Noob overclocking practice.

gropingmantis · 7 Dec 2010 at 20:01

Hi all.
I'm looking to eventually overclock my lovely AMD Phenom II X4 but I dont want to risk ruining anything with my noobishness. So as a practice/test subject I'm going to get my eye in on my sisters PC.

Its got an AMD Phenom X3 8600 on a Foxconn A7VMX-K board. Does anyone have any experience of these? What can I expect to get out of it? Its got an H50 on it so cooling shouldnt be an issue?

Thanks

manbearpig · 7 Dec 2010 at 20:06

Why bother with your sisters, I'm sure she wont be happy if you blow it up. Read some guides and ask some questions and take your time overclocking your processor.

gropingmantis · 7 Dec 2010 at 20:10

Its a fair point but I dont care if I toast my sisters computer because I'm mean like that

.

Also there is quite a bit more information avaliable on overclocking the X4.

EniGmA1981 · 7 Dec 2010 at 22:16

The key is 'slow and steady' and test every time you boot

Don't accept that just because it will POST at [silly]GHz that it's going to be a stable system lol

take everything up in one or two step increments, voltage, fsb etc - and just don't go mad with it

download prime95 and intel burn test to check for system stability (this takes time, but it's worth it - you want prime to run for at least 2 hours without failing - some would say 8, but I'm not that patient lol)

Scon · 7 Dec 2010 at 22:19

Yeah as above, aslong as you keep within AMD's recommended voltages you can't really go wrong. Pushing up FSB/multipliers won't cause any damage, just the voltage as extra voltage = extra heat which could kill the CPU.

I suggest going up in 50Mhz increments then testing with Prime95, don't expect to find your max clock in one day, just go up 50mhz each time you use the pc so you're not sitting there waiting for Prime passes.