P3.2 Prescott. Possible o/c using air?

[danceMB]

I am just about to replace my P3.2 Prescott S478 after the previous one died on me (due to watercooling failed, so back to air).

I have a Thermalright 120 and an Akasa 120mm fan. What I want to know is how easy would that be to o/c, and if so, how much could I o/c it by? People say it runs hot at stock, so not really sure?

 

[AWPC]

On air 3.5-3.7ish. It does run hot on the stock HSF but the Thermalright 120 should give you low 40Cs @ idle so no temp probs but I would reconsider the Akasa 120 as they are not really suitable to cool a CPU due to the bearing type being prone to run dry after a while due to the extra heat from the heatsink. Try to get a 38mm deep fan (Akasa are 25mm deep) or different bearing type.

My old 3.2 Prescott would do 3.7 allday and be rock solid stable but the difference in games is slight as no AGP card can saturate the x8 AGP port so you will not see much difference from an overclock.

Make sure you have adequate case ventilation as that is where most of the Prescott heat myths came from as intel say the case should be no hotter than 38c or so and many people do not bother to provide proper ventilation or enough case fans so if the case gets too hot then the CPU obviously skyrockets as well.

This particular CPU can take a lot of stick as mine once reached a reported 186F when the ambient air temp was 100F in Aug 2003! Yet 3 years later it still works perfectly in my brothers hand me down PC.

 

[Steven]

As above I've got my 3.2 Prescott prime stable at 3.7 (1.41V) , any higher fsb and prime fails within a few minutes and higher voltage results in shutdown during prime. Temps are hitting 73C under a Zalman 7700-CU.