #2? Thank you ahead of time for any help...

1. PC3200 is rated at 400MHz FSB (which is the 200MHz base you'd be starting from). If you want some overhead to work with, I would suggest getting higher rated RAM (PC3700/PC4000 certainly wouldn't be a bad purchase)
2. This is a reallly basic explanation of what you're looking for
3. 400W PSU should be more than acceptable to do what you want to do, just make sure you get a decent quality one.
4. The Nanotherm thermal paste has had the best results in my experience (even better than the Arctic Silver III). That would be my suggestion to go with.

 

[bjc112]

Don't waste your money on PC 4000 even 3700 for that matter..

You can hit a 250 FSB on PC 3200 5:4 ratio...

Get some PC 3500 save yourself a good deal of money and run a 275 FSB 5:4 ratio.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Originally posted by: bjc112
Don't waste your money on PC 4000 even 3700 for that matter..

You can hit a 250 FSB on PC 3200 5:4 ratio...

Get some PC 3500 save yourself a good deal of money and run a 275 FSB 5:4 ratio.

Umm...NO. If you want performance which seems to be the aim here you NEED to go 1:1. So get the 4000 as it is rated at 500 which is 250fsb but should go 275 with some extra voltage and with relaxed timings. If you were going with an AMD system I woudl certainly suggest 3200 but with an Intel system that you want to OC to that degreee defintaly go with the Higher stuff. I would suggest Mushkin Level 2.

 

[edmundoab]

Mushkin Level II black High Performance PC3500 should do the job

 

[PRESIDENTEJEREMY]

Thank you all for contributing to my newb thread. Heres another newb question. What exactly is the 1:1 or 5:4 ratio? Is that the ratio of memory bus to cpu bus? Why would it be better to have a 1:1 ratio rather than a 5:4 for performance? Also is there a difference in stability between the two?

 

[PRESIDENTEJEREMY]

Oh yeah, and thank you ronin for the link

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Yeah those ratios are from teh cpubus to the mem bus. and one to one means there is no bottle neck in frequency. On a 5:4 ratio the memory is going slower than the fsb so the read spead from the memory is slower.

 

[FPSguy]

Originally posted by: DerwenArtos12

Originally posted by: bjc112 Don't waste your money on PC 4000 even 3700 for that matter.. You can hit a 250 FSB on PC 3200 5:4 ratio... Get some PC 3500 save yourself a good deal of money and run a 275 FSB 5:4 ratio.

Umm...NO. If you want performance which seems to be the aim here you NEED to go 1:1. So get the 4000 as it is rated at 500 which is 250fsb but should go 275 with some extra voltage and with relaxed timings. If you were going with an AMD system I woudl certainly suggest 3200 but with an Intel system that you want to OC to that degreee defintaly go with the Higher stuff. I would suggest Mushkin Level 2.

The question of 5:4 or 1:1 memory ratio is not a simple one. There is a long debate about it, with several citations to articles and benchmarks, in this thread. What I take from it all is that you want to max out your FSB first, and if you are going to get much above 250 FSB it's unlikely you can get decent memory to handle that speed at 1:1 with decent timings, so you are better off with 5:4 and good timings (especially if cost is a factor).

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Originally posted by: FPSguy

Originally posted by: DerwenArtos12

Originally posted by: bjc112 Don't waste your money on PC 4000 even 3700 for that matter.. You can hit a 250 FSB on PC 3200 5:4 ratio... Get some PC 3500 save yourself a good deal of money and run a 275 FSB 5:4 ratio.

Umm...NO. If you want performance which seems to be the aim here you NEED to go 1:1. So get the 4000 as it is rated at 500 which is 250fsb but should go 275 with some extra voltage and with relaxed timings. If you were going with an AMD system I woudl certainly suggest 3200 but with an Intel system that you want to OC to that degreee defintaly go with the Higher stuff. I would suggest Mushkin Level 2.

The question of 5:4 or 1:1 memory ratio is not a simple one. There is a long debate about it, with several citations to articles and benchmarks, in <a class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=28&threadid=1154746" target=blank>this thread</a>. What I take from it all is that you want to max out your FSB first, and if you are going to get much above 250 FSB it's unlikely you can get decent memory to handle that speed at 1:1 with decent timings, so you are better off with 5:4 and good timings (especially if cost is a factor).

Yes if cost is a factor then it must be considered. But there is ram with good timings in the 3700-4200 area. I would assume that since ths is such a good computer he will want to use it for quite awhile and that he intends to game with it and though it is very hard to reflect what memeory will do for future games.