Overclocking Guide Part 1: Risks, Choices and Benefits

[pschmid]

Who overclocks? Why should anyone consider it? Before looking at the finer details of the technique, we first consider the benefits and risks with respect to a few main components.

 

[CaptRobertApril]

Excellent article overall. A few moot points:

"If you have just overclocked your system and the first thing you do is use it to start writing your dissertation, don't be surprised if a system crash occurs which causes you to lose all your data."

This should be unsaved data, since as far as I know an OC'd CPU melting into magma is not going to affect any data written to an HD.

"80 degrees Celsius is a temperature that nobody is able to touch for longer than 1/10 second. I have never come across a CPU at this temperature."

Dr. Tom, ever heard of Pentium D or Prescotts? Some of those #$%& chips idle at damn near 80C on stock HSF, and not much below that on killer coolers!

"Cooling is the Numero Uno Oncho in overclocking!"

I was able to only come up with one English language reference to Numero Uno Oncho and it referred to a Lithuanian basketball team. I have no idea what Uno Oncho means. I know Ocho Cinco is the Bengals' Chad Johnson, but that's about it.

"Electromigration"

References to Electromigration should be immediately edited out before the Bush Administration reads it. They'll likely react by announcing a $7 billion wall to prevent Electromigration. :lol:

"A few die-hard stability fanatics who would never consider such frivolity."

Hate to admit it but that's me. If OCing would give me, say, double the performance, I'd be tempted to risk turning my case into Dr. Frankenstein's Lab. But what are you going to get? 15% if the planets are lined up and the moon is in the seventh house? With the significantly increased risk that your shiny new $1000 QX6700 is going to turn into a fireworks display? Nah. That's just plain silly, if not outright vandalism. Want a faster chip, then work a few hours of overtime and go buy one.

Now I know that the rabid OCers are gonna flame me worse than a Pentium D without an HSF Folding molecules in Hell. But that's what I think. OCing is a rather pointless "my dick is bigger than yours" exercise.

What did Johnny Storm say?

"FLAME ON!"

:lol:

 

[Doughbuy]

Notice a lot of Tom's quotes are from 1997, where Prescott's were pre-conception...

Eh, nice article, some of the info seems a bit dated, but a lot of the fundamental theory remains the same.

 

[ocnewb]

Excellent article overall. A few moot points:

Now I know that the rabid OCers are gonna flame me worse than a Pentium D without an HSF Folding molecules in Hell. But that's what I think. OCing is a rather pointless "my dick is bigger than yours" exercise.

What did Johnny Storm say?

"FLAME ON!"

:lol:

Alot of things people do are rather pointless. Why do people sink thousands of dollars into cars to make them go faster when the average speed limit is 50mph? Its a hobby. I tell you one thing for certain tho, if i could spend $100 and get my car to go twice as fast, I'd do that in a hearbeat. However since that will never happen, I'll sink that $100 into my new E6400 and get an 80% perfomace boost. Sounds like a good deal to me =). Nothing like having a 200 dollar chip performing like a 1000 doallar chip. And i didnt even have to work overtime to do it.

+OCNewb+ -- Hung better than CaptRobertApril

 

[CaptRobertApril]

Alot of things people do are rather pointless. Why do people sink thousands of dollars into cars to make them go faster when the average speed limit is 50mph? Its a hobby. I tell you one thing for certain tho, if i could spend $100 and get my car to go twice as fast, I'd do that in a hearbeat. However since that will never happen, I'll sink that $100 into my new E6400 and get an 80% perfomace boost. Sounds like a good deal to me =). Nothing like having a 200 dollar chip performing like a 1000 doallar chip. And i didnt even have to work overtime to do it.

+OCNewb+ -- Hung better than CaptRobertApril

As for the "hung", wanna compare un-photoshopped photos? :lol:

As I said, if I can double my performance, it'd be worth a shot. I was not aware that an E6400 could benchmark at 180% of stock in OC, and I'd like some other forum frequenters to confirm that. Now that would be more than worth it and would definitely defuse my argument.

I would definitely invest $100 to go twice as fast. Especially if it was a chick! :twisted:

 

[ocnewb]

See my sig =)

Its not uncommon to see the E6400 (stock 2.13ghz) OC'd to 3.2-4ghz on air, with the addition of a couple extra fans and a good aftermarket HSF. Which would prolly run you less that $75 total.

As for the "hung", wanna compare un-photoshopped photos?

I thought u said you werent into these kinds of things?


ps..ive seen the un-edited version of your sig, im pretty sure it will give anyman nigtmares, scuurry!.

 

[lkalbert]

Interesting article, but I am looking forward to a "how to" because I have not been terribly successful in understanding other articles I have read about the "how to" subject. I have been able to OC a little bit on my Abit AN X, with an AMID 4800+ but not seriously. With all the different memory settings and BIOS settings, I really get confused.

I am looking to upgrade to a Core 2 Duo and 8800 TX, but that will not be until the later part of the first quarter 2007, so now is the time to experiment.

 

[KaizenSama]

Excellent article overall. A few moot points:


"80 degrees Celsius is a temperature that nobody is able to touch for longer than 1/10 second. I have never come across a CPU at this temperature."

Dr. Tom, ever heard of Pentium D or Prescotts? Some of those #$%& chips idle at damn near 80C on stock HSF, and not much below that on killer coolers!

"Cooling is the Numero Uno Oncho in overclocking!"

I was able to only come up with one English language reference to Numero Uno Oncho and it referred to a Lithuanian basketball team. I have no idea what Uno Oncho means. I know Ocho Cinco is the Bengals' Chad Johnson, but that's about it.

:lol:

Are you serious about the idle temps on Prescotts? I think you are helping propagate an urban legend. Mine has never gone above 50C even at full load on stock HSF and OCed from 2.8 GHz to 3.57 GHz (that's a 27.5% gain) and dare to say it can go beyond 4.3 if it weren't for my cursed Cheapazaki MoBo. I mean no offense but... Are you putting enough thermal goo on your processor die?

About the Numero Uno Oncho: It's supposed to be Spanish but Oncho is wrong, perhaps he meant Ocho so my translation is Number One Eight. By the way it's "enchiladas" not enchaladas .

Saludos

 

[funnyvlad]

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 @ 3.7ghz (463x8)

Impressive OC. I on the other hand doesn´t no shit about OC. I´m planning to buy a Core 2 Duo E6600 and overclock it to 2,67Ghz(as stock C2D E6700). May be modest but as I said, I know zilch about OC. Maybe maybe will I try to get to the next multiplier(2,93Ghz).

Another question. C2D E6400 has 2X1Mb Cache as opposite to E6600 and above(which have 2x2Mb). Can you OC the cache and if not so, what´s the benefit of the extra 100% cache in E6600?

 

[jingles98]

Love ya work guys, another great article.

I would have to be the biggest OC Noob out there and would spend all night gleaning info from these forums but might i be so rude to ask that somewhere within it could you do some OC results/specs of a high end 939, AM2, P4 & C2D?

 

[ocnewb]

No real bene going form the 2mb cache(E6400) to the 4mb cache(E6600). There is a slight performance difference,(like 5% i think?). But why shell out 300 extra bucks for that chip? Get the 6400, even if u know nothing about overclocking you can get it to 3.2ghz with the stock hsf ant stock vcore. Just up the FSB to 400 and change the memory to 1:1. Two settings, very simple.

 

[deadlydude]

As I said, if I can double my performance, it'd be worth a shot. I was not aware that an E6400 could benchmark at 180% of stock in OC, and I'd like some other forum frequenters to confirm that. Now that would be more than worth it and would definitely defuse my argument

.

E6300 at OC 188% of stock (1.86 to 3.5)...in air and very stable. Core Temps at 60C loaded.

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=145591

 

[CaptRobertApril]

Are you serious about the idle temps on Prescotts? I think you are helping propagate an urban legend. Mine has never gone above 50C even at full load on stock HSF and OCed from 2.8 GHz to 3.57 GHz (that's a 27.5% gain) and dare to say it can go beyond 4.3 if it weren't for my cursed Cheapazaki MoBo. I mean no offense but... Are you putting enough thermal goo on your processor die? About the Numero Uno Oncho: It's supposed to be Spanish but Oncho is wrong, perhaps he meant Ocho so my translation is Number One Eight. By the way it's "enchiladas" not enchaladas.

Hermano, que pasa?

Claro! Yo he comido millares de enchiladas. Ah! Podia conseguir buenas enchiladas aqui! Cono!

I have never had the privilege and honour of owning a fine Prescott. I was stuck with those horrible Athlon 64s that would chew up Prescotts and spit them out and still save ya $200 a pop. :lol: (Hard to believe that I'm turning into an Intel Fanboy now, huh?) However, I had this buddy who had a Prescott 3.2, boxstock no OC. Now this guy knew his stuff so the HSF (Big Typhoon) was properly seated, AC5'd, etc. etc. etc. He even had one of those thermal sensor gun thingies so that he could get the exact temps under the chip, and all that crap.

Well, he could never get it to idle under 52C, and when he'd run loops he once saw 101C. Don't tell me that there is thermal throttling and that's impossible. I know that's how it is supposed to work and it never ever ever throttled back. He even screwed around with the two different types of throttling. No dice. He was checkin' around with other guys who had similar chips (this was before Pentium Ds) and about half of them were reporting really high temps (although I have to admit I never heard of anyone else breaking over 100C!!!)

And you know the weirdest thing? The back of the case where the chip was would get so hot that you could iron a shirt back there and the SOB never ever crashed. The damn chip just kept plugging along at temps that would melt Satan's hardon.

Beats me how it did it! :?

 

[CaptRobertApril]

As for the "hung", wanna compare un-photoshopped photos?

I thought u said you werent into these kinds of things?

ps..ive seen the un-edited version of your sig, im pretty sure it will give anyman nigtmares, scuurry!.

Yeah, but when you have 2.5 glorious inches of throbbing python of lust, you just have to show it off.

Dude, I dunno what kinda drugs KFed was smokin' but you'd have to be blindfolded to plough that furrow. Yuck. I know it's popped two kids, but still... Yuck! 8O

As I said, if I can double my performance, it'd be worth a shot. I was not aware that an E6400 could benchmark at 180% of stock in OC, and I'd like some other forum frequenters to confirm that. Now that would be more than worth it and would definitely defuse my argument

.

E6300 at OC 188% of stock (1.86 to 3.5)...in air and very stable. Core Temps at 60C loaded.

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=145591

Ladies and germs, please turn your attention to the centre ring where Capt. Bob will now eat his shorts. Yum yum yum.

188% of stock is damn impressive. I hereby stand corrected and formally retract my comments disparaging OCers!

 

[funnyvlad]

But why shell out 300 extra bucks for that chip?

First of all. I live in Sweden(as you may have read). Here the cpu´s are about 30% more expensive than in US. Still the difference between the E6400 and E6600 is less than 150$ and even though the u$ has weakened more than 13% comparing to the swedish currency the last year. OK, paying roughly 150$ for 5% extra perfomance may seem stupid but then again: How stupid is the guy that buys a Core 2 Extreme X6800 which is three times more expensive than the E6600??? Propably very stupid but rich I suppose

Seriously, the answer to your question is this simple: I will buy the C2D E6600 before E6400 BECAUSE it will get more stable at 2,93Ghz than E6400 will.

 

[Monkeymagic]

It will be interesting to see if Pt 2 mentions max die temperatures of different CPU's varying from 55c (some A64) to 100c (Pentium M). And how much the lower load temperature effects the end overclock.

 

[KaizenSama]

I have never had the privilege and honour of owning a fine Prescott. I was stuck with those horrible Athlon 64s that would chew up Prescotts and spit them out and still save ya $200 a pop. :lol: (Hard to believe that I'm turning into an Intel Fanboy now, huh?) However, I had this buddy who had a Prescott 3.2, boxstock no OC. Now this guy knew his stuff so the HSF (Big Typhoon) was properly seated, AC5'd, etc. etc. etc. He even had one of those thermal sensor gun thingies so that he could get the exact temps under the chip, and all that crap.

Well, he could never get it to idle under 52C, and when he'd run loops he once saw 101C. Don't tell me that there is thermal throttling and that's impossible. I know that's how it is supposed to work and it never ever ever throttled back. He even screwed around with the two different types of throttling. No dice. He was checkin' around with other guys who had similar chips (this was before Pentium Ds) and about half of them were reporting really high temps (although I have to admit I never heard of anyone else breaking over 100C!!!)

Beats me how it did it! :?

Yeah I know 64 were the hip back then but they arrived 'bout 1 year after the prescotts to my country, and I got my processor at rip off price thanks to a typo on a newspaper ad :twisted: (they swapped the price of the 2.8 GHz prescott with the 1.6 GHz Celeron's, saved like $250 back then).

I have to believe you about the temps, it's just that in my experience going that high on temps usually is the aftermath to the visit of lil miss blue smoke fairy and her friend the smells-like-dog-biscuit imp.

I've tried clockgen and cpucool, they are nice and quite stable, but both lack critical parts needed to do a good OC: Locking up the PCI frecuency and changing the FSB:Mem ratio.

About the enchalada thing, it's just that it's too funny for me to find out that on my puny bro's spelling bee contest guide too many spanish-origin words were wrong. Being a native spanish-speaking person it's laughable that the US-Gov does not check the publications before distributing them nationwide :roll:

 

[ocnewb]

But why shell out 300 extra bucks for that chip?

Seriously, the answer to your question is this simple: I will buy the C2D E6600 before E6400 BECAUSE it will get more stable at 2,93Ghz than E6400 will.


Im lost, stable is stable. There is no "more stable". They have tests to stress your computer to be sure its stable. Just because the E6600 is .3ghz faster doesnt make it more stable. It all comes down to the mobo, cpu and mem. If you get the correct components for the job then you should have no problems with your 6600. But if your going for a modest OC of 2.9-3ghz, the 6400 will accomplish that task with ease with stock HSF, and be 100% stable.

But hey its your money, do with it as you wish.

 

[caamsa]

Good article. I have a fair amount of overclocking experience with CPU's and GPU's and have reaped it benifits over the years. Always just air cooling. This may seem silly but I never overclock a new cpu or gpu I usually wait a year or so or when it is starting to get a little slow then I over clock the hell out of it.

 

[funnyvlad]

Hmm I still think that the propability that the cpu will be unstable is higher with a weaker cpu(maybe the difference is negligible but anyway). Still, I don´t need to OC the cpu to 3,4Ghz. 2,93 will be fine. Mobo is important so I want to know if Asus P5B(vanilla) is enough for overlocking to a modest 2,93Ghz?

Is Geil DDR2 PC6400 800MHz Ultra 4-4-4-12 good for OC?

 

[AdamBomb42]

funnyvlad
PostPosted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 2:18 am Post subject: Re: Overclocking Guide Part 1: Risks, Choices and Benefits
Quote:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 @ 3.7ghz (463x8)


Impressive OC. I on the other hand doesn´t no **** about OC. I´m planning to buy a Core 2 Duo E6600 and overclock it to 2,67Ghz(as stock C2D E6700). May be modest but as I said, I know zilch about OC. Maybe maybe will I try to get to the next multiplier(2,93Ghz).

I just put together my first C2D system using an E6600. I overclocked it right off the bat and got it up to 3.6Gig. I could have got it futher with better cooling. I ended up setting it to 400x8=3.2 with a voltage increase of .025v and memory divider at 1:1. I would suggest trying the same settings as the results are very nice for a processor that cost me $164. Yes, I said $164. It's not a typo.

 

[ocnewb]

Hmm I still think that the propability that the cpu will be unstable is higher with a weaker cpu(maybe the difference is negligible but anyway). Still, I don´t need to OC the cpu to 3,4Ghz. 2,93 will be fine. Mobo is important so I want to know if Asus P5B(vanilla) is enough for overlocking to a modest 2,93Ghz?

Is Geil DDR2 PC6400 800MHz Ultra 4-4-4-12 good for OC?

Do you plan to do dual video cards? Im not sure on the memory, never used it. Thats not normally a good thing =).

 

[funnyvlad]

Do you plan to do dual video cards? Im not sure on the memory, never used it. Thats not normally a good thing =).

NO, I don´t plan to use SLI/Crossfire.

What do you mean with "That´s not normally a good thing =)" That the memory propably sucks?

Besides, how do I know how much I should change the voltage when OC?

 

[ocnewb]

On that mem, normally a non name brand tends to suck. Some ppl have good luck, others dont. It also depends on the mobo. Some like certain mem brands, and not others. When you choose your board go to the manufacturer site to see if it supports that mem. First thing you wanna do is set all the manual setting u can, mem voltage and set cpu volatge to stock (1.35 i think). Then just up your FSB till its not stable. When you get to that point give it more cpu voltage(LIKE 1.375 or 1.4). And continue to raise FSB again.

 

[caamsa]

I am looking forward to the next overclocking article. I know it has become fairly user friendly with the new bios settings etc. What I would really like to see (yes im lazy) is a system that would overclock its self as needed. I imagine this is on the horizon. When im surfing the web I want my computer to scale back and relax using less power creating less heat etc. Then when I am gaming I want it to push it's self to the limit.

It could probably be set up so your computer knows its limit and scales back if it starts to get too hot or kicks in an extra fan. You know those switches on cars that give you different driving modes. I have see bios settings for default and performance values but those seem to be all or nothing. Some of the performance settings are not always that great.