Associate
- Joined
- 29 Feb 2012
- Posts
- 1
- Location
- Halifax, UK
Hi all,
I've just built my first new PC in about 5 years and I'm wanting to try some basic overclocking. So there are two questions;
1) Fan Placement
My board (Asus P8Z68-V LX) has two PWM-capable headers plus a "PWR" 3-pin header. My case (Antec VSK-2000) has three 120mm mounts; one at the back under the PSU and two at the front at the bottom in front of the HDD bays. The case came with an Antec-branded two-speed fan mounted at the rear and I've bought two Akasa Apache 120mm fans.
My current plan is to have the Antec fan (on low) fitted in the lower of the two front mounts blowing in so my GFX card (XFX Radeon HD6770) always has cool air. Then one Akasa Apache above it also blowing in and the second Apache at the back blowing out.
I'm using the stock Intel cooler for my Core i5-2500k and the GFX card.
So will this work or should I drop the original Antec fan and just run the PWM Apaches front and back?
2) Overclocking
The board has lots of options for overclocking and obviously Catalyst has the built-in Overdrive gubbins. I've worked out how to do the OC itself and I've found I can easily OC the CPU to 45x103.6 without a voltage tweak and the GFX card to 925/1250. This will be stable (and cool) for a random length of time, after which my PC simply powers off and back on.
Basically I'm not sure where to go from here. I can reduce the OC but everything seems to generally work fine. Should I be looking to increase the CPU voltage a bit?
I think I'm going to set the GFX card back to defaults and work on the CPU first. How much Prime95 is "enough" to declare a clock speed stable? I figure once I have the CPU done, I can do the GPU. It seems unlikely the GPU OC is causing the reboots.
It just seems weird because my CPU/Mobo temps never go above about 45 degrees with the above OC. I guess temperature isn't the only issue though!
3) Final Hidden Bonus Question!!!
The fan on my GPU is loud. Like freakishly loud. Like "who the hell is trying to drill into my skull" loud. If I manually set the fan speed through CCC to 30% or less, it's silent. Provided I have good airflow through the case can I safely run an OC'd 6770 with the fan at 30% for extended periods? I've never seen the temp get above 65 I think (2-3 hours of World of Warcraft raids and playing DivX movies on another screen).
Basically I just want someone to come to my house, give me a cuddle and OC my computer for me! I will not be offended with links to old threads.
If people could recommend some useful tools to install, that would be great too. I'll start;
1) CPU-Z
2) Prime95
I've just built my first new PC in about 5 years and I'm wanting to try some basic overclocking. So there are two questions;
1) Fan Placement
My board (Asus P8Z68-V LX) has two PWM-capable headers plus a "PWR" 3-pin header. My case (Antec VSK-2000) has three 120mm mounts; one at the back under the PSU and two at the front at the bottom in front of the HDD bays. The case came with an Antec-branded two-speed fan mounted at the rear and I've bought two Akasa Apache 120mm fans.
My current plan is to have the Antec fan (on low) fitted in the lower of the two front mounts blowing in so my GFX card (XFX Radeon HD6770) always has cool air. Then one Akasa Apache above it also blowing in and the second Apache at the back blowing out.
I'm using the stock Intel cooler for my Core i5-2500k and the GFX card.
So will this work or should I drop the original Antec fan and just run the PWM Apaches front and back?
2) Overclocking
The board has lots of options for overclocking and obviously Catalyst has the built-in Overdrive gubbins. I've worked out how to do the OC itself and I've found I can easily OC the CPU to 45x103.6 without a voltage tweak and the GFX card to 925/1250. This will be stable (and cool) for a random length of time, after which my PC simply powers off and back on.
Basically I'm not sure where to go from here. I can reduce the OC but everything seems to generally work fine. Should I be looking to increase the CPU voltage a bit?
I think I'm going to set the GFX card back to defaults and work on the CPU first. How much Prime95 is "enough" to declare a clock speed stable? I figure once I have the CPU done, I can do the GPU. It seems unlikely the GPU OC is causing the reboots.
It just seems weird because my CPU/Mobo temps never go above about 45 degrees with the above OC. I guess temperature isn't the only issue though!
3) Final Hidden Bonus Question!!!
The fan on my GPU is loud. Like freakishly loud. Like "who the hell is trying to drill into my skull" loud. If I manually set the fan speed through CCC to 30% or less, it's silent. Provided I have good airflow through the case can I safely run an OC'd 6770 with the fan at 30% for extended periods? I've never seen the temp get above 65 I think (2-3 hours of World of Warcraft raids and playing DivX movies on another screen).
Basically I just want someone to come to my house, give me a cuddle and OC my computer for me! I will not be offended with links to old threads.
If people could recommend some useful tools to install, that would be great too. I'll start;
1) CPU-Z
2) Prime95
