Overclocking 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo- can you help :)

claypigeon101 · 28 Jul 2010 at 15:12

Hey guys,
just bought myself a half decent GPU (BFG 9800GTX+ OC 1GB) and a great PSU (Antec TruePower 550W) along with a case with great cooling,

I have just bought Fallout3 along with some good new games like Farcry2 and they run OK but only in medium settings, I can't turn everything up full on 1154 and 1280x1024 res i presume due to my CPU and RAM not GPU cos it has plenty of oomph to nail these games at higher resolutions than 1280x1024, but my monitor only goes up to that and i'm not planning on buying a better one in the near future.

When I have a bit of spare cash i am going to go for one of the OCUK overclocked bundles to get a new Mobo, CPU, cooler and ram together cos my other components i.e. GPU, case, fans and drives are all fine.

So anyway after that essay i want to know, I have Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2GHz dual core CPU, how do I go about overclocking this a little and just giving it a little more edge to handle games? I am only thinking 2.5GHz at the most cos i'm only using stock CPU cooler but the airflow in my case is great and running good temps so i reckon i could push it up 2-300mhz.

Anyway how do i go about overclocking my CPU, what do i need to do exactly? And do you think I will be safe up to about 2.4-5 Gig with stock cooling?
At the moment the air out of my exhaust fan at the rear is room temperature even when the PC is under load, never warm cos there is good fresh air supply in my room and 2 intake fans.

Thanks!

HW91 · 28 Jul 2010 at 15:15

for fallout, yes the cpu has more to do with it because it can use 4 cores but you'll still need to upgrade the GPU to get max settings and with Far Cry 2 you will need to upgrade the GPU to get max settings

claypigeon101 · 28 Jul 2010 at 15:16

I'm thinking something like THIS or THIS in the near future, when i have a spare £300!

can't go more than that unfortunately but along with my 9800GTX+ it should go to make a pretty good system for what i need it for. I love the yellow fan on the Akasa Venom too, i have a clear side window and am going for green LED fans soon so it will look ace

claypigeon101 · 28 Jul 2010 at 15:19

hey HW91 thanks for that, although i disagree that i need to upgrade my GPU further to get full settings at 1280 resolution cos if i put my 9800gtx+ together with enough RAM and CPU then i should get the results, there are plenty of people on youtube etc maxxing out games with a 9800gtx and they are using Q8600s or less which are running about 3gig (i think thats the quad core one) whereas im looking at a quad core AMD running at 4.20Gig along with 4gig RAM. Or the i3 which is dual core but running at 4.something gig and 4gig of DDR3 RAM so i reckon i can play anything i can get my hands on with that xD

HW91 · 28 Jul 2010 at 15:23

the one you linked to is at 2.8GHz and is considered bad tech

don't forget not all games max out with the same GPU, just because you can max out Quake 2 with a 5 year old card doesn't mean you can do it with Crysis

claypigeon101 · 28 Jul 2010 at 19:46

no i know what you mean but there are plenty of examples of fallout played on high with lesser cards than the gtx+, some even use 8800gt and gts and they play at about 1280x720 but they have got a much better CPU than i have.
at the moment it's just jumpy even at low res but my GPU is fine it plays things like unreal tournament 3 perfectly everything full and also far cry at decent graphics.
Oh right yeah that phenom 9850 i just realised i thought it was the 955, i wouldnt buy anything less than a 955 quad.

HW91 · 28 Jul 2010 at 20:12

1280x720 is a lower res than 1280x1024

also UT3 and Far Cry are old games, in fact with a this gen graphics card you should expect over 300fps in Far Cry

Freddie1980 · 29 Jul 2010 at 10:32

I can tell you now your CPU is holding you back big time, you’re GPU whilst not the most advance card anymore is still pretty tasty especially at those sorts of resolutions but your video card can only go as fast as the CPU will allow it. What’s happening is the GPU is drawing the scene and is having to wait for the CPU to do all the AI, path finding and physics ideally you want this the other way around.

Overclocking the CPU is easy especially if you have a decent motherboard and not one that’s from a crappy OEM box shifter like Dell or HP. In your case you should be looking to get an overclock of 3.XGhz at least, and you really ought to invest £20 in a new air cooler (do your research first; Frostytech is a good place to start). When overclocking try and get your FSB and Ram speed at a ratio of 1:1 so if your Ram is rated at 800mhz (400 effective since it’s double data) try and get the FSB as close to 400 as your can but do it in stages. If you start to get instability increase the voltage by 0.1 and that should give you plenty of juice to keep on overclocking but C2D do pretty well at stock voltage.

If you do find the video card is struggling (shouldn't be for those games and that res) I suggest turing off shadows, for me there not a big deal and are a big performance killer.

claypigeon101 · 2 Aug 2010 at 17:07

Cool guys thanks, however I went mad the other night and came across a bargain on ebay and I've bought a new system,
phenom 2 965, 4gb ocz ram, 4870x2, water cooled, etc etc so i am looking forward to that arriving this week, shouldnt have any problems running, err, anything!
thanks anyway for your advice but i definitely wont be OCing my C2D 2.2gig cos im putting it all back in my old case and using it as a downstairs PC.