Simple E8400 OC

Macky

Macky

Macky

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Joined
5 Apr 2009
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West Midlands
Looking to overclock my CPU for when my new GPU (5850) arrives.

Specs:
E8400
2x2GB DDR3 800MHZ Corsair RAM
Asus P5QSE Mobo
WD 640GB Caviar
500W Antec PSU
Arctic Cooling Pro 7 cooler
Current GPU 4850, upgrading to a 5850 though.

Okay so I was thinking perhaps just go to 3.4GHZ and leave voltages untouched and up the FSB to 378? Any ideas?
 
Is the DDR3 a typo?

Anyway most E8400s seem to hit 3.6 fairly easily, work your way up towards 400x9 and set your mem divider to keep memory @800. Personally I set my voltage at 1.22 ish I think!
 
3.6 will be no problem (mine did it on stock volts near enough). You'll most likely be limited by RAM/cooling. 4GHz should be easily achieved at about 1.3-1.34V, after that it took a bit of a bump to get to 4.25GHz on mine (I think it was 1.36ish, they say 1.4V is the safe max, but I think 1.36V is about as high as you really want for 24/7). Don't go over 80C unless it's running IBT, ideally you'll be priming/orthos at mid to high 60s max if you want a good 24/7 setup. I did all this on a £12 cooler so I'm sure you'll be fine as long as your RAM doesn't hold you back. You'll be screaming for an extra multiplier no doubt lol.

Just raise the multi as high as she goes, set your RAM to 1:1 and up your FSB. I was running a P5Q Deluxe so not sure how far your mobo will go before you hit an FSB wall, but if you find more vcore isn't helping try dropping the multipliers and see if it's still unstable (if it is, you're looking at more NB/MCH volts or an FSB wall)

Best of luck, let us know how you get on.
 
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Iirc the voltage limit is 1.35 or just below. Every chip will hit 3.6 unless the vid is horrible. The reason 3.6 is so popular, partly because they all reach it, is because 800MHz ram was the most common ddr2 and can be run natively (400*9=3.6, 400*2=800) meaning all people have to pay attention too is cpu temps and voltage. Provided you've got llc enabled it should be easy, there'll be virtually no vDroop.

Edit: my bad, vid range is 0.8500V-1.3625V source, although I'd have it switching to low power sate rather than run it like that 24/7 - but I'm paranoid :p
 
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You should be able to hit 3.6ghz with it under volted from stock vcore, i used to run mine at just over 1.1v for 3.6ghz, for 4ghz it was just over 1.2ghz, over that needed bigger increases. All that on the exact same cooler you use.

About max voltage, ignore the 1.35v limited, its rubish, i used to run mine 24/7 for a good while at 1.4v windows loaded (1.45 bios) and that cpu is still alive and kicking in my sisters comp at 3.6ghz..

Basicly its all about testing really, to see what ur cpu will do at what volts.
 
Crazy... I'm on 1.47v for a 4.2GHz OC... but it still runs prime stable for an hour every week, so it's not degrading noticably yet... I can hit 4.0 with 1.44v so that's not much of an increase for an extra 200mhz but still up in the silly volts area isn't it! Should probably run it at 3.6 and bring the vCore down, but I don't want to not see 4.xx when booting lol

Temps never get crazy high either, idle around mid-high 30s, load while gaming is high 60s and under IBT I get low 80s

How do you guys do it on such low voltages!?

Doesn't help that my BIOS sucks **** and I don't have LLC or any PLL adjustments or anything useful like that...
 
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Mine when i used it was on a P35 chipset mobo, was a C0 stepping like urs, just got lucky with a nice low volt one i guess, but i knew it was a good cpu as bought of a mate that had it to 5ghz @ 1.55v using subzero cooling lol.
 
Guys I don't want crazy overclocks haha. 3.6GHZ will do me just fine. I just need to know the best settings for it? Should I just up the FSB?
 
Set FSB to 400, memory to 1:1 ratio, set vcore to 1.3v, set north bridge volts to 1.4v(may be called mch).

Boot up and test for an hour with prime, checking temps.

If it passes that, then go into the bios and start to lower the vcore 1 notch at a time, testing at each stage, will take abit of time to reach the lowest vcore but thats overclocking for u.
 
Has anyone used my motherboard before? Would be great to get some tips to see if there's any tweaks I could make to the settings so I could lower my vCore, but I don't see anyone mentioning the EP35-DS3... Is it really that lame? lol
 
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