First time overclocking, any tips from my specs here?

[Jzabi]

A friend finally opened me up to the world of overclocking.
Does this look about right?
I currently have my e6850 at 3.5GHz
How does my memory look? Is the 1:1 good?
How does the temperature look? Right now idling, it is at 38C. Previous stress test had my load around 56-61 degrees C

Specs:
Intel C2D e6850 @ 3.5GHz | 4GB Corsair DDR@ 800|XFX 8800GTS 320MB XXX edition| GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L| Maxtor 100GB | XP pro 32-bit

 

[anime4u]

So far so good. Everything looks fine.

 

[PC_User]

You probably have C1E enabled since CPU-Z shows the CPU speed at 2334 MHz (idle).

RAM seems to be running at 780 MHz if its 1:1.

Also, did you manually set the RAM timings in BIOS? I'm sure you can lower tRAS to 15 so the timings will be 5-5-5-15, which is typical for a DDR2 800 lower latency kit. You might also want to tweak the ram multiplier to have it run at a speed faster than 800 MHz.

 

[Jzabi]

C1E? That is the thing that idles the CPU when it is not in use right?

Well, I made it so it was 1:1.
Before that, every step up on the FSB of the cpu, it raised my RAM frequency above 800, but the timings were slower. it was like 6-5-5-20. Is there a way to lower the timings while at the same time bringing the RAM about 800MHz again?


how about the temperature, does that sound good for being OC'ed to 3.5GHZ? 38-43 idle and 56-61 full load

 

[BillParrish]

Since you cannot go lower than 1:1 there is no way to get your ram at 800MHz unless you can increase your FSB to 400MHz which may or may not be do-able depending on the rest of your system. Your temps are fine and CPU voltage is not excessive

56-61 full load

Forget idle temps - as long as you are under 80C full load you have nothing to worry about and even then the CPU is not really hot. You would need to be above 90C before the CPU even considered itself hot. Now this is in concern to damage to the CPU. It is true that the hotter it runs it might affect what your highest OC can be and cooler is always better. Tons of old posts on how the CPU thermal protection works so I wont go into it but it is almost impossible to damage the CPU due to heat. It will shut itself down but thats not something you wish to test. Its the voltage that could kill it and as long as you are at or under 1.4V (Intel rated max is1.45V) you should be fine. CPU-ID is saying you are at 1.375, if the setting is available I would try, if needed, 1.3825 and see if you can slowly (2 MHz at a time) raise the FSB to try for the 400MHz "sweet spot" that would run your ram right on spec.


(watch the auto settings they tend to try to set voltages higher than really needed. One way is to use the PC Health screen in the bios or other windows utilities to find out what the motherboard has set them to. Then go into manual voltage control and set them the same. Check for stability with stress test program. Then reduce each voltage, one at a time, and retest for stability. The goal is to find the lowest voltages with will still give you a rock solid OC.

Also use your finger to check the MCH/Northbridge temps. It is the biggish heatsink kinda in the middle of the board. It will get very warm, that is OK, but if it gets downright hot, as in you cannot hold your finger on it for a slow count of 10, get a fan blowing on it. The MCH gets OCed just like your CPU so keeping it cool is a big help with high FSB overclocking. Many of us just glue a small 40mm fan onto it with silicone adhesive or run screws down into the fins, it does not take much to hold the fan on nor much air blowing on the MCH/Northbridge HS to drastically reduce its temps.

This is just the next steps if you are inclined to go for more. It is no big deal that your memory is under-clocked, the extra horsepower you gained from OCing the CPU more than makes up for it.

 

[Jzabi]

Thank you for you help. I will be putting a fan on my Northbridge. It is only warm, but a fan will be there just in case.

My final question is along the lines of my video card. Right now I have a 8800GTS 320mb, coming on friday from newegg is a GTX 275.

In my bios settings I took the suggestion that I have seen in some of the guides on the internet of turning my PCIe off of auto and locking it to 100. If I overclock the GTX 275, will I have to increase that speed up from 100? or will 100 be perfectly fine?

Thank you everyone for you help, I am so happy to finally be overclocking!

 

[PC_User]

C1E? That is the thing that idles the CPU when it is not in use right?

C1E is basically a power saving feature that lowers the voltage and clock speed of your CPU when its full power is not required (i.e. during idle times).

Well, I made it so it was 1:1.
Before that, every step up on the FSB of the cpu, it raised my RAM frequency above 800, but the timings were slower. it was like 6-5-5-20. Is there a way to lower the timings while at the same time bringing the RAM about 800MHz again?

If you currently have the RAM frequency at or around 800 MHz, you can go into advanced BIOS options and manually set all of the timings to 5-5-5-15. It also depends on how much above 800 MHz your ram is running (400 MHz for dual channel in 1:1) and what kind of RAM you have.

how about the temperature, does that sound good for being OC'ed to 3.5GHZ? 38-43 idle and 56-61 full load

Temps look normal. Also depends on your ambient temp.

 

[BillParrish]

100 MHz is perfectly fine and as you know, the standard. That setting defines the clock speed in transferring data from the MCH to the PCI buss where your video card lives and a lot of the onboard devices like HD controller and USB ports. The video card of course has its own GPU and memory that then processes that data for display and the GPU and memory on most high end cards can also be tweaked for extra performance. Something you should look into later if you are a gamer. The guys in the video card - Nvidia sub-forum will be glad to help.

It is possible to raise the PCI buss frequency a bit for minuscule performance improvements. Usually stuff on the PCI-e buss can handle up to 110 ish MHz but in my opinion its not really worth it to mess with it. I set mine at 102 MHz from back in the days we were not quite sure the "Auto" setting would lock it at 100MHz and have never changed it. I have heard/seen no reports of issues with Auto on any boards in the last year and the manuf and bios programmers seem to have sorted that out perfectly now. Video cards are pretty tolerant of minor increases in the PCI buss speed but the on-board HD controllers usually get upset first and while a MHz or 3 is not an issue its not worth the pain and suffering to have the HD controller turn your windows install into trash with a MHz too much.

You cant permanently damage anything but again it seldom (read almost never) is worth messing with. 100-102 and call it a day for that setting and if on a CMOS clear one day it gets set back to "Auto" I personally would not spend the time to reboot to change it back to manual 100MHz /shrug.

 

[Jzabi]

Thank you for the explanation.
Once again the [H]ard forums have been very helpful to me. You guys are the best.
Once my GTX 275 comes in tomorrow, I will turn my attention the the video card section if I need help OC'ing the card. In the past I would just buy the pre-OC'ed cards. However, I finally decided to buy a stock EVGA GTX 270 and take my chances at OCing it.