First ever attempt at overclocking ....

F

failsafe

n00b
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Dec 7, 2006
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Hi , this is my first post here and I was wondering whether I could get some advice ....

I'll be geting my new C2D system in the new year and in the mean time thought I would learn about overclocking , using my current PC.

I have a P4 3.06 Prescott ( 478 ) , an MSI 865 Neo , 2 x 512 Corsair Value select Ram ( dual channel ), Scythe Infinty cooler , Gigabyte 6800 ( GV-N68128DH ) unlocked to 16,6. and a coolermaster 430 watt PSU.

I've been searching the forums and googling for as much info as possible and this is what I've done so far......

the first thing I tried was to raise the FSB ( 1:1 ).
Can only get to 210Mhz and then it fails.

After reading more about the subject I tried a different approach ( and this is how it is currently set up ) ...

Set the RAM to 333 and raised to FSB to 240Mhz so that the RAM is at 400 and the CPU is 3.6Ghz.
I have also increased the vcore to 1.5v from 1.3875.
The PC is totally stable , the Infinity cooler is going a fantastic job , reducing the temperature by 14C idle ( 26C from 40C ).
The cooler is also chucking out a load of cool air that my passively cooled video card is benefiting from.

I have not touched RAM voltage as I've read that my RAM isn't really that good ( TBH I didn't intend to overclock when i built this system ).

What I have noticed though is that my scores on 3dmark2001se are lower at 3.6Ghhz (5:4) than they are when I leave the RAM 1:1 and increase FSB to 210 ( 3.15Ghz ).

Is this normal ?
Will the higher CPU speed gives me a boost even though my 3dmark score is lower?

This is where I could really do with some advice ...

Have I gone about things in the right way ?
How can I get more improvement from this rig ?

I'm just concerned that even though I'm running at 3.6Ghz (5:4) the performance may not be as good at 3.15 (1:1)

Any advice would be welcome , as I said I've done some research and tried to implement what I've learned to the best of my ( limited ) abilty.

During my searches I've not seen a whole lot of threads on the P4E Prescott , hence my first post.

Thanks in advance !!
 
depends on what you're doing. not a bad attempt for first time at all. note though you have a 3.0 not a 3.06. i wasn't sure if there was ever a 3.06 prescott although i wouldn't have doubted it. but trying to compute, 3.06 would be 23x133 so at 210fsb, i was real alarmed!!

don't be afraid to up the voltage to your ddr man. they wont burn out :) does your ram have heatspreaders on them? I'm assuming no since theyre valueselect. That's good then in ways. Find out what chips they use. Eitherway, what's stock voltage for that ddr? 2.5v or 2.7v (2.6v maybe)? Either way, give 2.9v a go and see how you do. I wouldn't be surprised if you could run 1:1. Also, how are your timings looking for ram? If you have to use 5:4, then at least pump up the vddr and see if you can drop timings. 5:4 @ 240 still nets you 192 (384ddr) which isn't too bad with decent timings, and i wouldn't put it past the chips to be able to do at least 2-3-2 with higher volts
 
thanks for your reply.

Ok , i have tried a few different settings based on your advice.
Any attempt to overclock using 1:1 ends in tears.
I upped the voltage to 2.9 ( was 2.6 default in bios ) but 3dmark 2005 crashed every time at 1:1 ( excpet 210 ).
The Ram has no heat spreaders by the way but my new Infinity cooler ( bought it yesterday ) is doing a great job blowing air onto it.
The default timing is 3 3 3 8.

I went back to 5:4 ( well, down to 333 )and had a bit more success.
I have now set the FSB to 204 and the CPU is running at 3.84Ghz.
The RAM voltage is still at 2.9v and the CPU voltage at 1.5375v.
The RAM timings go to 2.5 4 4 8 when set like this.

When I run the Memory Write benchmark in Aida32 I see a drop from around 2003MB/s when at 1:1 210FSB ( 2.15Ghz ) to 1816MB/s when running the above 3.84 set up ( although this does give a better score in 3dmark 2005 , both for overall score and CPU score )
Is this due to RAM timings , the quality of the RAM etc ?

Are these settings OK for my PC in the long term ( I do plan to sell it when I do my new build in the new year ! ).

Really I'm looking at this as practice for my C2D in the new year , so I'll be less of a noob when I get my e6600 !!

Any advice about my RAM timings would be greatly appreciated , whilst I seem to be getting to grips with FSB etc I know almost nothing about this subject despite reading various articles and threads ...

thanks again
 
wait a second... what multiplier are you running? is it downwards unlocked or something???

3.0 @ 800fsb would mean it's 15x multi. 3.06 @ 133 means 23. it doesnt add up to what youre saying?!?!
 
ziddey said:
wait a second... what multiplier are you running? is it downwards unlocked or something???

3.0 @ 800fsb would mean it's 15x multi. 3.06 @ 133 means 23. it doesnt add up to what youre saying?!?!
Click to expand...

Yeah , I quoted the wrong figures sorry ....

I dropped the RAM frequency down from 400 to 333.
Then upped the FSB to 256 , giving the RAM a speed of 409.
The CPU voltage is set at 1.55v and Ram is 2.9v.

I have been running Prime95 for an hour or so , load temp is 50C and no problems.
Is this about as good as I can expect from my current set up ?
I'm new to this lark and don't want to do any damage !!

Thanks
 
Depends... If anything I think your RAM would be the bottleneck. What RAM?

Try increasing the voltage a little bit and add on another 10-20FSB or so.
 
Arcygenical said:
Depends... If anything I think your RAM would be the bottleneck. What RAM?

Try increasing the voltage a little bit and add on another 10-20FSB or so.
Click to expand...

The RAM is 2 x 512 Corsair Value Select ( running dual channel )
Default timings are 3 3 3 8 , but are currently set by the BIOS at 2.5 4 4 8 with this overclock.

Thanks
 
As a complete novice in this field any advice on what else I could do, or your opinion on what I have already done would be greatly appreciated !!!

Thanks in advance :)
 
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