Safest OC for Palomino 2000+

[ironique]

Guys, I need some info here. I'd like to know what's the safest OC for my Palomino core 2000+. I don't have excelent cooling though - stock 2000+ HSF. I'm running on an MSI KT3Ultra2 mobo with one dimm of 512MB Kingston ValueRAM (DDR266). I'm planning to build a 2nd rigg soon, but I want to get the most out of this rigg also. Any info or links to sites with info will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Hobbes28]

I have the same CPU OC'ed 12.5X144=1800 MHz (I didn't mod the multipliers, just upped the FSB) in a Spare Computer. Just make sure you have good cooling as these tend to really heat up when you put a load on them when they are OC'ed (Room Temp. 68F (20C), 107F (42C) idle, 120F (49C)100% load, cheap GC-68 HSF, AS3).

Later...

Sorry, just realized you ask about safest, my guess would be something around 135F (57C) would be "safe" but probably not optimal.

 

[CraigRT]

your best bet would be to trade a buddy for an XP1700 TBredB and overclock that.. the Palomino is a near useless overclocker..

 

[ironique]

Hey Hobbes, is your OC done with default voltage or did you increase you VCore. And if you did, to what value?

 

[loafbred]

CraigRT is right, it's generally not an easy one for overclocking, requiring heavy voltage and plenty of cooling to reach 1.9 GHz. My 2100+ requires an actual 2.0v for problem-free operation at 1.9 GHz. It will run 1.60v at default clock, 1.85v at 1.82 GHz.

 

[Katanaman]

Temperature, voltages, noise and stability are the limiting things. If you want to use air cooling, you need to decide what level of noise you are going to be happy with long term. I don't think you will want to listen to a 6000+ RPM CPU heatsink fan for too long. The Palamino XP2000+ is one of the hottest CPU's around being 0.18 micron and 1667 Mhz at stock speed. Overclock it and it will put out more heat. Using a top of the line Alpha 8045 heatsink or similar and a fast and noisey 80mm fan, (such as a Delta) I would say you may acheive a stable system at around stock speed plus 100-125Mhz. If you want to go faster and keep your system stable you will have to think about water cooling which is more complicated and expensive. Depends on how much time and money you want to put into it. I am not familar with your MSI motherboard and what BIOS options it has for CPU voltage increases etc. When overclocking you will need to increase voltage to CPU and elsewhere for continued stability. The most important thing is watch your temperatures very closely when overclocking. I would recommend keeping your CPU temp under 55 degrees Celcius at all times and make any adjustments very slowly and carefully. You may get the odd blue screen when things become unstable, but you do not want the black screen. The black screen can mean damaged CPU, motherboard and parts. Make one small change at a time. Watch your temps, go slowly with adjustments and it will go well. I have two XP2000+ systems, one I have overclocked to a very stable 1925 Mhz with the aid of a water and peltier cooled system. I have put considerable time and money into building this system. I have had it up to 1967 Mhz but it was not 100% stable with my current motherboard which does not allow PCI and AGP buses to be locked at 33Mhz and 66Mhz, so I dropped the speed back to 1925 Mhz where it is very happy and very cool. A Epox 8RDA+ motherboard should allow more overclocking soon! Take a look at my web site if you like. Cheers :beer: