Can someone explain how to overclock a CPU (to a beginner)?

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CrimsonKnight98

CrimsonKnight98

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Apr 21, 2015
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My specs:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1045t
GPU: GTX 750ti
RAM: 8GB 1333
Motherboard: ASUS A97 R2.0
OS: Windows 10 64bit

I have been researching how to overclock a CPU and I just do not at
all understand it! I understand some of the basics but I don't get how to do
it. I have been trying to follow guides for hours and they just aren't
helping. I managed to overclock my Phenom II X6 1045t from 2.7GHz to
3.1GHz, but anywhere beyond that and I'll get an error saying
"Overclock Failed" from my motherboard. My issue is, I don't know if
this is a stable overclock since people have gotten this CPU to 3.8GHz
no problems. I'm want to overclock this to 3.4GHz, but what settings
do I need to change? I know the CPU ratio (mine locks at 13.5) is multiplied by the CPU Bus frequency to determine the clock speed, but I'm stumped on the rest. For instance, does RAM matter when overclocking a CPU? Does PCIE Frequency, Memory Frequency, CPU/NB Frequency, and HT Link Speed matter?
I know voltage is a huge factor too, but how do I know how much voltage is enough or too much? How do people know this stuff?? I typically can spend an afternoon researching an issue or item and learn all about it, but everything about overclocking a CPU isn't making sense. Can anyone explain what these settings do and how I can do a safe 3.4GHz OC? 🙁
Thank you.

By the way, I am not one to figure this stuff out and just leave an open forum post. If all goes well I will come back to this and explain what worked! I can't stand how people can just leave a forum without explaining if they fixed their issue.
 
Solution
Herc08
Well then, if you are sure it is a bottleneck, overclocking is trial and error. You need to find a stable setup. I generally render videos to determine my overclocks. You may want download ASUS Realbench and use that as a stress tester. Just don't get Prime95. Also, here is an excellent guide for over clocking.
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I know, I know, it's old, but it was a budget gaming rig. Honestly, CPU intensive games (that only use 1 or 2 cores) are being bottlenecked by the CPU. For instance, Fallout 3 was dropping from 60 to 30 fps in certain areas of the game and it would stay around 30-40 fps until I left that area. Once I initially overclocked my CPU (after noticing the high usage of two cores) the frames never went below 45 in the same area. So it is a CPU bottleneck and it's impacting quite a few games that are poorly threaded. Anyway, that's my situation.
The reason I chose those parts was because I had a Foxconn 2AB1 Motherboard in a pre-built HP system and I wanted to upgrade it from integrated graphics and a AMD Athlon X2 240 (something like that), and the parts I chose were the best I could get without changing everything in the PC. Well, life happened and after 4 weeks of excessive troubleshooting (because of sudden blue screens) I found that my motherboard was having issues and causing the BSOD. It wasn't incompatible hardware either, it just started dying.
Well i upgraded to the motherboard I have now after careful consideration and got a new case. At that point I was no longer limited by a Legacy BIOS and a 95w max CPU, but I was stuck with the components I have now.
That's the story.
 
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Well then, if you are sure it is a bottleneck, overclocking is trial and error. You need to find a stable setup. I generally render videos to determine my overclocks. You may want download ASUS Realbench and use that as a stress tester. Just don't get Prime95. Also, here is an excellent guide for over clocking.
 
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Solution
Well, I ended up getting a stable overclock of 3.1 GHz. If I go past that I get issues. It's very difficult to overclock this CPU since its multiplier is locked. I think it's just this CPU itself that makes overclocking less straightforward than it is for other CPU's. I had to mess with the RAM clocks and reduce them, increase the base clock of this CPU, disable all power saving functionalities, it was a huge pain! But I'm satisfied with the 3.1 GHz until I get a new motherboard and CPU.

Can I get your recommendation for a CPU company? After a few years of research (and being stuck with an AMD for these years) I have found Intel to be more functional, powerful, and overall better performing. Having a AM3+ motherboard, I'm stuck with this terribly outdated line of CPUs from AMD unless I buy an AM4 motherboard, but getting an older motherboard that supports Intel z170 chipsets (and z270) seems much more appealing as it will still be functional for years of new Intel processors to come! I know I seem to be sided with Intel as is, but I want your opinion, is AMD worth sticking with, or is Intel more reliable in terms of the future?
 
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Well, right now it's a toss up. Ryzen right now is the money saver, but we don't know what the future will hold. Right now, Ryzen is the great CPU to game and get productivity done. However, Intel has proven (as you know that) that their chips are pretty long lasting. The i5-4690 is almost 4 years old and still a beast of a chip. It's hard to tell how Ryzen will be, but it's better as a multi-threadded chip, while Intel is better at single threadded (at least the mainstream is). Not sure if games will start to use mutliple threads at once, like Adobe does, but it only time to do.

I am still an Intel supporter (even with this X299 dumb crap), and I stand by them. But I'm a realist, and I know Ryzen is not something to take for granted. So I guess it depends what you are planning to do. If you are purely gaming, the i7-7700K is probably best for you. If you are into editing, then Ryzen is probably best for you. Intel can still do editing (I use a 6700K for my editing), but right not Ryzen does it better.

I know I don't give a definite answer, but right now, it's really tough.
 
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Well thank you for the opinion! I'm just so frustrated by the lack of performance the AM3+ CPU's have in comparison to Intel, and also the fact that AMD always seems like it's far behind Intel... like how DDR4 is new for AMD. In fact, I stumbled across an old article from 2009 titled "AMD finally goes DDR3". This leads me to believe AMD has always been behind Intel one way or another.
What you said does make sense. AMD does always seem be be better priced, and who knows what the future holds for them, maybe they'll step it up!

Since your record shows you're an expert with CPU's and Motherboards, what ASUS motherboard would you recommend for a i7 7700k (CPU (preferably under $150), or, for that matter, what motherboard in general? I've been siding with ASUS motherboards for a while after some extensive research; I find people tend to like them above all for reliability and quality.
 
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Well it depends what you plan on doing. Honestly, any motherboard that is a Z270 will do from ASUS. It's all about the features, RGB lightning, Auroa, and other things. I think this one will do: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/7VZ2FT/asus-prime-z270-a-atx-lga1151-motherboard-prime-z270-a

Of course there are others, but it makes OC'ing very easy. It has enough features for any beginner to overclocking and just get it about and going. I'm a simple guy with simple task. My build is red and black, but it's still simple. Nothing complex.
 
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Well that is the exact one I was looking at. I was thinking of upgrading around Black Friday-Cyber Monday, so that will be the one I shoot for! One last question: what is the difference between the Prime z270 a, k and AR?
 
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