Help! Strange Overclock Benchmark Results

[random326]

I’m new to this overclocking thing, so bear with me – I have two systems that I’m overclocking, and I’m getting weird results with Everest for both of them when I do. I’m running the Everest memory read, write, and latency benchmarks for each system, and what is strange is that the memory read benchmark actually gets worse when I overclock. Any idea why that might be happening?

Here are the details:

System 1: P4 (Northwood), 3.2 GHz, 1 GB RAM, Asus P4P 800 deluxe. On this system, I’m using the Overclocking menu in the BIOS to overclock by 5% and 10%. For the 10% overclock, I’m loosening memory timings slightly – no change for 5%.

Overclock results: (all are Memory read (MB/sec) / Mem write (MB/sec) / Latency (ns))
Normal speed: 4839 / 1536 / 77.4
5% OC (3366 MHz): 4486 / 1602 / 90.1
10% OC (3533 MHz): 4413 / 1577 / 89.8

System 2: P4 (Prescott), 3.0 GHz, 2 GB RAM, Abit AA8XE. On this system, I’m using the Abit OC Guru windows-based program in “Turbo” mode – an 8% overclock.

Overclock results:
Normal: 5900 / 2014 / 92.4
8% OC (3238 MHz): 5864 / 2020 / 87.5

The memory write bandwidth decreases with the higher overclock in every case – that makes no sense to me! Shouldn’t memory bandwidth increase with increasing FSB frequency – especially with no change in memory timings? There must be something about Everest that I am not understanding…Any help is appreciated! By the way, neither system has any trouble booting into XP or running anything at these overclocks, and the CPU temps don’t get all that hot (never above 50C), if that matters. Thanks!

 

[Adidas4275]

since you are doing an auto overclock... it might be running a DDR333 divider without you knowing... what does everest say your RAM is at? It would be at DDR432 if it was really OCing it to 8%. which alot of DDR400 ram cannot do. this might be the issue..

honestly you should learn how to OC with the bios and manual settings, you will get much further in increasing the performance of you rigs...

 

[random326]

I don't think that is it - Everest shows the memory bus to be the same as the CPU FSB, so for a 5% OC it shows 210 MHz, for 10% 220 MHz. Plus the memory has plenty of headroom for these small overclocks (DDR 462 memory on one system, DDR 533 on the other). What I do notice on the Asus P4P system is that whenever it is overclocked, even with manual BIOS settings, Everest shows that PAT (Page Attribute Table) is disabled. I've seen some threads in other forums about this problem, with the P4P 800 but I'm not sure whether there is a work around for it. I'm not sure if the Abit system has the same issue - I need to go back and check that.