DrJekyll452
asked on
Overclocking AMD 64 3200
Hey guys,
I was just wondering if someone could take me through the steps of overclocking my system.
Here are my specs:
ASUS K8V Deluxe
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
1GB PC3200 DDR corsair
80GB HDD
LG 4040B DVDR
Aopen CDRW
ATI AIW 9800PRO
Win XP Pro, all updates are installed.
Thanks in advance,
Dr. Jekyll
I was just wondering if someone could take me through the steps of overclocking my system.
Here are my specs:
ASUS K8V Deluxe
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
1GB PC3200 DDR corsair
80GB HDD
LG 4040B DVDR
Aopen CDRW
ATI AIW 9800PRO
Win XP Pro, all updates are installed.
Thanks in advance,
Dr. Jekyll
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
I think i am in need of more caffine. ;)
Power supplies? That's YOUR job, as the Enermax evangelist! I just sub in every now and then.
Yes, you do need more caffeine ;-)
Yes, you do need more caffeine ;-)
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Oh ya almost forgot
The bus speed
This is the internal speed of the motherboard. For example, you can often set a normal 66-MHz PCI bus to run at 75 MHz, 83 MHz, or even 100 MHz. Some mobos with a 133-MHz bus can run at 150 MHz or more -- if they don't crash first.
The multiplier
The processor speed is a multiple of the bus speed, so the multiplier determines how fast the processor runs. For instance, a 200-MHz processor is three times faster than the 66-MHz bus, so its multiplier is 3X. If you make it 3.5X or 4X, then the processor is going to run that much faster. Every processor we know of today ships "clock locked." That means if you change this setting on the motherboard, the chip will refuse to run.
If you have a machine built by a major manufacturer such as Dell, Gateway, or HP, you won't be able to change the speeds on the motherboard. You'll need to buy a new motherboard to overclock the chip. Otherwise, you can look to the manual for your motherboard. With luck, you'll be able to adjust the settings in the BIOS. You might have to fiddle with jumper pins down on the motherboard. (Get the manual for your motherboard, a flashlight, and a pair of hemostats.)
If your motherboard allows you to change bus speed, then you can probably clock the chip up faster. You might only gain a small bit. Remember, just because you can tweak the settings doesn't guarantee that the chip will actually run at that higher speed. The downside of overclocking is that you can make your machine unreliable, at least until you turn the clock speed back down. Worst case scenario? You break you chip.
If you make your computer too fast for the processor or the other components in your computer, either the computer won't boot at all or it will crash a lot. You could even lose data on your hard drive. It isn't something to be played around with, and you shouldn't do it unless you're willing to take the risk. As always, back up your data before doing anything risky.
~
The bus speed
This is the internal speed of the motherboard. For example, you can often set a normal 66-MHz PCI bus to run at 75 MHz, 83 MHz, or even 100 MHz. Some mobos with a 133-MHz bus can run at 150 MHz or more -- if they don't crash first.
The multiplier
The processor speed is a multiple of the bus speed, so the multiplier determines how fast the processor runs. For instance, a 200-MHz processor is three times faster than the 66-MHz bus, so its multiplier is 3X. If you make it 3.5X or 4X, then the processor is going to run that much faster. Every processor we know of today ships "clock locked." That means if you change this setting on the motherboard, the chip will refuse to run.
If you have a machine built by a major manufacturer such as Dell, Gateway, or HP, you won't be able to change the speeds on the motherboard. You'll need to buy a new motherboard to overclock the chip. Otherwise, you can look to the manual for your motherboard. With luck, you'll be able to adjust the settings in the BIOS. You might have to fiddle with jumper pins down on the motherboard. (Get the manual for your motherboard, a flashlight, and a pair of hemostats.)
If your motherboard allows you to change bus speed, then you can probably clock the chip up faster. You might only gain a small bit. Remember, just because you can tweak the settings doesn't guarantee that the chip will actually run at that higher speed. The downside of overclocking is that you can make your machine unreliable, at least until you turn the clock speed back down. Worst case scenario? You break you chip.
If you make your computer too fast for the processor or the other components in your computer, either the computer won't boot at all or it will crash a lot. You could even lose data on your hard drive. It isn't something to be played around with, and you shouldn't do it unless you're willing to take the risk. As always, back up your data before doing anything risky.
~
With a Gigabyte motherboard (with an nforce3 150 chipset) and 512mb of Corsair PC3200 memory I can clock my Athlon 64 3200+ to at least 2200MHz by raising the FSB to 220MHz. I also have a SATA-RAID Card and it seems to function okay with the slightly raised bus.
I'm using an Enermax 460w PSU and the Zalman CNPS7000A cooler and it's currently idling at around 29-30 degrees Celsius, so heat really isn't a problem with the Athlon 64.
It is possible that my board will clock slightly higher than your VIA K8T800 based board as mine has an AGP lock (although there is no PCI lock, so they only did half a job!) and your board doesn't.
I won't clock it any higher (despite it going up to 2250MHz and still looking like it has some headroom to go further) just because it's a nice round number and it's stable! :o)
Since I have the same CPU you at least you now have an idea of what the CPU is capable of.
p.s. If you one day get a board with a locked PCI bus, either via a BIOS update or a motherboard upgrade, try CrystalCPUID from here:
http://crystalmark.info/?lang=en
If you run the program and go to 'function' then 'AMD K7/K8 Multiplier', you can change the internal multiplier of your CPU.
All Athlon 64 CPUS are multiplier unlocked (for lower multipliers only) and are capable of multiplier changing in windows (this is part of the new Cool'n'Quiet Technology they have implemented).
Therefore if we can get a board that locks the AGP & PCI bus, then we can lower the multiplier and raise the FSB even higher (thus gaining even better performance).
I'm using an Enermax 460w PSU and the Zalman CNPS7000A cooler and it's currently idling at around 29-30 degrees Celsius, so heat really isn't a problem with the Athlon 64.
It is possible that my board will clock slightly higher than your VIA K8T800 based board as mine has an AGP lock (although there is no PCI lock, so they only did half a job!) and your board doesn't.
I won't clock it any higher (despite it going up to 2250MHz and still looking like it has some headroom to go further) just because it's a nice round number and it's stable! :o)
Since I have the same CPU you at least you now have an idea of what the CPU is capable of.
p.s. If you one day get a board with a locked PCI bus, either via a BIOS update or a motherboard upgrade, try CrystalCPUID from here:
http://crystalmark.info/?lang=en
If you run the program and go to 'function' then 'AMD K7/K8 Multiplier', you can change the internal multiplier of your CPU.
All Athlon 64 CPUS are multiplier unlocked (for lower multipliers only) and are capable of multiplier changing in windows (this is part of the new Cool'n'Quiet Technology they have implemented).
Therefore if we can get a board that locks the AGP & PCI bus, then we can lower the multiplier and raise the FSB even higher (thus gaining even better performance).
This is as far as i can get with my rig
Athlon64 3200+ 2331MHz Stock H&S Vcore @1.55v 37cIdle 48cLoad SYS28c
MSI K8T NEO-FIS2R 233MHz x 10.0
2x GEIL Golden Dragon 512mb PC3500 @ 233MHz 2-3-3-6 2.80v
2x 120G Maxtor DMax+9 SATA
MSI GeForce FX5600 256MB 1.65v
WinXPPROSP1
Pioneer DVR-107 D
Athlon64 3200+ 2331MHz Stock H&S Vcore @1.55v 37cIdle 48cLoad SYS28c
MSI K8T NEO-FIS2R 233MHz x 10.0
2x GEIL Golden Dragon 512mb PC3500 @ 233MHz 2-3-3-6 2.80v
2x 120G Maxtor DMax+9 SATA
MSI GeForce FX5600 256MB 1.65v
WinXPPROSP1
Pioneer DVR-107 D
I know this is a long time after the original post butfor others who read this far
the same ASUS K8V SE Deluxe with amd 3400+ will overclock to a stable 2.65ghz by just piggy backing an extra fan on the cpu fan and setting fsb to 221 and has been powering my system with 1 agp and 4 pci nvidia graphics cards giving me 10 monitors all running multiple programs , webpages etc etc for a year now.
Sata wd 10000 raptors help too !
the same ASUS K8V SE Deluxe with amd 3400+ will overclock to a stable 2.65ghz by just piggy backing an extra fan on the cpu fan and setting fsb to 221 and has been powering my system with 1 agp and 4 pci nvidia graphics cards giving me 10 monitors all running multiple programs , webpages etc etc for a year now.
Sata wd 10000 raptors help too !
when comparing scores an easy way to get a basic summation of how a system is performing is to use pcpitstop.com
my system with extra cooling and only one monitor selected on the digital output of my fx5900 gave a score of 3077 , anyone else using the 6800 cards please leave your score for comparison
my system with extra cooling and only one monitor selected on the digital output of my fx5900 gave a score of 3077 , anyone else using the 6800 cards please leave your score for comparison
Adding to Callandor's comment about settings.
you will not want to exceed a PCI bus of 38mhz. After that you could see file corruption.
and Callandor you forgot to mention Power supplies as a factor. ;)