OC'ing with Asrock 4CoreDual, E4300 & DDR memory...

StevieP

StevieP

StevieP

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I have just upgraded to a C2D E4300 and the Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA mobo and have slotted in my existing 2gb of DDR400 PNY memory and an AGP X1950 Pro gfx card and basically want to know the best settings in the bios for overclocking to get the best out of it....

I know neither the mobo or memory are too sparkling for this but I couldnt afford a dedicated board and DDR2 memory just yet!

Has anyone overclocked using a similar spec and if so, can you give me some advice on settings in the bios for CPU, FSB & memory timings please??

Thanks in advance...

StevieP
 
Well, we will have about the same system, except i'm stuck with only 1GB pc3200, but, from what i've read, the board will go up to 290FSB easily, and since the AGP/PCI bus's are at a fixed frequency, then the best thing to do is put the FSB up to about 280-285 and make sure that you use the proper divider on the RAM. if you have pc3200, i'd try to use a divider that makes the speed less than 400Mhz (obviously) and perhaps loosen the timings a bit. At least that's my plan, as I won't get the CPU until beinning of next month.
Hopefully someone else here will help you (and me) out as well.

Cheers
 
Not being funny, but I told you in the other thread what to do.

Put the RAM on [133], leave everything else on AUTO and ramp up the FSB to somewhere near 300. Did you try that?
 
RAM dividers are where I struggle to be honest! :confused:

I ran my CPU @ stock (1.8) and the DDR memory at 200MHz but when I upped to 210FSB, the memory frequency jumped to about 210Mhz so I lowered the RAM to 166MHz in the bios to keep the frequency below the 200 max.
Everything was going fine as I upped the FSB to 220 & 230 (with each increase adding about 10-11MHz to the RAM frequency until I was running my core at 2070MHz (230FSB) and the memory running at 191.7Mhz (still set to 166 in the bios)
Then when I tried setting the FSB to 240, the memory, for some reason, dropped to 150MHz?!?! - Does this mean the RAM is automatically running at 133??

Either way, I'll keep experimenting!!!! :D

I'll keep you informed of any progress....

StevieP
 
WJA96 said:
Not being funny, but I told you in the other thread what to do.

Put the RAM on [133], leave everything else on AUTO and ramp up the FSB to somewhere near 300. Did you try that?
Click to expand...

Not tried it yet - I'm trying to understand why upto 230FSB the memory speed was going up and suddenly at 240, it drops to 150 exactly!?!?

I am having a play around with it this afternoon so I'll try what you suggest.

Thanks again....

StevieP

ps.

Is PCMark a good benchmark for how its affecting things???
 
Just upped my FSB to 250 (core @ 2251) and in CPUZ the memory is reported to be running at 125MHz?? (dropped it to 133 in the bios)

Ran PCMark05 and got the following:

Core @ 2070 (230FSB & 191MHz RAM) - 5661
(coretemp reported max temp at about 50 degrees)

Core @ 2251 (250FSB & 125MHz RAM) - 5809
(coretemp reported max temp at about 54 degrees)

Is this good/bad/really bad???

Thanks for the input...
 
StevieP said:
Just upped my FSB to 250 (core @ 2251) and in CPUZ the memory is reported to be running at 125MHz?? (dropped it to 133 in the bios)

Ran PCMark05 and got the following:

Core @ 2070 (230FSB & 191MHz RAM) - 5661
(coretemp reported max temp at about 50 degrees)

Core @ 2251 (250FSB & 125MHz RAM) - 5809
(coretemp reported max temp at about 54 degrees)

Is this good/bad/really bad???

Thanks for the input...
Click to expand...

It's fine. What about FSB 300 then?
 
Yeah, although I don't have my CPU yet, i've read a lot about this motherboard/cpu combo and from what I hear, you can basically whack the FSB up to 290 without having to worry at all, as long as you set the proper divider for the ram. I don't know what ram:fsb ratios there are in the bios, but use the one that will put you closest to the 200Mhz ram you want.
 
Munky1080 said:
Yeah, although I don't have my CPU yet, i've read a lot about this motherboard/cpu combo and from what I hear, you can basically whack the FSB up to 290 without having to worry at all, as long as you set the proper divider for the ram. I don't know what ram:fsb ratios there are in the bios, but use the one that will put you closest to the 200Mhz ram you want.
Click to expand...

There are no ratios in the BIOS, you set the speed of the RAM and it increases from there, so it's effectively the same thing, but disguised.

The other thing you do need to do (thast I forgot) was lock the PCIe using the Overclock Operation (FSB, PCIe, Async).

But overclocking on this is very straightforward, particularly as it is operating so far inside the CPU's capabilities.
 
Tried jumping up to 300FSB......wouldnt post!! :(

Tried 290 and it works like a charm!! (on 166MHz for the RAM too!!)
I'll do some stress tests to see if its stable and report back.....

StevieP
 
Right, I dont think 300FSB is gonna post so I am settling for 290 atm, tried upping my RAM frequency to 200 from 166 and it booted up but CPUZ says the RAM is operating at 217MHz - I'm assuming that is too high for DDR400 memory and it will create stability problems?? Just in case, I've dropped the RAM frequency to 166 and its now running at 181MHz....

Just run 3DMark05 and PCMark05 with the following scores:

3DMark05 - 10,176
and
PCMark05 - 6451

System seems stable and according to Coretemp, the temperature didnt go above 51 degrees during either test....

Are these scores about right for my system??

StevieP
 
Last edited:
Well, I just ran PCMark '05 on my E4300 (reduced the FSB to 290 to match) - I have 1Gb PC3200 RAM (also 181MHz), 80Gb SATA HDD and a 6800GS and I'm doing 6392 which is pretty decent I think. I'd like to try my Intel chipset motherboard with your graphics card as that's definitely holding me back (2670 in 3DMark '06).
 
I must say those scores are making me salivate for this new chip...I'll only have the 1GB of ram though, but same video card. Are you happy with those scores, how much higher are they than your old setup?
 
Munky1080 said:
I must say those scores are making me salivate for this new chip...I'll only have the 1GB of ram though, but same video card. Are you happy with those scores, how much higher are they than your old setup?
Click to expand...

I never ran PCMark on my old AMD system but from memory, my 3DMark scores was around 8500ish..
 
WJA96 said:
What's your SuperPi 1M places figure? I can do 24.7 seconds.
Click to expand...

I think I've just run it correctly, it says for 1M it was 25 seconds? (cant find a more accurate figure though?)

StevieP
 
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