Why do people lower multipliers?

A

Aelfgeft

2[H]4U
Joined
Jun 8, 2005
Messages
2,343
This may seem like a noobish question, but isn't the multiplier just a number in the BIOS? If, say, you wanted to run 3.6GHz...

You could run 9x400...
Or 8x450...

Now, I've seen it said that someone would prefer 8x450 in order to run their ram faster. My question is, if the ram can handle 450MHz, why wouldn't you just run 9x450 and get that huge jump?
 
Okay...so they're not actually limiting their overclock just to keep their ram running quickly? it seemed like some were.
 
Simple answer, the higher you can run your buss speed at the faster your system is overall..
 
Now, I've seen it said that someone would prefer 8x450 in order to run their ram faster. My question is, if the ram can handle 450MHz, why wouldn't you just run 9x450 and get that huge jump?
Click to expand...

Frankly, people that do that have the wrong idea. The Core architecture, and even more so the AMD64 architecture, benefit way more from raw cpu mhz than RAM speed.

Running RAM at 1:1, however, is a different story, which can impact performance some, yes.
 
Aelfgeft said:
Okay...so they're not actually limiting their overclock just to keep their ram running quickly? it seemed like some were.
Click to expand...

No, but I doubt they are really seeing a performance increase as many believe it will give. Bumping your multiplier does have an effect on stability, but I'm of the belief that you should run the highest multiplier you can.

See this thread for some data on the matter.
 
People tend to believe that lowering their multiplier and raising the FSB will give them higher performance, which in reality is not really the case and any performance differences are marginal. The other reason is to run their RAM at higher speeds, but again, any performance gains from this are minimal.

Ideally, with a Core 2 system you want to keep your multiplier as high as possible and not set the FSB too high, to reduce strain on the chipset and the CPU if it's FSB-limited. Generally, the thing that most motherboards have issues with is maintaining a high FSB, so keeping it low will reduce the amount of voltage needed by the northbridge as well as increase the stability of systems that might have trouble at high FSBs, with a more-than-likely unnoticeable drop in performance.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top