Is there any point in ocing?

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Craz_3

Weaksauce
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Feb 6, 2004
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Well basically Im not sure If Im seeing a difference in overclocking.

I currently am using a nf7-s 2.0 board and an athlon 2600 barton.
my memory is a bottleneck being 2700 and cas 2.5, so for me this raises the question, does turning the front side bus up on my processor actually matter? or should I just adjust the multiplier clock and speed it up a bit?

My next question is this, I see voltage and I kind of get a faint idea of why I need to up voltage, but when and why and how much? can anyone suggest a web page or thread that explains this process.

thx for any help, this is by far the best forum I have seen on the web.
 
Yes, turning up the FSB does make a difference, but you have to raise it a significant ammount to make it noticable to you.

When you overclock your FSB, assuming youre running 1:1 fsb to memory, the memory speed also gets raised. What do you mean when you say your memory is a bottleneck? If you run at stock frequencies, then no, it isnt and your memory runs in spec at 333mhz. When overclocking, the memory doenst overclock as well as the CPU so it would be a bottleneck. Thats why manufactures produce PC4000 memory so processors can better run 1:1 with highly overclocked processors with a 250mhz FSB.

As for voltages, you should raise the voltages slowly only when you run into stability problems when overclocking. Say you overclock the FSB to 190mhz without raising the voltage, but the computer wont post anywhere above that. That is when you raise the voltage a small ammout and try again at 191 until you can get stable results. There is no "magic" ammount to raising the voltage, just do it in very small increments until stability is achieved.

I'm no Barton expert, but there are a lot of people on this forum that can help you figure out whats going on with your system because they have similar systems themsleves.
 
Well said OneMadPoptart.

i wouldn't increase vcore passed 1.95 actual for a barton on air cooling.

but as for why you need to increase voltage. When you overclock, you're making the cpu run faster, in which it needs more power to do the work. So by raising the voltage, you're giving it the neccessary "juice" to function correctly.

same goes for Ram voltage, NB voltage, etc.
 
thx for that helpful post,

In a recent event I overclocked my processor 2.2 up to 2.5 but it failed. The voltage was at 1.7, should I adjust any other voltages?
 
Overclocks fail for a number of reasons. Before you raise voltages, eliminate every other source of error from the equation.

If it failed at 2.5, it could very well be a memory issue. Try changing the fsb:mem ratio to 5:4 or 3:2, just whatver your motherboard options allow you to. Like I said, memory does not overclock as well as processors, so you may have just reached the memory limit. Changing the ratio will allow you to run the mem closer to stock while running the processor at the same speed.

-OMP
 
no no, dont try and use any divier other than 1:1 on nForce2 boards. with a divider the system will run slower all around, and thats if you can even boot. leave it 1:1 for sure.

to answer your original post, of course there's a point to overclocking. youre running your system as fast and efficient as it can be. a well done, common XP/nF2 overclock might gain you 20% in all around performance, maybe 10 to 20 FPS in your games, depending which they are. etcetc. your results may differ. but the most important thing is knowing you created that extra speed out of nothing.
 
On the nf7-s it offers two features that are in the overclocking process that I am unsure of.

1. Cpu interface? Is it better to leave this enabled or disabled. If Im overclocking on my own shouldn't I be doing all this anyhow?

2. Cpu fsb/ratio? You guys talked about this, saying 1:1 is the best for my situation, yet I dont see any option for 1:1.
The list of settings is <by Spd <3/3 <3/4 <3/5 <3/6 <4/3 <4/4 <4/5 <4/6 <5/3 <5/4 <5/5 <5/6 <6/3 <6/4 <6/5 <6/6
could another abit owner answer this?
 
By SPD is 1:1

That just means that the memory frequency is set by the external clock (FSB) of the processor. This setting adjusts your memory freq automatically when you bump up the FSB.

By your sig (was it there when you started this thread???) i see you are running 11x200. That means at 1:1 your mem will be overclocked automatically 66mhz. If it can handle that, more power too your mem. If it can't and you run into issues, set the ratio to something lower on the mem side and try again.
 
Originally posted by Craz_3
On the nf7-s it offers two features that are in the overclocking process that I am unsure of.

1. Cpu interface? Is it better to leave this enabled or disabled. If Im overclocking on my own shouldn't I be doing all this anyhow?
Click to expand...
Although people have found they can OC higher with it disabled, the performace hit is considerable, better leave 'Cpu Interface' enabled (only disable if stability demands it)
 
These are some sandra memory bandwidth scores at different configs that Ive run on my system. Perhaps it will help you put a "number" toward the gains of OC'ing FSB.

fsb x mult = 200 x 11
Int 2886
Float 2673

fsb x mult = 235 x 10.5
Int 3384
Float 3113
 
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