Testing and CM vs. Freq.

[DKlein]

A few questions from a somewhat inexperienced o/c'er:
When overclocking, in what increments do you guys generally go up and test at? Do you skip ahead a few at the beginning, expecting to not run into problems with the first 10MHz? What would you guys consider "stable"? For a MP 2600+ how high would you think a safe voltage would be?

I'm thinking of getting an AN7 w/a MP 2600+ and wonder if I should get DDR400 and try to get the MP in sync with it (which would be about 5x200 keeping the processor stock speed right?) or just go with lower speed RAM (price not a major factor) - is there any significant risk/reward to those particular setups? Correct me if I made any horrendous mistakes in my thinking/math here

 

[myocardia]

Why in the world would you buy an MP2600 to put on an nForce2 motherboard? The only reason they cost more money is because they are SMP-capable. If you're only running one processor, you don't need an Athlon MP, man.

 

[DKlein]

What would you suggest for the same price range?

Edit: range is $230-330 motherboard/CPU.

Why? Well I've heard a lot of people squeaking out a few extra 100MHz with the mobiles over the regulars. I guess I missed the multi-processing part somehow (I could always go with that, granted it's probably not as easy or cheap as just getting a single CPU, maybe in a few years...)

 

[myocardia]

A mobile Barton is an XP-M, not an MP. Here's a link to an Athlon MP 2600: link. Yes, get yourself an XP-M 2600. I'm quite happy with mine.

 

[DKlein]

Oh okay, naming problem now I feel stupid. Mobile processor, MP, seemed to make sense. Now that we've got that cleared up, what do you guys say to the rest of my post? Did I make any other grievous errors?

Okay I'm going over the math here... newegg says that the XP-M 2600+ is 266FSB, which since the 2500+ is said to be 333, I can assume that this means the 2600 is 133 freq and the 2500 is 166 (as mine was). So in order to get 2.0GHz, the multiplier must be set to 12.5. So DDR400 would equal a 200 freq, which would actually be a 10 multiplier (how I thought 5x200=2000 I don't know). Of course this is before the real o/c'ing begins...

 

[myocardia]

Yeah, but the multiplier is unlocked on the mobile Athlons. The only problem with that is that most motherboards won't let you put it higher than 12.5x, no matter what it will do with any other unlocked processor. The only 3 that will let you go higher than 12.5x are the DFI Ultra Infinity (only up to 15x, though), all versions of the Abit NF7, and the latest version of the Asus A7N8X (not sure about the A7N8X-X, but the newest Deluxe will). Oh, the NF7's and the newest A7N8X will both let you go as high as 22x for the multi. Of course, you do realize, don't you, that 12.5x200 is 2.50 ghz? Oh, and the stock fsb is 133 for all mobile Athlons, including the XP-M 2500.

 

[DKlein]

Well I'm doubting my math skills right now , but I was just saying that to get to the standard clock speed it would be 12.5x133 (the 333 was the regular XP 2500+). And I'm intending on getting an A7N8X or NF7-S.

 

[myocardia]

Yeah, for overclocking, I would recommend the NF7-S over the AN7. Oh, and to answer one of your previous questions, the safe voltage for the mobile Bartons is the same as for the desktop Bartons. Anything under 1.80v, and you're completely safe, although some people are running them at quite a bit higher voltages.

 

[someone16]

1.8 is a good max to go by. Most of the time by 1.8Volts the CPU kinda peaks and will require alot more voltage to get more mhz.

 

[DKlein]

Thanks a lot guys. Any advice on testing?