Which one determines the overclocking limit, MB or CPU?

[SFang]

I have one 1.6A P4 Northwood Costa Rico bought from Newegg.com.

In order to test, I put it on two motherboard, P4B266 and P4B266-C.

On P4B266, this CPU can be very stable at around 2.4Ghz, passed Prime95 no problem. However, on P4B266-C, this same CPU @2.4Ghz, failed after only three minutes of Prime95, currently only stable at 2.33Ghz. Both with the same voltage, same PS, same case, etc.

I heard a lot of people discussing about how CPU from somewhere made different from the CPU from somewhere else made.

Is it the Motherboard, or the CPU that determines the overclocking limit? If test with the same motherboard type (like both P4B266, not -C), will we get different results also?

Thanks for any info to this. 🙂

 

[Dre]

The CPU should matter the most, but the Mobo can play a small part in overclocking success

 

[ShinSa]

They both play a big part. You want a CPU that has a potential, and a mobo that can bring out that potential such as an ABIT or ASUS.

Try overclcking on a INTEL mobo. The board's steady as a rock but you wont get much overclocking out of it.

Overclocking does not depend on one single variable. It's a combination of cpu, mobo, ram and you pci devices.

 

[FatPat]

I sure wish I'd done more reading before I bought the MSI 845 Ultra, 1.6A, Crucial l stick 512DDR2100, and Sunflower HSF. This is my first overclocking project and I didn't know the full skinny concerning memory and overclocking. The more I read I should have gotten a different mb and memory to do good with the 1.6A cpu.

I'm running @1.87 with 1.65 core voltage and FSB 117. I know I'll have to do the wire trick, but I want to hold off from that as long as I can. What setting are recommend for the memory? Thank for any advice, Pat.