First time overclock?

Dayzed&Confused · 28 Sep 2012 at 16:09

Hi,
I built a system with a 960t, 8gb of ram @1600MHz, an MSI R6450 and an MSI 970A-G46, with plans to overclock it, but as I have no experience in OCing I thought it best to ask for help, how do I overclock safely, and what sort of temps/speeds should I aim for?
Thanks,

Dayzed&Confused · 29 Sep 2012 at 21:30

I have an Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 Pro Rev.2 CPU Cooler, planning to change paste to Arctic Silver 5, is this sufficient of OCing? Incidentally, my friend overclocked his 2500k on the stock cooler, so why is it so bad?

Dayzed&Confused · 10 Oct 2012 at 12:51

What cooler would you recommend for a cash-strapped teenager on a very tight budget? I think that liquid nitrogen is a bit out of price range, but given that my temps don't rise above 45 C when on 100% load for 6 hours, with patchily applied cheap thermal paste that needs re-applying, do I really have to get a better cooler?

Dayzed&Confused · 15 Oct 2012 at 21:11

So, no further advice?

Dayzed&Confused · 18 Oct 2012 at 20:29

which variable should I alter first/ which is least likely to screw up, multiplier or fsb?

Dayzed&Confused · 21 Oct 2012 at 21:55

JonSmith said:
The multiplier on the 960T is unlocked so go with that.

Also your 960T has two hidden and disabled cores. You should be able to attempt to re-enable them with your motherboard.

The Thuban dies are generally good clockers, 980BE speed (3.7GHz) should be doable at <1.4V on the CPU

Tried unlocking in the bios, no luck, was stably clocked to 3.4 Ghz, but after a couple of days of non-use, the settings reverted to stock. Any ideas?

Dayzed&Confused · 27 Oct 2012 at 13:18

Stably clocked to 3.6 Ghz with 1.37v, tried pushing further to no avail, temps around 30C when idle, more like 40C under load, any further advice?

Dayzed&Confused · 28 Oct 2012 at 13:25

replaced thermal paste, not yet broken in, now 25C when idle, 35 under load.

Dayzed&Confused · 4 Jan 2013 at 13:04

Clocked to 4Ghz stable with 1.41v but will need a better cooler before pushing further, Is it worth overclocking the CPU-NB or RAM, if so, how do I go about doing so?
With regards to coolers, what sort of temperature difference would I see from a £30 air cooler, a £50 air cooler, an a £50/£60 closed loop water cooler?