Newbie O/C advice please

[Berno]

Hi all Newbie OC alert

After building my system a while back with the intention to try some overclocking, I never actually got round to trying it. was pleased at the time with the peformance of my rig/7800GTX etc.

After buying a 8800GTX and getting some poor benchmark results I decided to give it a try. In 3dmark06 I got 6111 which to me seems very poor even for my CPU?

Can anyone add any advice on my next move .
Have i overclocked it correctly so far?

Stock temps are - CPU idle 29 load 34-35 sys temp 34 Chipset 34

Spec.
A64 3700+ San diago (+Thermalright XP-90+92cm fan)
DFI Lanparty SLI-DR. (+Thermalright HR-05 SLI chipset cooler)
2GB Mushkin PC3200, Blue heatsink version. (2x1gb sticks) at 1T 2.3.2.5
XFX 8800 GTX (at stock speeds.)
OCZ Gamer X stream 700watt PSU.
WD 250Gb SATA2 HDD.
Audigy 2 ZS.
Windows XP-Pro SP2.
Akasa Mirage case with very good airflow & very cool.
2x Scythe 120mm fans "1600 rpm" inlet and exhaust fans.

Overclocked it after reading the beginners post.
I left all the voltages standard apart from memory which I have at 2.7volts.
I just increased the FSB and got the following result stable.

CPU 2751 mhz (Idle 30c load max Iv seen is 38c)
HT link 1250.551 mhz
Memory 500.221 mhz (ddr)
FSB 250.07 mhz system temp is around 38-40c at load.
CPU multiplier x11
Memory ratio 1:1 (not sure what this)
PCI-bus locked at 100 mhz

CPU is set to 1.36 volts (is this right seems low)
Once I lowerd the timings to 3-4-3-6 it runs stable

Ran 3dmark06 and got 7436 a lot more than before and getting better Fps
Does my score now seem about right or is it still lagging.

Sorry for the long post all, and thanks in advance.

 

[Street]

In 3dmark06 I got 6111 which to me seems very poor even for my CPU?

That seems about right for your CPU bearing in mind it is single core and 3DMark06 is very dual core biased. I only get just over 7000 with a C2D at 3.3GHz and a heavily overclocked X1900XT.

As for your overclocking, you need to drop your HT multiplier. Your HT Link speed shouldn't go over 1000MHz, so with your FSB at 250MHz you want to drop it to 4x, if you go any higher on the FSB, drop it to 3x. There is hardly any performance hit from running the HT Link under 1000MHz.

The memory ratio is what keeps your memory running at the same speed as the FSB. With 3200 memory you want to keep the memory speed at 200MHz, but you have overclocked yours to 250, thats why you had to loosen the timings. If you set the divider to 183MHz then it will make your memory run at 211MHz, giving it a small overclock which it should be stable at with stock timings. If not, drop it to 166MHz which will put it at around 193MHz. There is hardly any performance hit from running the memory async with the FSB with A64s.

A useful program to get is A64 MemFreq, can be found with a quick Google and tells you the speed of memory etc with different ratios and FSB.

Just read your last bit..

Ran 3dmark06 and got 7436 a lot more than before and getting better Fps
Does my score now seem about right or is it still lagging.

That seems good considering you've only got a single core CPU. If you had a dual core CPU, your CPU score would pretty much double giving you a fair boost.

Hope all that makes sense...

 

[jongeeone]

Yea that seems about normal i suppose

i get around 5200 marks with my rig in spec :?

 

[Berno]

Many thanks for the advice/help so far .

I did as was recommended and dropped FSB mutli and memory ratio down to get the HT link below 1000 etc.

Its stable and still running nice and cool at:-

CPU 2751 Mhz @ 1.36 v multi x11.
FSB 250.
Mem ration 1.66 Mhz (clock 196.49 Mhz at 1T 2.3.2.5).
HT 1000Mhz.

At idle my CPU is still only running at 28-30 degrees.

After about 5 hours gaming last night it peaked at 38 c which is only 1 or 2 degrees hotter than it did on default clock.

System temp was 38-40c, and my GPU peaked at 61c so all seems good.

As my system is still running cool, have i got more room to push the CPU further.
How far can i take the 3700 SD.
I still havnt touched the CPU voltage @1.36volts

It ran stable at my 1st attemp (above) when i got the memory to 250 Mhz (ddr 500 Mhz) at 3.4.3.6 1T. If i push the cpu further should i lower the memory ratio to 133etc. or try to push both.

Cheers

 

[El Jimben]

It's up to you really Berno but bear in mind that A64 setups tend to benefit more from tighter RAM timings than they do memory bandwith. My setup for example, I'm running the FSB @ 306 MHz which means my RAM is slightly underclocked @ 196 MHz but my CPU running at 2.75GHz more than makes up for this fact

If your 3700+ is reasonably new than it should clock pretty well so you might be able to go a little higher without having to increase the vcore. If not, giving abit more juice and see what happens!