Should I overclock and how to start ?

BIGBC

BIGBC

BIGBC

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Hi,

Heres my system specs -
Intel core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz 12MB 1333FSB
idle - 41 - 34 - 41 - 41
full - 53 - 45 - 51 - 51
EVGA 750i F T W edition
Corsair 4x1GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500 TwinX (currently only running @ 800MHz 1.9V but rater at 1066MHz 2.1V i think)
Leadtek 9800GX2
OCZ ModXStram 780W

Would my CPU be causing any real bottleneck atm ?
Ive heard a lot of people getting decent overclocks on their Q9550 and think at those temps (in this weather) I might aswell give it a go.

I have read the two stickied threads about overclocking but still dont really know where to start. Do I need to unlock a section of my BIOS or something as the options given are pretty limited and I can see no way of overclocking with them.
Should I need to update my BIOS ?

Would appreciate any answers/info.
 
Sometimes these are in a sub menu or at least under a tab for overclocking, I don't know you board tbh but most boards can be overclocked.
 
Yeah I have heard of people overclocking these boards really well. When it was first released it got a bunch of good overclocking reviews so I wouldnt expect it to be an old BIOS problem.
Im updating it anyway to get my 8.5X multiplier and stepping support.

Ive also seen it said that some BIOS' need you to press a group of keys to unlock some features of the BIOS used in overclocking. Im gonna double check in my manual now but i didnt see anything like tht first time around and on browsing the EVGA forums I couldnt find anything like that.
 
Alright, I just updated the BIOS - not much seemed to change.
These are the visible options I have atm:
FSB - memory clock mode [auto/linked/unlinked]
FSB - memory ratio [auto/1:1/5:4/3:2/sync]
FSB (QDR), MHz [MIN = 400 Max = 2500]
PCIE frequency [100-200]

voltages -
cpu core
cpu fsb
memory
nforce
NF200
GTLVREF 0 + 1 + 2 + 3

I have recorded all the current voltage values.

Is it possible to overclock off these options ?
from what I can see and have read the humber ranges seem off . . .

again any info would be appreciated.

EDIT : It was the value 1333 (instead of 333) that had thrown me off, found an obscure link saying that was the one to change to clock.
Just fiddled around a bit and set my FSB memory clock mode to unlinked, then my FSB (QDR), MHz to 1338 (increase of 5 as I have seen suggested).
Booted fine but clock was not what I expected : 338 x 8.5 = 2873, but I was only running 2834 . . . tad confused.

Went back in and worked my way up to 1350 with everything booting fine but am still only running at 2868 instead of the 2975 I would have expected.

Anyone know what im doing wrong ? Settings I need to change ?

I think ill set back to stock now until I have a better idea whats going on =]
 
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Yes it is possible, I had a very similar board based on the 650 sli chipset

Every frequency in your board is based of a reference clock
The fsb is 4x reference clock
mem is mem multi x ref clock

to change ref clock you set the fsb (qdr) to a specific value

first thing to do is set the mem ratio, to 1:1, this should cause it to run at ddr 666 as your reference clock, if it is running at 1333 then set the memory to synch

The idea is to run the memory at sub spec as we find the limits of the cpu

Set cpu voltage to what the default voltage for your cpu is, then check it using cpuz as bios voltage is not always what it says it is

Then increase FSB in 10-15Mhz increments running OCCT every time for a minute to check for stability

It may be nessisary to increase the cpu voltage to get the system stable.

repeat the above 2 steps till you get an overclock you are happy with or you can't get the system stable whilst within the voltage limits for your cpu, once you find the limit run occt for at least half an hour or more, you may need to back off the OC to make the system totally stable

Once you have found the max OC for your cpu you need to find the max OC of your RAM, set the cpu multi to x8 and the qDR back to 1333, make sure the RAM voltage and timings are correst for your RAM the slowly increase the QDR, check using occt same as for the cpu

By increasing the timings in the memory subsection you may be able to get a higher FSB

FInally yopu need to work out the fsb and cpu multiplyers that will give you the highest overall OC, put this into bios and run OCCT for 12 hours

You may also be limited by the max FSB of the board, upping the Nforce voltage may help

The idea is you need to find the limits of each compont and work just below that limit

I take no reponsibility for the loss of magical grey smoke form your components
 
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ah, cheers for that insight.
So when I uped it to 1350, it was actually
1350/4=337.5
337.5*8.5=2868.75

Cheers for that, makes more sense to me now. First time ive seen that explained - well, noticed it anyways lol.
 
Its goin pretty well I think,
1412=353*4
353*8.5=3000.5MHz
at stock voltages
Just did an OCCT for 20 mins and all is running nicely.
Load temps -
53 - 47 - 52 - 52

Will probably see how far I can go under staying under 60 2morro and definitely run a few long stress tests.

Cheers again for clearing up my confusion =]
 
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