e5200: Why not a 12x multi?

[drbenjamin]

Hi All

I'm a casual OCer, and wanted to get a little more speed out of a recent build with an e5200 in a Gigabyte P45-D3SL. I noticed that the multiplier defaulted to 9.5X, and when I raised it to 12 (default 266 FSB) cpuz reported that I was at 3.1 GHz, which was pretty close to where I was hoping to get (3.4, I'm only using the stock cooler). Reading some threads here, ppl were saying to use a lower multi and raise the FSB. Would that make the machine any faster? I have 4GB of DDR2 800 in the machine, so I don't think I'll get too far raising the FSB speed. I guess I always thought that high multipliers were a good thing for overclocking; has that changed?

Thanks!

 

[sirmonkey1985]

on intel systems FSB is a little more important then using the FSB to overclock on an amd system.. you could run 400 FSB with the memory set at 1:1 memory timing.. so it will still be ddr2 800.. then use the multiplier after that to fine tune to exactly what you want the processor overclocked to..

 

[Zero82z]

In terms of real-world differences, there is little to no benefit to using a higher FSB with a lower multiplier in terms of performance. The only difference you're likely to see is perhaps in synthetic benchmarks. In addition, running a higher FSB will put more strain on your northbridge and could require you to raise its voltage as well, which would produce more heat.

In short, it really doesn't help much to use a higher FSB level and a lower multiplier, and it generally makes overclocking more difficult as well. I personally suggest that you just stick with a high multiplier unless there is some particular reason why you would benefit from a higher FSB speed.

 

[Arcygenical]

What Zero said.