Overclocking (Main Thread)

Quick question, what's the max voltage for an Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 if I want it to run 24/7? I'm using an Ultra 120 Extreme cooler, no fan on the unit itself, just some 120mm fans in the front and back of the case.

Actually, it'd be way better if there was a site where you could calculate the exact dissipation for a specific frequency at a certain voltage for this CPU. I was thinking about hooking up two high-power FETs to the heatsink, wiring them in a loop to dissipate heat just like the processor would. That way I could see how the heatsink handles the temperature at a set dissipation, since actual data for this isn't really out there. Seems easier than touching the heatsink or relying on sketchy sensors.

Quick question: can I actually mess with the Voltage Control on the Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H? I’ve poked around everywhere but I can't find that option—all I see is stuff for tweaking frequencies, multipliers, dividers, and all that other junk...

ambereagle86 said:Just a quick question: what is the maximum voltage for an Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 for daily use? I'm using an Ultra 120 Extreme cooler without a fan, and the case has 120mm fans at the front and back.

In truth, it would be far more efficient if there were a dedicated resource where one could precisely calculate the dissipation for a specific frequency at a given voltage for this particular processor. My intention is to attach two high-power FETs to the heatsink, wired in parallel to dissipate heat identically to the processor, allowing me to observe how the heatsink maintains temperature under specific dissipation levels. Since exact data is currently unavailable, this seems much more logical than manually feeling the heatsink or relying on unreliable sensor readings.

For Windows, don't exceed 1.35V for continuous operation. For benchmarks, I wouldn't go higher than 1.5V.

thanks, i don't really care about benchmarks, just wondering if anyone knows where I can find data on power draw and heat dissipation for a specific clock speed at a certain voltage

I was wondering just how far I can push the overclock on this ATI Radeon X300😕... 😕 😕

Right now, I've got it sitting at: Core clock: 438.8
Memory clock: 202.5

If anyone could give me some guidance on the limits here, I'd really appreciate it because I'm pretty desperate to get more out of this thing
...
Thanks a million!!!!🙂🙂

It really isn't worth the effort to try and overclock this thing, because honestly, the hardware is just far too weak to handle even the most basic modern games...

Hey everyone, I'm trying to figure out how to tell if I've hit a CPU wall or a motherboard limitation. I originally thought it was the board, but now I'm second-guessing myself.

I dropped my Central Processing Unit multiplier down to 6, set the RAM to 1:1, and now I'm just tweaking the Front Side Bus, but I'm hitting a wall at 425. Is this a CPU issue or a motherboard bottleneck?

Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 on an ASUS P5QL-PRO.

It just won't go any higher, no matter how much voltage I throw at the Central Processing Unit or the motherboard. Up until that 425 FSB mark, I haven't even touched the voltages except for the Central Processing Unit itself.

The bottleneck is definitely sitting right there on the Central Processing Unit. I don't follow the Pentium 4 specs all that closely, but even with an Intel Core 2 Duo e8000 series, you might actually be able to push that Front Side Bus quite a bit higher...

I mean, seriously, with this old junker 680i SLI setup I've got, I'm hitting 380MHz, yet when I was running on an Intel P35 chipset, I was cruising along at 525MHz+ without breaking a sweat at all!

I'm a bit confused here:
1. A Central Processing Unit with a 1333 Front Side Bus but only 3MB of L2 cache (2x 2.8GHz)
2. A Central Processing Unit with a 1066 Front Side Bus and 6MB of L2 cache (2x 2.66GHz)
Which one actually performs better?
The motherboard supports both Front Side Bus speeds.
So, which Central Processing Unit offers more value in terms of raw speed?

cheaper...

In theory, the one with the faster Front Side Bus and higher core frequency should be the winner, unless you're running specific programs that rely heavily on cache size—then the other guy might actually pull ahead...

Honestly, I don't think anyone bothered to deal with the headache of benchmarking the difference between those two CPUs. It’s too much work just to find out it all depends on whatever app you're running and, obviously, the rest of the hardware you've got under the hood...

In my humble opinion, the 2.
is a better choice because it can be easily overclocked to reach those 2.8GHz speeds, whereas you simply can't increase the cache on the other one.

http://www.newegg.com/p/product_info.php?products_id=5421 I am considering this motherboard, but I have doubts regarding whether it supports 1333MHz FSB.
Ultimately, I will probably opt for this processor instead: http://www.newegg.com/p/product_info.php?products_id=6283 What are your thoughts? Will it perform better than the previous options mentioned?
The package already includes a heatsink, so would it be feasible to attempt some software-based overclocking on this Central Processing Unit using this specific motherboard?

What is the consensus on this one? It features an Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 with a cooler, running at 2.2 GHz to 2.66 GHz, with a 1333MHz Front Side Bus and 4 MB cache.
Is overclocking possible here? And more importantly, is it actually worth the effort?

I also came across this option, which piqued my interest. Is it worth the purchase given that it is cheaper and offers 100W more (making it 500W total)?

I've got an ATI Radeon X1650 Pro—unfortunately, it's the 64-bit version with 256MB of DDR2. Right now, I'm monitoring the clocks via the ATI-tray tools at
:
BIOS GPU 600
BIOS MEM 400

CURRENT GPU 594
CURRENT MEM 796 (1593 DDR)

I was wondering what this means regarding the Overclocking Method—it says "Software-based overclocking" but it's grayed out, which implies I can't change anything there at all.
Is that right?
🙂 I seem to remember my old 9550 being incredibly flexible—I could push the clocks way up—but with this card, if I try to bump it up by even one increment or drop it by one, the screen just goes haywire. All I see is a bunch of dots. Does that mean overclocking isn't an option here? I have this nagging feeling that this card might already be factory overclocked or something... is that actually possible?

I forgot to mention that this is a PowerColor model... and honestly, even on benchmarks, it's pulling a higher score than my old OC 9550. My only real advantage is that this thing has Pixel shader 3.0, so I can actually run some newer games that the 9550 couldn't handle.

Also, does this specific card support ATI Overdrive and CrossFire?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

So, I was messing around with my ASUS P5VD2 earlier today—it’s got that Phoenix BIOS—and I ran into a bit of a snag! Every time I try to bump up the voltage for my Central Processing Unit, it just shows me one single option and won't let me adjust it at all. Has anyone else dealt with this before? I'd love some help getting this sorted out!

Since you're working with an older mATX motherboard, you won't really have much room to play around with any serious overclocking options here.
It looks like you're probably going to need to pick up a brand-new motherboard eventually.👍

Can someone help me out here? I'm running an AMD Athlon 2800+ and Sempron combo, currently sitting at 1.9GHz—is there any way I can bump this up to, say, 2.2GHz? I've got five fans in my case keeping things cool; temperatures in Windows hover around 36 degrees Celsius, though when I'm sitting in the BIOS, they fluctuate between 24 and 27.

I'm using a GA-K8NS motherboard
with an NVIDIA nForce3 250 chipset

By default, it runs at 1.6GHz

When I dig into the BIOS under Frequency/Voltage Control
- I see these options:
CPU OverClock in MHz: defaults to 200, but right now I'm at 238
AGP OverClock in MHz: 66 by default
K8 CPU Clock Ratio Default
VDDQ (AGP) Voltage Control: Normal
DDR voltage control: Normal

The motherboard manual claims I can set the CPU OverClock anywhere from 200MHz to 455MHz

K8 CPU CLOCK RATIO
ranging from x4 at 800MHz up to x10 at 2000MHz

CPU Voltage
Normal
+5%
+7.5%
+10%

VDDQ (AGP) Voltage Control
Normal
+0.1v
+0.2v
+0.3v

DDR Voltage control
Normal
+0.1v
+0.2v

Quote: Born

Daniel Nguyen3 said:Since you're working with an older mATX motherboard, you won't really have much to work with when it comes to overclocking options!
I really think you should look into getting yourself a brand-new motherboard! 👍

So, you're telling me I can only bump up the Front Side Bus, but messing with the Voltage Control is totally out of the question? Man, that's a bummer!

Emily Flores13 said:So you're telling me I can only bump up the Front Side Bus, but forget about touching the voltage?

Don't hold your breath; you'll be lucky if you even manage to nudge the Front Side Bus.

I actually managed to bump up my Front Side Bus already, so my processor is humming along at 2.07GHz now, which is a nice little jump from when it was stuck at 1.86GHz!
I'd love to push it even further, but I've hit a bit of a wall because I just don't have enough voltage to go any higher.

What's the absolute ceiling for overclocking an e8400 (3.0GHz) using a Cooler Master cooler, a Sears Tower setup, and two 120mm fans? I’m thinking 4.0GHz is definitely doable without overheating or killing the chip, right? Does anyone have any insight on how to make that work?