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northwood 478 experience?

T

tim-x

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
297
Hey
I was just wondering if anyone knew if it was worth upgrading my cpu. I've got a 3.2c northwood on an asus p4p800e-deluxe at around 3.4-5ghz. Do you guys think it's worth it to buy a new heatsink/fan (i use the intel one at the moment) and try pushing it to around 3.6-3.8? Or is the cpu too outdated and i should just grade when the new conroe or am2s come out... Any opinions?
Thanks!
 
You could watercool it and push it even further... or you could try better air and get an extra couple hundred megahertz out of it... but is it honestly worth it to spend more money on it? As great as your mobo/cpu is, you should put that money aside for the AM2/Conroe wars coming later this year :)
 
Definitely not worth upgrading the CPU.

As far as upgrading the heatsink to OC more, do you really need to ask? ;)

What heatsink are you using now and how are your temps?
 
i'm just using the stock intel heatsink/fan and my cpu temp is right now idle at 31 celcius overclocked to 3.36 or something. At full load it gets to around 50-55 or so. I overclocked it to 3.65 or so and it booted up fine but crashed when i tried running 3dmark06. Well the comp didn't crash but the program did. It was at around 60 celcius then so i got scared and put it back down to 210mhz fsb. The ram i'm using is ocz premier ddr400 2.5-3-3-7 and the rest of my comp is in my sig. Anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks again
 
tim-x said:
Anyone have any suggestions?
Click to expand...

bump the voltage up and increase airflow ;)

What was the voltage at when you booted at 3.65?

First thing i would do is run the 5/4 divider so you can see whether the 50mhz OC on the ram was too much. If it's the RAM holding you back, either keep the divider, loosen the timings, or increase the voltage on the RAM. If it's not the RAM, you'd need to upgrade the heatsink.
 
pigpen said:
bump the voltage up and increase airflow ;)

What was the voltage at when you booted at 3.65?

First thing i would do is run the 5/4 divider so you can see whether the 50mhz OC on the ram was too much. If it's the RAM holding you back, either keep the divider, loosen the timings, or increase the voltage on the RAM. If it's not the RAM, you'd need to upgrade the heatsink.
Click to expand...

My comp right now is at 3632mhz with the fsb @ 227mhz. Voltage is 1.616v and the bus speed is 908.2
I tried bumping the fsb up to 230mhz but the computer wouldn't boot.
I'm very new at overclocking and i have no idea what you mean by running the 5/4 divider so i can see whether etc. etc.... Sorry I just have no clue what that's referring to :p
Also, i'm not really sure how to tweak my ram at all... i read somewhere that the ram i have doesn't overclock for poop.

edit: my cpu temp @ 3632mhz is 34 celcius idle.

2nd edit: with my cpu at this speed my ram is at a frequency of 151.4mhz, FSB: dram is 3:2, and it's at 2.5-4-4-8 as opposed to regularly 2.5-3-3-7
 
tim-x said:
My comp right now is at 3632mhz with the fsb @ 227mhz. Voltage is 1.616v and the bus speed is 908.2
I tried bumping the fsb up to 230mhz but the computer wouldn't boot.
I'm very new at overclocking and i have no idea what you mean by running the 5/4 divider so i can see whether etc. etc.... Sorry I just have no clue what that's referring to :p
Also, i'm not really sure how to tweak my ram at all... i read somewhere that the ram i have doesn't overclock for poop.

edit: my cpu temp @ 3632mhz is 34 celcius idle.
Click to expand...

Here it is in short:

Whatever the FSB is, multiply it by 4 for the effective bus speed of the CPU. Multiply it by 2 for the effective speed of the RAM.

At stock your FSB is 200mhz. multiplied by two = 400mhz RAM speed (DDR=double data rate so your RAM runs at twice the speed of the FSB). Your CPU speed equals FSB * multiplier (locked at 16 for your particular CPU = 200mhz*16=3200mhz

So when you raised your FSB to 227mhz, your CPU is now overclocked to 3.632 ghz (227 * 16) and your RAM is overclocked to 454mhz (227*2)

RAM can be overclocked too much the same way the CPU can. When you raise the FSB, you are overclocking thr RAM as well as the CPU. In the above scenario, your RAM is overclocked 54mhz past what it is rated for.

A good strategdy for overclocking is to try and isolate the components and find their limits so that one isn't affecting the other. You can do that by running what's called a divider. It is a setting in your BIOS usually referred to as CPU: Dram or something like that. At stock the setting is 1:1. Your RAM and CPU will use the FSB at the same ratio. You can change the ratio to something like 5:4 or 3:2 so that now the RAM is using either 80% or 67% of the FSB.

At stock with a 5:4 divider and FSB of 200mhz; CPU = 200 * 16 = 3200mhz; Ram = (80% of 200 =) 160*2 = 320mhz. So now the Ram is underclocked by 80 mhz.

There are two more variables that come into play if you are planning on OC'ing your RAM. That is the timings and the voltage. Tighter timings = better performance = less conducive to a stable OC. You stabilize an OC with more voltage. Increase in Voltage = more heat. Too much heat = instability.


Going back to your original question, chances are your OC to 3.6 ghz is not stable running 3Dmark because it's too hot, doesn't have enough voltage, or the RAM is OC'ed too much. Of course, there is always a chance you have just pushed the CPU as far as it will go, but that's always unlikely when you are usuing ths stock heatsink.
 
that was extremely informative. thank you very much. I've read my ram is poop for overclocking and i was thinking of getting a 2x1gb pc4000 set of maybe ocz gold or ballistix but haven't decided whether i'll be upgrading when the am2 or conroe chips come out. Hopefully that isn't as far as my comp can overclock to but who knows, i gather it's a matter of chance as well.
Thanks again.
 
Sorry if I'm taking the thread here but...what's better: 3:2 divider or 5:4? What would net me a higher clock?
 
The closer to 1:1 you get, the higher your clock. So 5:4 will run your memory faster than 3:2.

To the other poster, even 60C shouldn't be a problem for a Northwood. I'd suggest bumping your memory voltage up a little and see what happens. Also try a bit more voltage on the processor as well, up to 1.65V. Steer clear of voltages over 1.7V on a Northwood.
 
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