Anyone here any good at Overclocking?

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

Well, I ordered the stuff to rebuild my rig - should be here friday.

I didn't have a whole wad of cash to spend on computer stuff right now, but I think I did ok for what I had to spend:

Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 Allendale 2.4GHz

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard

I've heard those Allendale chips are pretty easy to push, and I found several people in posts on several overclocking forums that say this chip should hit 3.0GHz easy as pie w/ stock cooling and stock voltage by simply going to 250MHz FSB - as long as you have headroom in your RAM (which I should w/ PC8500)...

Even if I don't get a dramatic OC out of it - everything I've read points to that e4600 being faster than my 4600+ even though they are the same clock-speed...

I honestly don't know much about Intel stuff (I've always been an AMD guy), and I don't know much about "performance RAM", but those Gigabyte P35 boards seem to be reviewed well around the net (as well as NewEgg), and that G.Skill seems to be well reported as being good ram for OCing, as well as playing nicely w/ those GB P35 boards...

What do y'all think? Did I do good?

[LA_MERC_YellowDog]

I think the p 35 board is a good board, should give you plenty of room for growth..

P.S. thats what I got, but mines an Abit board P35 Pro... I like it very much :)

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

Well, everything arrived on time, and it's all assembled, and running along quite nicely at 3.0GHz (12X250FSB) - both cores are idling at 35C, and I'm half tempted to go up to 266FSB (1066 effective) and see if it'll run, but everyone has said at that point you may need to increace the VCore voltage, and I don't want to do that, so I think I'll just be happy here at 3.0 :D

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

I ended up chickening out on the overclock...

@ 3.0GHz, it idles at 35C, but I left it running prime95 on both cores for a while and it got up to 66C, so that worried me a bit.

I took it back down to the stock 2.4, and it's still so much faster than my AMD, I'm happy leaving it at stock. At this point, with games, I think I'm GPU bound more than CPU bound (with my 7900) b/c after going back to 2.4, I couldn't tell any diff. in any of the games...

I think I'll just play it safe and leave it at stock for now :D

BTW - at stock speeds it idles at 21C and gets up to 42 under prime95...

[LA_MERC_Shadow]

What did you use to check the temp of your computer, did it record the temp and the time? Mine locks up at random times when it's been running a game for awhile. I think it's because it's overheating. But Im not sure so I'd like to monitor it while I play or while I run something like prime95 after seeing your post.

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

I used a little program called CoreTemp (http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/)

I've been playing around w/ my OC too - it dawned on my that the CPU was onlly locked from going up in multiplier, but nothing was stopping me from going down, so since I bought DDR2-1066 (PC8500) RAM, I decided to go w/ a combination of 10x266 which gives me an effective FSB of 1066 (to match my RAM) - my temps are stable at 2.66GHz, and even running two threads of Prime95 my cores stay in the 40's, and are idling upper 20's.

10x266 (1066) basically gives me the same thing as a e6700 w/ 2MB Cache instead of 4MB.

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

OK - I'm too much of a coward for this - I'm leaving this thing where it's supposed to be before I break something

:D

[LA_MERC_YellowDog]

Awwww come on Jayson you can do it!! :stick




J/K,,, I hear ya man,,, if it works and all all your components are matched up and running at the Same speed.. then I'ed say you've done just fine man... Dot break it just to get a few more Herz that your not even going to notice anyway.

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

Yeah - I'm just gonna leave it alone Parker - I couldn't really tell any diff. when it was overclocked...

250x12 works ok, but temps get a little hot - everything just started acting weird at 10x266.

Stock speeds it is - hey it's faster than what I had anyway :D

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

BTW - one added plus, by running my DDR2-1066 at DDR2-800, I'm able to tighten up the timings a lot, and THAT actually seemed to make a difference!

[LA_MERC_Shadow]

does core temp record the max temp or just show a continuous temp gauge? Guess Ima have to look at what my temps are supposed to be. It says 52 now without any stress on . it, seems kinda high especially with the case open.

[LA_MERC_YellowDog]

Sounds high to me ?

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

Shadow, see here:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=515316

Depends on which Core and Stepping you have.

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

I traded out the stock HS/F for my OCZ Vendetta and some Arctic Silver 5, and I'm able to hit 3.2GHz w/ good temps and just a "touch" more voltage on the Vcore.

First Pic is under load, running 2 Prime95 threads:

http://www.lamerc.com/uploads/OC.jpg

Second Pic is about 2 seconds after stopping Prime95:

http://www.lamerc.com/uploads/OC2.jpg

It's dropped a bit more now - sitting at 31 & 30, and I've seen it hit 29 a couple of times.

It's amazing what you can get out of a $115 CPU w/ a decent HSF combo.

BTW, @ 3.2GHz, she gets a 5.7 CPU score on the Windows Experience Index in Vista. For comparison, at stock speeds (2.4GHz), she got a 5.3, and my AMDx2 4600+ got a 5.0 ...

[Rollout]

35 C is nothing, it's really good as a matter of fact. I O/C all my rigs (mine and both my kids) and they run around 40 C in BF2 with Hurricane fan/coolers. Try 3.2 MHZ, that is what I run with my E6750 and 680I EVGA board, you'll be fine. I have been building my own for over 6 years, NEVER lost a CPU. I am surprised you can't "feel" a differance with 3 vs. stock? But either way good job with the build!!! :)

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

I could feel the difference when I went to 3.2 - although I think that was due some to going to 266 FSB and fully streaching out my DDR2-1066 Ram.

I'm reloading now - gonna load XP on her - Vista just uses too much RAM - by the time I got AV and stuff loaded, I was at 50% utilization (not counting superfetch)...

XP should FLY at 3.2GHz on a Core 2 :-)

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

Seems to be running cooler under XP for some reason :-)

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

Well, I had left it running Prime this morning, and I went to RDP to it from here to check on it again, and I couldn't get in, so I called my mom to go check on it and she said it was on a BSOD -I guess I'll have to loosen it up a little bit :-(

For those w/ more experience OCing (Rollout), I had checked on it about 2 hours ago (which was after about 4 hrs running) and it was still sitting in the mid 50's.

[LA_MERC_DocSparky]

My Biostar 865T mb bit the dust yesterday. I think my overclocking might have contributed, but sometimes boards just fail. Regardless, I ordered the same board as you Mad Max (which seems to be the best buy in that price range) and an E8400 cpu. I'll use the E6400 that I had to upgrade my HTPC. I figured I might as well change out the cpu at the same time and avoid the hassle of doing it later.

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

I haven't really messed with it any more...I'm happy with the way it performs at stock, so I'm just going to leave it alone.

Besides, with my current vid card (7900GS and I can't replace it now anyway), there is honestly very little difference between stock, and oc'ed...I'm talking maybe 2fps average, so I'm definitely GPU bound at this point.

[Rollout]

Cool Doc, that 8400 is supposed to O/C well!!! I am thinking about going to it because I saw it went to 4 GHZ on air, let us know your results buddy!!!!! I'm going to kick Crysis arsse yet!!!