Just a few simple questions about overclocking

[BlackDragon]

These may have been answered in the overclocking guides but i may have missed them.

1)Whats the max safe voltage(vcore?) before stuff starts to break for an E6600?
And what about the memory(vdimm?) such as Geil Ultra Low Latency PC2-6400?

2)So far i've learnt that overclocking is about increasing frequency, however sometimes you need to up the voltage a bit to get that increase in frequency. I've read that you need to increase it in the smallest amount possible. My question is how many times do you up the voltage until you should realise that your hardware has reached its limit and increasing it anymore will not make it work at the frequency you want it to? As i wouldn't want to keep upping the voltage hoping to get the desired frequency only to bust my computer

3)What can i do to minimise the chances damaging my copy of windows on the HD as i'd hate to reinstall! I read something like if you reduce the timings of memory it can cut things short and this is when corrupt things can get written onto HD which makes things go wrong. So basically i should be fine as long as i don't touch the memory timings, or at least don't make them tighter (reduce)? Or will the same happen if i increase the timings (loosen)?

4)Whats the max safe temp of an 8800GTS with a stock cooler? Because im thinking of doing a bit of overclocking it. Any dangers that i should be aware of with overclocking graphics other than it overheating?

Any other tips regarding these questions would be nice

Thanks in advance

 

[RadoX]

1 depends what cooling you are using if air about 1.5 ive been told but id play it at 1.45 to be safe

2 look at the overclocking guides for this one tbh or get someone else to answer. seen as i have little time to post all things that you could notie


3 this rearly happens.


4 ocing that will make you look cool but theres not that mutch point imo.



glhf xD

 

[w3bbo]

1. Temperatures will most likely be a limiting factor especially if you are using air cooling. Try to keep the temp <70c I prefer below 60c but thats just me stuck in the old AMD days. Here is what I consider 'safe'

stock - 1.5 safe
1.5 - 1.6 water/phase cooling required
1.6+ excellent watercooling/phase change cooling and then only for short periods.

Having said that I run 1.6v 24/7 (4ghz) and my cpu aint dead (yet) but I wouldn't recommend it if you plan on keeping your cpu past a year or so. There have been very few reports of conroes dying so accurate information on what is safe or not is sketchy to say the least - it all depends on how brave/stupid you are .

2. There is no set rule to follow so its impossible to answer - just keep going until either a) you need more vcore than you are comfortable with or b)temps become a problem.

3. Hard drive corruption happens quite frequently especially so when you go beyond the capabilities of your pc. Memory frequency and timings are culprits of this but over time an unstable pc will also eventually corrupt the hard disk. If you are using raid arrays be very carefull. Things have improved with most boards locking the pci frequency to 33.33mhz but there is always the possibility of things going awry when you are pushing the limits.

4. Same risk as overclocking anything else really. Heat is more of a problem on GPU's (specifically the memory) as this will cause artifacting(glitches) so again take it slow and test at every stage.

 

[BlackDragon]

Could i eliminate the risk of corrupting stuff on my main drive by just plugging in another SATA drive and booting off that instead of the other(main one)? Or will it still somehow corrupt the main drive?

 

[w3bbo]

Any drive can corrupt if it is attached to the motherboard while you are clocking m8. But it usually the system drive that suffers as it will be that one that is being accessed/written to when your pc decides to turn itself off due to overheating etc.

If you are not talking about major overclocks and you take things slowly the chances of HD corruption are small - don't lose sleep over it. But if you value your data then back it up before overclocking just in case.