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Intel OCing questions ..

S

S1nn3r

n00b
Joined
Feb 27, 2005
Messages
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So im specing/priceing up a new system and so far ive concentrated on the AMD A64 side of things now im seeing what can be done on the Intel P4 side of things as well to get an idea of the big picture so to speak.

As far as overclocking the intel P4s from what ive read I need a P4 which has the Performance Requirement Bit and I also need a motherboard that is capable of "Unlocking" the Multiplier useing the PRB e.g Asus P5AD2-E Premium or the Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE is this correct ?

Also i hear that only certain models of P4 have this PRB, so which ones should i be looking for ?
 
500 series or 600 series processors x40 or higher. does not need to be a J processor

and look at the sig, p5ad2e Premium and a 560J. Advice tho....if going intel Get good ram and 925XE, that way atleast you have 64 bit support. Tho Dual core will come with the 945/955 chipsets

 
hmm.

are you sure you're not just throwing out a badly-remembered term that you just sort of heard somewhere?

i THINK you're talking about the Execute Disable bit, which is supposed to work with the DEP extensions of SP2 to prevent certain protected memory spaces from being written or buffer overflowed. it has nothing to do with overclocking.
 
The AA8XE also has the i925XE chipset. If the LED's and OTES aren't your cup of tea. I've had great success OC'ing with that board and the 3.4GHz 550 processor.
 
You don't really need a motherboard that can unlock the multiplier (I'm not sure how many motherboards are able to do that anyway, I've never seen one myself)...
I have overclocked my brothers P4 by using DDR memory that was rated much faster than his chipset, and then increasing the FSB lots...
Since his chipset only supports DDR266, standard DDR400 was plenty. His 2.4 GHz now runs at 2.88 GHz.
So that's an approach that can work quite well.
Alternatively you could clock the memory lower, so you can increase FSB even more. For us the main concern was memory bandwidth though.
 
nylint said:
hmm.

are you sure you're not just throwing out a badly-remembered term that you just sort of heard somewhere?

i THINK you're talking about the Execute Disable bit, which is supposed to work with the DEP extensions of SP2 to prevent certain protected memory spaces from being written or buffer overflowed. it has nothing to do with overclocking.
Click to expand...


it is absolutely not the exicute disable or NX bit. I believe he is correct that it is the PRB or performance requirement bit which drops the performance of the chip to a 14 multiplier.


 
paste from ASUS's site with the listing of CPU's compatable with multiplier reduction.

CPU compatible with CPU Lock Free
Prescott LGA775 CPU (Performance/04B)
800MHZ FSB, 3.4GHz, 3.6GHz, 3.8GHz, 4.0GHz+

Prescott Socket 478 CPU (FMB1.5)
800MHZ FSB, 3.2GHz, 3.4GHz+

the 520 and 530 are not listed.

 
S1nn3r said:
Also about cooling .. ive read (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/pentium4_lga775_overclock/page14.asp) that the stock intel heatsink/fan is good enough to get some pretty good OC's out of, but this seems a little to good to be true ..
Click to expand...

Well, my brothers system reaches that 2.88 GHz on a stock Intel cooler... It's an old one even, it is all-aluminium. The only thing we did was remove the thermal pad and replace it with some Coolermaster Premium paste.
From what I heard, the coolers have improved quite a bit, so you can still overclock quite well with a stock cooler... although something like a Zalman 7700 is better still, ofcourse.
 
Heres a possable intel setup ive worked out -

Abit AA8XE Mainboard
Intel P4 550J CPU
2x Crucial Ballistix 256MB DDR2 PC2-5300
Leadtek WinFast PX6600 GT TDH PCIE Gfx Card
Hitachi DeskStar 7K250 160GB SATA HD
LiteOn SOHW-1673S Dual Layer 16x16 DVD±RW ReWriter
Enermax 470W ATX Version 2.0 PSU

Whats above comes out at around £700, my max is £800 and Case and cooling are unknown right now so with that setup id have £100 or so left for case and cooling.

How does this look so far ? and what is the diffrence bettween the "J" and non "J" processors ?
 
S1nn3r said:
How does this look so far ? and what is the diffrence bettween the "J" and non "J" processors ?
Click to expand...

XD (also called NX) bit.

==>Lazn
 
if you want to overclock, loose the stock cooler, go aftermarket on the cooler and ABSOLUTE MUST get at tube of Arctic Silver 5 it is the only thermal paste that even compairs or exceeds the TIM on the stock cooler. Do not, for any reason use white paste.


The [H]orde needs You!
 
There dont seem to be much choice when it comes to S775 coolers. The Thermaltake Silent 775 and the Zalman 7700/7000's seem to be the best choices... Am very much inclined toward the Thermaltake though as its seemingly less bulky then the Zalman, which i think id have a problem fitting in the cases im looking at as i cant afford to get one of those nice big aluminum cases.
 
from what I've heard, talking with others the Thermaltake is a little better cooling, the Zalman is much quieter. Since i built my Big Boy on the idea that High performance shouldn't mean High noise, I went with the Zalman and have been quite pleased. Note: the other key to taming the flaming deamon of a prescott is to UNdervolt it. 1.3v should be a good starting point.


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What if i was to use the stock cooler but put some AS5 in there, would that do the job ? as all the stuff im reading is saying that the stock cooler is good for some pretty good OCing. I do plan on haveing a well ventilated case as well.
 
It should work well, but certainly wont be anywhere near quiet. Get the AS 5 in case you ever need to take the cooler off. The TIM provided by INTEL is quite good, but it's a one shot deal. If you ever take the cooler off you have to scrape it all off and replace it. You don't need to apply AS5 if you have the stock TIM.


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S1nn3r said:
Heres a possable intel setup ive worked out -

Abit AA8XE Mainboard
Intel P4 550J CPU
2x Crucial Ballistix 256MB DDR2 PC2-5300
Leadtek WinFast PX6600 GT TDH PCIE Gfx Card
Hitachi DeskStar 7K250 160GB SATA HD
LiteOn SOHW-1673S Dual Layer 16x16 DVD±RW ReWriter
Enermax 470W ATX Version 2.0 PSU

Whats above comes out at around £700, my max is £800 and Case and cooling are unknown right now so with that setup id have £100 or so left for case and cooling.

How does this look so far ? and what is the diffrence bettween the "J" and non "J" processors ?
Click to expand...

I would go with 1GB of ram. 512MB is barely enough these days. I would also recommend Maxtor or Western Digital or hell even Seagate over Hitachi drives.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
I would go with 1GB of ram. 512MB is barely enough these days. I would also recommend Maxtor or Western Digital or hell even Seagate over Hitachi drives.
Click to expand...

1GB of good quality DDR2 with the budget I have isnt going to happen.

Im haveing to very very carefully balance this system to fit into the budget ive got so I figure im better off with less RAM but much faster and higher quality then more RAM that is slower/lower quality. Besides which, unlike AMD systems im fairly sure that Intel systems dont have the same bad reactions to all 4 DIMM slots being full.. or im hopeing thats the case ..
 
jfb9301 said:
paste from ASUS's site with the listing of CPU's compatable with multiplier reduction.

CPU compatible with CPU Lock Free
Prescott LGA775 CPU (Performance/04B)
800MHZ FSB, 3.4GHz, 3.6GHz, 3.8GHz, 4.0GHz+

Prescott Socket 478 CPU (FMB1.5)
800MHZ FSB, 3.2GHz, 3.4GHz+

the 520 and 530 are not listed.

Click to expand...

Only one thing thats got me puzzled now is how do i make sure i get a 04B version P4 as im assumeing any other version wont work with the lock free thing. are all new P4s 04B, or do i have to hope that i get one ?
 
S1nn3r said:
1GB of good quality DDR2 with the budget I have isnt going to happen.

Im haveing to very very carefully balance this system to fit into the budget ive got so I figure im better off with less RAM but much faster and higher quality then more RAM that is slower/lower quality. Besides which, unlike AMD systems im fairly sure that Intel systems dont have the same bad reactions to all 4 DIMM slots being full.. or im hopeing thats the case ..
Click to expand...

If you are pushing for overclock, that may be true. But Intel is more forgiving of higher cas timings than AMD.. Intel processors tend to be bandwidth hungry, not CAS timing hungry.

And 1GB is more of a minimum these days... Personally I would prefer an unoverclocked PC with 1GB of ram over a highly overclocked PC with 512MB.. The one with more RAM will be faster much of the time. (A 4GHZ processor swapping to virtual memory will be slower than a 3GHZ processor running from RAM)

==>Lazn
 
So if I was to forget about the cpu multiplier unlocking and just OC via cranking the FSB/Memory am i right in thinking it wouldn't matter what CPU/Mobo i got as long as the mobo supported changeing up/down the FSB/Memory independently and the memory was rated as fast as possable ? and how much harder would this be to get working in comparison to haveing the ablity to change the multi ?
 
easier.

if you work on changing the multiplier, you would still need to ramp the FSB up..... WAY up.

there are returns for having a high FSB and high memory bandwith. But getting them is more challenging than just plain FSB overclocking. And to everyone else, yes I know tight CAS Timings are part of it too (an advanced part, note my CAS4 ram is at CAS3)


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Well, it does matter a bit... Some boards are better overclockers than others.
It depends on the design... How good is the cooling on the chipset, how good is the power supply to the chips, memory, CPU, etc (big capacitors etc)...
You'd have to read some reviews at Anandtech, Tomshardware or such... They generally test the overclocking potential of motherboards (although a single board may not always be representative).

And overclocking via the FSB is very simple... You can just select the FSB speed in the BIOS setup. These days you can do all overclocking via the BIOS anyway. Also increasing voltage, changing mem timings etc.
 
that epox ep-5lwa+ might just be EXACTLY the animal you want

read this page

PowerBIOS for excellent overclocking features:
Programmable FSB and PCI Clock output frequency with 1MHz fine tuning
Support BIOS adjustable CPU multiplier & Core voltage, FSB clock, PCI-E x16 voltage & clock, Chipset voltage, DIMM frequency and voltage settings

BIOS adjustable CPU multipier... hmmmm I'm betting thats the same thing as ASUS CPU Lockfree.

BTW that Crucial Ballistix that you were mentioning... definitly qualifies as good ram, I've got bigger modules, but it runs 556 cas3.


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