Posts by electriceagle40

Cele303 said:Well, I am currently running at DDR400, so bumping things up to 420 doesn't really feel like much of a victory to me, 😢

I wonder if you might have missed the nuance in my previous message? It would probably be most beneficial to just loosen up all those memory settings first, and then you can go ahead and give that frequency a nice little boost. 😉

amberorca192 said:The real issue here is that you’re significantly increasing the risk of actually frying your processor, not to mention that almost any chip is going to run much hotter when you start cranking up the voltage.
Overvolting just introduces instability and inevitably cuts down on the overall lifespan of the CPU.

I certainly see where they're coming from with that logic, but I have to say that bumping up the voltage is often exactly what provides the stability needed for an overclocked chip to actually hold steady...

For instance, my Intel Pentium 4 hits a pretty decent peak at 2200MHz while running at 1.85V; sure, it might manage at lower voltages too, but this specific setting keeps everything running flawlessly without a single hiccup. It could probably push all the way to 2400MHz, though I personally feel like hitting that 2V mark is pushing things a bit too far into the danger zone.🙂

It's definitely true, though, that if you're planning on upping the voltage, you really ought to invest in some beefier cooling to handle the extra heat...

There is one little rule of thumb I think you all probably already have tucked away in your minds—the lower the latency, the lower the clock speed you can typically push before things get shaky. 😉

Think of it like this: if your processor has plenty of headroom to crank up the frequency, but your memory just can't handle those super aggressive, tight timings without hitting a wall, my advice is to simply dial everything back to the default settings—or even go a bit slower on those timings to find some stability.

In my experience, when you're weighing your options, the performance jump you get from obsessing over tiny latency tweaks is really quite negligible compared to the massive boost you get from just pushing the raw frequency higher.

dustypilot23 said:You might find yourself needing to bump up the voltage just a hair to stabilize things, though I wouldn't dream of pushing it much past an extra 0.2V—so we’re looking at roughly 1.7 to 1.75 maximum.

I suppose I should ask, just out of pure curiosity, why we shouldn't push it any further than that?

So, if you're looking for a way to check if your system can actually handle the heat, this stability testing tool might just be the gold standard; I've always felt that if you can get through a solid 15 minutes of testing without a hiccup, you can rest easy knowing your CPU overclock won't suddenly pull the rug out from under you right when you need it most. 🙂

Prime95
Just head over to options->torture test->and then select the second option there.

http://mersenne.org/gimps/p95v238.exe

driftingnomad68 said:Does anyone actually realize what would happen if you tried to slap an Athlon XP 2100+ (0.13um) into a VIA K8T330 motherboard?

The board would essentially go up in smoke, 😲 😁

Since that Athlon features a 266MHz Front Side Bus and the motherboard is rated for 133MHz, just take a moment to visualize how incredibly slow that processor would actually be running at those mismatched frequencies. 🙄

The only way you might see any progress is if you managed to overclock the Front Side Bus on that older board, but even then, you aren't going to see any significant gains, that much is certain...

Honestly, there is absolutely no point in trying to pair that processor with a motherboard like that. 😉

Mr. ex President said:I know this isn't exactly the main topic here, but I’d rather just ask now instead of starting an entirely new thread.
Which version of PCMark should I be looking at—is it better to stick with '01, '02, or '03, or should I just jump straight to PCMark 04?😕

Thanks a bunch!
Mr. ex President😁

Well, I suppose the most recent one would be the logical choice, wouldn't it?😁

abit nf7-s v2.0
athlon 2500+ (stock settings)
2x256 DDR 400MHz, Samsung, default timings
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro @ 390/358 (using a Zalman heatpipe plus a rather subpar cooler that basically just sits in the gap between the board and the card😁)

3DMark2003 score: 5600 😎

By the way, I’ve run into a bit of a head-scratcher: whenever I try to overclock the CPU, 3DMark2003 fails to recognize its actual frequency. It seems to misread it as some other speed every single time, and to make matters worse, the resulting score ends up being even lower than when I'm running the processor at stock speeds.😕

On a side note, my Athlon is being kept cool by a Zalman CNPS7000-CU, and I can push it up to 2.2GHz at 1.85V, which appears to be the absolute limit of stability. Sure, it might actually manage to boot at 2.4GHz, but honestly, there isn't much point in chasing that.