Overclocking my E6550-Need Advise-:)

[KamaniKurdi]

Hi everyone

I'm planning to OC my system for the 1st time and I need your help.
Thank's to this great forum I have learned allot and I want to speed up my pc a bit. I have read almost everything now on the forum about OCíng but im a bit confused about 1 thing. 1st my specs:

DualCore Intel Core 2 Duo E6550, @2.33 GHz (7 x 333)
MSI MS-7366 nVIDIA nForce 7050-610i (MCP73V)
2 GB DDR2-667 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-15 @ 333 Mhz)

Let's say I want to get my speed up to 2.8 GHZ.
That would mean I have to change the FSB from 333 to 400 Mhz.
But from what I understand my RAM only can go to 333 Mhz. So does this mean I need to buy 2 GB DDR2-800? So it will run 1:1.

Or can I just change the FSB to 400 and lower/higher my RAM so my DRAM:FSB will run at something else than 1:1.

OR maybe you guy's have some better advise for me wich I haven't thought of.

Thanks so much guys, ill be waiting!

 

[Mrbumbum]

http://www.axiontech.com/prdt.php?item=81499

If the above link is the the MSI MS-7366 nVIDIA nForce 7050-610i (MCP73V) you listed, I highly doubt your board will overclock at all.

I had an E6550 in an Asus p5b se motherboard with 2gbs of A-data ddr2 800 ram and I was unable to overclock my processor by even 1mhz, 334 fsb was unstable. The Asus p5b se along with your board is actually overclocked to allow 1333mhz fsb. Your board is one step worse because according to my above link, 667 is the max speed for RAM.

I'm not saying its impossible, just that its highly unlikely you will even get 2.8ghz. You should just adjust the fsb up to 340 or so to see if thats even stable, if it is then inch it up higher. My old p5b se was able to post all the way up to 2.7ghz but it failed in any 3d application (blue screen).

In my case i'm 100% certain my motherboard prevented me from overclocking because once I switched to an Asus P5Q Pro, I was able to overclock it to 476fsb, 100% stable in prime 95 for 36hours. But I was only running 2gb of ram so I upgraded to 4gb of OCZ platinum 1066. With my new ram i have 501fsb (3.507ghz stable).

 

[Mondoman]

The memory bus and FSB are independent, so you can speed up your FSB and leave the memory bus speed unchanged. However, I wouldn't expect a lot from this low-end MB. I wouldn't expect it to be able to go to 1600MHz FSB. Also, it look like it only supports single-channel memory bus operation, which means that for a 1:1 ratio (so your RAM keeps up with your FSB), you will have to run the memory DIMMs at the same speed as the FSB, not at 1/2 the speed as with most systems. Thus, even for a non-OC'd CPU at 1333MHz FSB, you would need to run your RAM at DDR2-1333 to keep up. This is pretty much impossible, so even without overclocking, your CPU performance will be slowed down somewhat by waiting for data from the RAM. If you plan on OCing in the future, think about getting an Intel-chipset-based MB that supports dual-channel memory operation.

 

[theAnimal]

The memory bus and FSB are independent, so you can speed up your FSB and leave the memory bus speed unchanged.

I'm fairly certain you cannot run your RAM less than 1:1.

 

[KamaniKurdi]

Well I have set my FSB to 350 Mhz so its running (7x350) 2.45GHz stable.

But when I changed the FSB in the BIOS my SDRAM speed changed also from 333 Mhz to 328 Mhz. The ratio is now 15:16

So you guys say it's better not to overclock since my memory can't keep up?

 

[Mrbumbum]

Well I have set my FSB to 350 Mhz so its running (7x350) 2.45GHz stable.

But when I changed the FSB in the BIOS my SDRAM speed changed also from 333 Mhz to 328 Mhz. The ratio is now 15:16

So you guys say it's better not to overclock since my memory can't keep up?

How are you judging stability? Just getting into windows or are you running a program like Prime95 / Orthos / or 3d games?

If it is stable then I would keep it there cause your RAM is obviously able to keep up if the system is stable.

 

[KamaniKurdi]

Well I ran 2.5 hours of Prime95 and also alot of heavy Games ( cod4,mirrors edge, fear etc..)

But is it normal that my system automatically underclocks the speed of my RAM when I raise the FSB?

Is the 15:16 a bad thing? Because I'm guessing that if I raise my FSB more, the RAM will decrease also.