Overclocking

Col_Loki · 23-06-2004 5:39pm #1

Ok so here goes. Will do one for AMD XP , AMD64 and P4 "C" Chips.

General Terms

Ok first off i will give a pretty easy reference to the different sayings/words that are used.

FSB : Front Side Bus , it is the speed that the CPU and RAM interact (talk) with each other at. The "Total FSB" is the base figure(speed) of the FSB X The number of times its pumped. Look it like this, take it a car can travel at 100mph on a motorway (base figure) BUT there are 4 lanes for trafic SO the total possible speed is 100 X 4 = 400mph at one time.

Multiplier : This is used to calculate the ammount of work the CPU does for every MHZ of FSB. So say the multiplier is 10, for every 1mhz of FSB the CPU will do 10mhz or work..... 200mhz FSB the CPU will do 2000mhz.

CPU Speed : CPU Speed = FSB (Base figure) X Multiplier . So if the FSB (base figure) is 200mhz and the Multiplier is 12 then the total speed of the CPU = 2400mhz.

Vcore Voltage : This is the ammount of voltage that your CPU gets. Most motherboards will allow you to change this up or down. The more Vcore (voltage) the more stable your CPU becomes, also the more Heat it produces.

VDimm : This is the RAM voltage, same as CPU voltage, an increase makes the RAM more stable but also makes it get hotter.

Chipset : This is the voltage that goes to the chipset. It effects the total FSB speed and is an option to change on some motherboards.

Graphics Card Voltage : This can increase the voltage to your graphics card slot. Note this does not help with overclocking your graphics card and is best left alone. Some people have fried there graphics cards by messing with this voltage

Memory Timings : Not going into specifics, simply put the lower the timings of your memory (ie CAS, RAS etc etc) the better your memory performs. Sometimes tighter (lower) timings can mean the system is unstable OR limit your FSB so people mess arround with them to get a balance of stability and performance (worry about these afterward).

Prime95 : A program used to test the system stability. This will make sure your overclock is a good one . It is good to use after an overclock for say 1 hour to give you a good indication of how your doing (blend test is fine). Generally if you think you've found your CPU's limit running prime95 for 8+ Hours will tell you wheather its stable for constant use at that overclock.

Well its a start, will work more on it 2moro........

Azza · 03-07-2004 12:54am

Just thought I would help out with AMD 64 section you can edit this post or throw it to your own later if you want.

HyperTransport The amount of voltage sent to your Hypertransport on AMD 64 which is a bus technology used to transport data from a chip to other chips on the mainboard. Can operate on several buses at the same time as it is mulitported.
The higher the HyperTransport is the better but the difference is minimal. Nforce 3 150 is 600mhz VIA K8T800 is 800mhz and the new nforce 3 250 are coming in at 1000mhz. Socket 939 will reach 2000mhz.

PCI Locks A working PCI lock can seriously improve your overclocks while not putting other components at serious risk (graphics card or sata raid controllers). While all Athlon XP from week 39 of production are locked (as are the Pentiums)
the AMD 64 is downward unlocked while the FX series is the only chip truely unlocked up and down. Alas the first generation of AMD 64 motherboards almost
entirely did not come with working PCI locks. But the new nforce 250 motherboards do. Realistic speaking with no pci lock your looking at a max overclock near 10-11%.

Azza · 04-07-2004 9:10pm

Col_Loki thats a fantastic overclock you have in your sig. Is that 2000xp unlocked?....what sort of fsb and voltage you got on it.

Col_Loki · 05-07-2004 11:49am

Its a locked Xp2000+ just picked up from jes as im trying to put my 2500's into a dual rig .

Its a pretty decent overclock i must say , the FSB is @200mhz , voltage 1.94v , load temps under 48'C, running the fans very slow and quiet. 2505mhz .........

I will finish this overclocking thread when i get a little more time, thanks for the AMD64 stuff will add that aswell.

Azza · 06-07-2004 1:55pm

I doubt you would be interested in selling that water cooled 2000xp rig (without monitor or speakers) by any chance?

Col_Loki · 06-07-2004 2:04pm

Im going to hold onto it for the min, have plans to upgrade my watercooling and do a total revamp in a couple of months. For the min its nice to have and its lovely and quiet......

PS Why would you want it when you have a lovely AMD64

?

Azza · 06-07-2004 4:01pm

No I don't intend replacing my current system. Its just I'm moving out in 2 months and don't wont to leave the folks computerless, that and I don't want them screwing up this machine. I also wanted a second machine to play around with. I like the idea of water cooling just the mobility of my current rig is bad enough as its stands. I would of probably thrown in my 9800xt into that and upgrade my current machine to an X800XT.

Just wondering anyway as I thought with your new rig you might be getting rid of the older one or that you where in need of cash to build it.

Anyway no worries.

Col_Loki · 06-07-2004 4:21pm

Ive two systems, and use one of them for college and the other for home. I get fairly piss'd off with a slow computer so thought id upgrade the 2nd one from an Xp1800+ to a dual Xp2500+ .

Am thinkin about a dual watercooled Xeon setup in the future with raptors but i need to pay a few bills first. The dual XP will be nice to play arround with for a while and see how it handles multitasking .

Azza · 06-07-2004 6:47pm

Lol talking a walk from the orignal threa topic.

Okay here is a question for you. I have read that setups on raid are at risk on AMD 64's when overclocked?

Is there anyway of garding against this or once I lower the multiplyer down and raise the FSB am I okay?

Col_Loki · 07-07-2004 12:03pm

I have read that setups on raid are at risk on AMD 64's when overclocked?

Do you mean with boards with no PCI/AGP lock? I havent heard anything about it on the NF3 250 boards........ havent been looking much in the last week.

Azza · 07-07-2004 4:50pm

I'm not sure I read it on extremeoverclockings.coms forums a couple of guys trashed raptors by running a high fsb on AMD 64 board. Nearly certain was a nforce 150 board.

But even so how does lowering the multiplyer protect your hard drive?
After all your increasing the FSB more

Col_Loki · 08-07-2004 11:05am

Think the main issue is that the drives were being run out of spec. Ie if you jump to a high FSB with no PCI/AGP lock then the hard drives are run alot higher than standard.

But even so how does lowering the multiplyer protect your hard drive?

The multiplier only effects your CPU, its basically the ammount of work in MHZ that the CPU does for every MHZ FSB. Lowering the multiplier shouldnt have an effect on your hard drives either way (assuming your overclock is stable, as if its very unstable you could get hard drive corruption from that but its nothing to do with the multiplier its to do with stability).

The NF3 250 boards should all have the PCI/AGP lock, still i wouldnt jump in at 300mhz FSB and lower the multi as you cant be sure. Its pretty hard to kill your hard drives through this but it has been known to happen.

Azza · 11-07-2004 6:54pm

Hi again just wondering about your overclocked 2000xp you say voltage is 1.94v. Is that using the voltage adjuster on the motherboard as it came packaged or did you volt mod the board?

I know the XP's run at higher volts than the Athlon 64 's but most AMD 64 motherboards having rather low voltage like 1.7 to 1.8.

Col_Loki · 11-07-2004 6:58pm

The AMD XP's take far far better to voltage than AMD64's or P4's. On the P4's for instance it is recomended to stay below 1.7v as there have been cases of instant death when this is exceeded for constant usage.

You also have to bear in mind that im using water cooling so temps are pretty decent. Ive ran an Xp2500+ up to 2.05v for a while without any problems.

The NF7-S comes with voltage options in the BIOS up to 2.3v i think :eek: ....... havent went that high!!

Azza · 11-07-2004 7:07pm

WOW 2.3 that would would melt my cpu...not recommended AMD 64 go above 1.7 either but I think most can get them to 1.75-1.8 on air cooling. I seen a guy with a volt mod running his ram at 3.2 .....thats got be taking a pounding.

Actually you know any sites that sell Athlon Xp chips with a working lock after Jes?

Col_Loki · 12-07-2004 1:15am

I seen a guy with a volt mod running his ram at 3.2 .....thats got be taking a pounding.

Yea ive seen people with 3.5v going through the Ram , and they say it only runs a little warm.(still really dodgy IMO)

Actually you know any sites that sell Athlon Xp chips with a working lock after Jes?

Not sure what you mean by this?
Do you mean un-locked so you can change the multiplier - if so there very rare as they have been locked for ages and almost every site is selling locked ones, have a look at mobile bartons for unlocked overclockers.

The chip i have cant change multipliers, its set at 12.5 .

Azza · 16-07-2004 5:01pm

Here is my attempt at overclocking and benchmarking. Comments and thoughts?

Cpu
AMD 64 CPU 2.2Ghz @ Stock Speed
Voltage 1.5v
Mulitplyer 11
FSB 200
Hyper Transport 800mhz
CPU Temp 40-42c

MainBoard
MSI K8N Neo Platinum
Bios 1.1

Memory
1024 OCZ EB PC 3700 3.0-3-2-8 @ Stock Timings
Speed 400Mhz
Voltage 2.5v

Graphics Card
Asus 9800XT 412/730 @ Stock Speed
DirectX 9b
AGP Frequency 66
Voltage 1.5v

Hard Drives
2x Western Digital 74Gb Raptors Raid 0

Operating System
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1

Drivers
Default ATI Catalyst 4.6

3D Mark 2000 3D Mark 2000
24,574 3D Marks 23,072 3D Marks

3D Mark 2001 3D Mark 2001
20,254 3D Marks 20,252 3D Marks

3D Mark 2003 N/A
6,524 3D Marks Failed to Run

AquaMark3 AquaMark3
GFX 6,225 GFX 6,153
CPU 9,395 CPU 9,388
Total 46,758 Total 46,388

PC Mark 2002 PC MARK 2002

CPU Score 7,165 CPU Score 7,144
Memory Score 9,153 Memory Score 9,151
Hard Drive Score 2,596 Hard Drive Score 2,611

______________________________________________
Latest Asus driver installed and preformed a graphics card bios flashed. Orginal Asus driver seems
the best driver to benchmark with but since the orginal benchmarks where done on a clean install
one has to assume normal 3D mark score degradation is contributng for the slightly lower scores.
Bios updated to 1.2. At fsb 215 raid setup was not detected. Rather than preforming a cmos clear
this time I simply removed the sata connectors from the motherboard and reset the bios. Last time
this happened the raid setup was corrupted. My old nforce 3 150 got an overclock to over 2.4Ghz
with no raid problems.Switched to Sata ports 3 and 4.
FSB now moved to 221. **** it up to 230. Still at all default voltages. However I could obtain
a stable overclock of 2.3Ghz with fsb 210 and multiplyer 11 at default voltages .
Time for some benchmarks. Yippie 3D Mark 2001 success. Holy **** awesome score. AquaMark3 now.
A 100mhz overclock and I'm up to 48,999. My god I reckon
I have another 200mhz to go. And I have yet to touch ram timings or graphics card.

Cpu
AMD 64 CPU 2.2Ghz @ 2.3Ghz
Voltage 1.5v
Mulitplyer 10
FSB 230
Hyper Transport 920mhz
CPU Temp 40-42c

MainBoard
MSI K8N Neo Platinum
Bios 1.2

Memory
1024 OCZ EB PC 3700 3.0-3-2-8 @ Stock Timings
Speed 460Mhz
Voltage 2.5v

Graphics Card
Asus 9800XT 412/730 @ Stock Speed
DirectX 9b
AGP Frequency 66
Voltage 1.5v

Hard Drives
2x Western Digital 74Gb Raptors Raid 0

Operating System
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1

Driver
Asus 8.02

3D Mark 2001
21,359 3D Marks

AquaMark 3
Gfx 6,471
CPU 10,087
Total 48,999

_____________________________________________
Upping the voltage 10% to 1.65. Going drop the hypertransport to 3x soon as I know this
board won't go much beyond 1000mhz hypertansport. Okay she boots at 235fsb. At last
my memory is overclock a wopping 14mhz. I know it can do a another 70mhz. Feck it for
now let me try and hit 2.4Ghz and perform some benchmarks.

AMD 64 CPU 2.2Ghz @ 2.4Ghz
Voltage 1.65v
Mulitplyer 10
FSB 240
Hyper Transport 960mhz
CPU Temp 40-42c

MainBoard
MSI K8N Neo Platinum
Bios 1.2

Memory
1024 OCZ EB PC 3700 3.0-3-2-8 @ Stock Timings
Speed 480Mhz
Voltage 2.5v

Graphics Card
Asus 9800XT 412/730 @ Stock Speed
DirectX 9b
AGP Frequency 66
Voltage 1.5v

Hard Drives
2x Western Digital 74Gb Raptors Raid 0

Operating System
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1

AquaMark 3
GFX 6,510
CPU 10,496
Total 49,688

3D Mark 2003
6,959 3D Marks
_________________________________________________
Drat what do I have to do to break the 7,000 mark in 3D Mark 2003.
Okay up comes the memory voltage to 2.7v. Up goes fsb by 10 to 250.
**** she does not like that much. No boot up time for a cmos clear.
Will up the voltage and see if she will start. Okay up to 1.7v and yes
we have boot up. The hypertransport multiplyer has been set to 3. Now
to attck the graphics card. From past experience I can nuke the
core but memory sucks.**** have to redownload ATItool again. After I
got the card clocked I will do some benchmarks and then finally tweak the
timings on my ram. AquaMark 3 posted a successfull score of 51,692.
Lost my nerve both 3D Mark 2001 and 2003 failed to run. 3D Mark 2003
failed to run on the cpu test. Leading me to believe it was the cpu. A
check of the cpu temp showed a rather high 59-60 degrees. While I have
more voltage to play with and seen others get a stable 2.5Ghz I
don't wish to exceed to put any undue pressure on the cpu.
I will clock it back to 2.4ghz for prolonged use if I can get it stable
at 1.65v. Meanwhile despite increase voltage to 2.85v an attempt to get my
ram timings down will force me into another cmos clear at fsb 240.

AMD 64 CPU 2.2Ghz @ 2.5Ghz
Voltage 1.7v
Mulitplyer 10
FSB 250
Hyper Transport 750mhz
CPU Temp 59-60c

MainBoard
MSI K8N Neo Platinum
Bios 1.2

Memory
1024 OCZ EB PC 3700 3.0-3-2-8 @ Stock Timings
Speed 500Mhz
Voltage 2.7v

Graphics Card
Asus 9800XT 412/730 @ 463/740
DirectX 9b
AGP Frequency 66
Voltage 1.5v

Hard Drives
2x Western Digital 74Gb Raptors Raid 0

Operating System
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1

AquaMark 3
GFX 6,771
CPU 10,922
Total 51,692

____________________________________________________
Wow amazing I small overclock more on my graphics card and hey
presto is compensates for my 50mhz loss on the cpu. Aquamark 3
has been kind to me. Despite dropping in the slightly my graphics card
went up. The cpu drop was compensated for by the rise in the
hypertransport which is now at 980Mhz. Timings oh the ram can stay
laxs looks like I won't get much out of them now that there overclocked
.Nice core from 3D Mark 2001. Slightly dissapointed not to break the
23,000 barrier though. As expected I break the 7,000 mark in 2003.
3D Mark 2000 is not offering much of an improvement.
Man PC MARK 2002 really is kind to my ram.

AMD 64 CPU 2.2Ghz @ 2.45Ghz
Voltage 1.65v
Mulitplyer 10
FSB 245
Hyper Transport 980mhz
CPU Temp 59-60c

MainBoard
MSI K8N Neo Platinum
Bios 1.2

Memory
1024 OCZ EB PC 3700 3.0-3-2-8 @ Stock Timings
Speed 490Mhz
Voltage 2.7v

Graphics Card
Asus 9800XT 412/730 @ 470/760
DirectX 9b
AGP Frequency 66
Voltage 1.5v

Hard Drives
2x Western Digital 74Gb Raptors Raid 0

Operating System
Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1

AquaMark 3
GFX 6,870
CPU 10,762
Total 52,085

3D Mark 2000
25,772 3D Marks

3D Mark 2001
22,660 3D Marks

3D Mark 2003
7,342 3D Marks

PC Mark 2002
CPU score 7,893
Memory Score 10,565
HDD 2,541

_____________________________________

Notes
I feel that I could go further on air cooling with maybe a thermalright heatskin but not much. With out proper temps on the graphics card I would not have the confidence to run it at the overclock above permently but I do feel with better cooling there is more room. A watercooled setup would allow for greater overclocks out of the memory. Perhaps a return to the default driver would see an
improvement in 3D mark scores but only slightly. Still I have one ace
up my sleave a 64bit OS promising at least a 10 performance increase
but probably more.