A64 Overclocking Help!

[Postal76]

I have an AMD A64 3500+ venice core cpu, Abit socket 939 mobo, and 2GB corsair valueselect RAM. If you can answer a few questions for me regarding A64 overclocking, you'll be my hero:

1.) Is it common to change chipset voltage? All I've changed is the HTT/FSB speed, the cpu voltage, and I dropped the transport multiplier to 4x so it wouldn't exceed the 1000MHz threshhold. Am I missing something?

2.) Is it safe for my 4x512MB of corsair valueselect DDR400 to be running at 237MHz, 2.5-3-3-8 at 2T? I've run memtest for many hours and didn't receive any errors.

3.) Will overclocking RAM improve performance in my setup or should I set a memory divider? In other words, does a socket 939 motherboard/cpu gain any performance from speeds past DDR400?

Sorry if any of my questions are confusing or if my terminology is flawed.

 

[Brad1011a]

I have an AMD A64 3500+ venice core cpu, Abit socket 939 mobo, and 2GB corsair valueselect RAM. If you can answer a few questions for me regarding A64 overclocking, you'll be my hero:

1.) Is it common to change chipset voltage? All I've changed is the HTT/FSB speed, the cpu voltage, and I dropped the transport multiplier to 4x so it wouldn't exceed the 1000MHz threshhold. Am I missing something?

2.) Is it safe for my 4x512MB of corsair valueselect DDR400 to be running at 237MHz, 2.5-3-3-8 at 2T? I've run memtest for many hours and didn't receive any errors.

3.) Will overclocking RAM improve performance in my setup or should I set a memory divider? In other words, does a socket 939 motherboard/cpu gain any performance from speeds past DDR400?

Sorry if any of my questions are confusing or if my terminology is flawed.

1. You shouldn't need to, but if temps are OK then it 'should' be OK*.

2. MemTest says a lot for stability, but not for long-term reliability.

3. Yes.

* Overclocking can cause failures and realiability issues, consumes more power etc., but I do it MILDLY.

 

[Brad1011a]

I know you may be going for a bigger boost, but my personal overclocking edict is, "If the increase in speed requires an increase in voltage, I won't do it." I haven't had any overclocking failures, stability problems or long-term reliability issues this way (not that it always would otherwise). Also I take an objective look at whether I really need the extra speed by asking myself, "What is the system not doing fast enough?" The answer is usually, "Nothing."

 

[Postal76]

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I can hit 2.4 GHz from stock 2.2 GHz without a voltage increase, but right now I'm on 2.6 GHz with a voltage increase. That 200 MHz probably isn't making a huge difference...I may back down to 2.4 just to be safe.

 

[ERL857]

Im running that CPU paired with an Asus A8N5X and 2x1gb of CorsairXMS

I originally bought it with the intentions to overclock the crap outta that thing, turns out, 3 months later, still running at stock, have not really felt the need to overclock it. Its fast, cool, and stable.