new to overclocking

spacegrass · 27 May 2006 at 15:34

Hi, Im new to overclocking, however following a guide I found I increased the core speed of my athlon 64 3200 from 2000mhz to 2400. This is around a 20% increase :cool:

Which isnt bad, but I was wondering, how much more of an increase would I be able to make if I was to invest in a new cpu cooler, say something like the freezer 64?

Im not prepared to try out water cooling right now, so i assume a new cpu cooler is the only way to get further gains?

my specs;

amd athlon 64 3200+
foxconn NF4K8AC motherboard
xfx 7600gt 256mb
1.5 gigs unbranded pc3200 ram
maxtor diamondmax 10 80gb hdd
..............................160gb hdd
sumvision 500w psu

Thermaltake soprano case

4T5 · 27 May 2006 at 15:38

I am here to Offically claim you as Mine.

Welcome to the Best forums on the Interweb.
Someone who knows what he is talking about will help you i will just sit proud.

Looks at my sig notes. :cool:

A.N.Other · 27 May 2006 at 16:06

You can't just claim him and say nothing else in an 'advise me' thread! Poor show I say.

Anyway, back to the point of the thread! You can probably get some more out of that yet with the stock cooler. What are the present OC settings ... FSB, RAM speed and multiplier, HT multiplier, VCore etc? Also what temps are you getting idle and loaded?

However, saying that, a new cooler would probably help you long-term. Also, what is the configuration of your RAM - as you have 1.5 gig, it may be effecting your overclock. If you have 3 x 512, it will stop the board running in 1T command mode and if you have an unmatched pair, it will stop the dual channel from working probably (I think - I'm not a RAM expert). You may want to try taking some RAM out and seeing if you can overclock further like that.

cokecan · 27 May 2006 at 16:22

Welcome to the BEST forums on the net

thats quite a respectable overclock ya have there on a first attempt

as A.N.Other said about your ram, 3 sticks my be limiting you and running at 2T timings (not good). if you just used 2 sticks in dual channel you should be able to get 1T timings and maybe a bit more FSB out of em.

also a better and quieter cooler never hurt

i dont think it matters if their matched or not, any 2 sticks should work. from what i have seen and read on the net over the years, in theory any 2 sticks should work in dual channel, even if their different speeds etc (it just runs both of them at the lowest speed) but i think they do need to be the same size at least.

it may be best to ask in the mem forum on that one...?

A.N.Other · 27 May 2006 at 16:24

cokecan72 said:
i dont think it matters if their matched or not, any 2 sticks should work. from what i have seen and read on the net over the years, in theory any 2 sticks should work in dual channel, even if their different speeds etc (it just runs both of them at the lowest speed) but i think they do need to be the same size at least.

Yer when I said unmatched pair, I meant size wise - sorry a bit unclear. You may have a 1Gb and a 512Mb, which wouldn't be too good.

cokecan · 27 May 2006 at 16:26

ah i got ya lol. yeah, 2 diff sizes i dont think work in dual channel.

spacegrass · 27 May 2006 at 16:33

i have one stick of 1gb and one stick of 512

as for the rest, i have no idea so ill just show you

hope that helps...

idle temperature is 10 degrees, using prime95 the highest temperature i recorded was 37 degrees.

spacegrass · 27 May 2006 at 16:37

spacegrass · 27 May 2006 at 16:38

ill be damned if i can understand photobucket

Mikey1280 · 27 May 2006 at 16:42

spacegrass said:
idle temperature is 10 degrees

Do you live in the arctic?

spacegrass · 27 May 2006 at 16:42

ok, TYPING out whats on the cpu menu

core speed - 2400.2mhz
multiplier - x10.0
htt - 240mhz
L1 data - 64 kbytes
l1 code - 64 kbytes
level 2 - 512kbytes
voltage - 1.376v

A.N.Other · 27 May 2006 at 16:43

MMM I think that may well not be an accurate temperature.

// EDIT // As for the overclock, you can raise the VCore figure in BIOS to get better clocks - 1.376 is still very low. You can look here for OCs with your CPU and the VCore and cooling they are using. Take that data with a pinch of salt though - and don't go mad raising your VCore. You may want to search OcUK CPUs forum / start a new thread there for people with your CPU and see what they've done.

cokecan · 27 May 2006 at 16:47

is that temp from the bios? or a windows program??

if its the bios then id recommend updating the bios, maybe theres a new revision out that gives correct temp readings??

if its a windows program, try something different

dale1uk · 27 May 2006 at 16:52

with you ram being unmatched and unbranded you should try putting it on a 166 divider in the bios. That will drop the spedd of the ram so you should be able to push the cpu abit further.
What did you use to record your temps??

A.N.Other · 27 May 2006 at 16:52

As for your RAM, as you have 2 sticks, it is running in 1T mode (on the memory tab, the command rate value) but it isn't in dual channel (same tab, channels #, at the top). This will be effecting your overclock I would have thought, so maybe take out the 512 and try clocking with just the 1Gb in. Buying another 1Gb stick to replace the 512 would allow it to work in dual channel mode.

// EDIT //

dale1uk said:
with you ram being unmatched and unbranded you should try putting it on a 166 divider in the bios. That will drop the spedd of the ram so you should be able to push the cpu abit further.

That's a very good point - didn't notice that :rolleyes:

! At the moment, you aren't running the RAM on a divider. Here, on the first bios picture, change the memclock index value to 166.

This will be the main thing effecting your inability to clock any higher. Although everything about RAM still stands.