OCers corner (intel)

OCers corner (intel)

Postby ket on 25 Jul 2009 12:36

As we don't have any specific forum for OCing I thought why not make a thread. Here people can ask for advice on OCing their intel system, share their results, settings, and so on. To kick things off I'll list a few basic points to help people on their way.

1. When pushing for high FSB and your finding your system won't POST, its worth remembering that depending on what memory divider and BSEL (FSB) strap your using, you may need to change your PL (Performance Level) setting. Values worth using are 8, 9, and 10.

2. If you find your memory has a lot of errors, remember a simple small voltage bump can cure all that ails you. When that doesn't work relaxing memory timings may be the solution you need. Its pretty complex to go into the details for that, so for now I'll leave it at that.

3. When OCing don't push for the max right away. Set your CPU multiplier to as low as it will go, and experiment with how high you can get FSB. On any modern Core 2 CPU, 450-500+FSB should not be too difficult to attain. Quad core CPUs are more difficult, but with the right know-how and a little luck, you should be able to get 450-475+FSB.

4. Test your components thoroughly. Impatience is a OCers worst enemy. Once you know what your CPUs maximum stable frequency is, maximum stable FSB, and maximum stable memory frequency, then, and ONLY then, are you ready to push all 3 to get your 24/7 stable OC.

Many new PC users will ask whats the point in OCing and is it dangerous. The simple answer to that question is its only dangerous if you don't take the necessary precautions. Unlike a lot of people who will answer the other part of that question with "because it makes your system faster", I'll give a slightly more technical explanation.

Theres many points I could use to explain the point in OCing, but I'll use just one point, which is probably most relevent. In todays age of computers regardless of how powerful a system is even at stock, any half decent graphics card is going to be quite severely bottlenecked by the rest of the system. How is this so? Its called CPU throughput bottlenecking and bandwidth limitation. Basically this means the system can't move fast enough to keep up with the requests of the graphics card. Its not very easy to clearly, simply, and accurately explain all the interaction that goes on bentween memory, CPU and GPU, so I'll give a simple example.

You just went out and bought a new system, great! It has a Core 2 Duo E7200 and a HD4830 graphics card. You score 10,000 points in 3DMark06 at a 1280*1024 screen resolution. Not bad, or so it would appear. In truth, due to CPU throughput bottlenecking and bandwidth limitation that HD4830 is being bottlenecked to the tune of some 20-30%. That is why OCing is useful. You reduce or completely eliminate those bottlenecking problems. Even if you were to increase screen resolution to a much less CPU dependent resolution such as 1680*1050 where the ratio shifts much more toward the GPU rather than the CPU and memory bandwidth, you will still notice a considerable boost. I could go into even more details, but I think that answers the rookie question without overloading their brain too much :p
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Re: OCers corner (intel)

Postby VINTAR on 25 Jul 2009 16:16

Ok so you have seen my numbers in my sig. I am actually running a bit lower than those now cause i'm waiting for two more fans. One of which will be focused on the ram. I'm getting 1066 ram one of these days as i am limited to a 7.5 cpu multiplier and with a fsb of 490, which was the highest the ram was stable at, i only have the cpu at 3.675.
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Re: OCers corner (intel)

Postby ket on 25 Jul 2009 19:15

@ 490FSB your probably running out of headroom.. 520ish will probably be your max and it likely won't be stable. At this point your better bet would probably be to grab some good PC9200 and run a divider, max FSB + max memory speed = lots of bandwidth and performance. Above 500FSB Duos and Quads tend to scale off anyway.
Mobo: MSI X570 Tomahawk
CPU: R7 3700X @ 4.4GHz 1.3v
RAM: 2x16GB Klevv BoltX 3600MHz 16-20-20-35
GPU: Powercolor 6800XT Red Devil
Sound: Asus Xonar DX 7.1 PCI-E, Realtek ALC1200
HDD: 250GB & 500GB nVME 3.0 M.2 drives, 2TB Seagate Barracuda, Sata3 64MB Cache, 250GB Hynix SL301
Opticals: DVD-RW, Blu-Ray
PSU: eVGA 1000w G2 Supernova
Case: NZXT Phantom 530

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Re: OCers corner (intel)

Postby VINTAR on 27 Jul 2009 06:20

Thats the problem with my bios/mobo. The ram divider is so confusing that i dont know where to start.
Core2Quad Q8300 2.5 @ 3.6ghz
Cooler Master Hyper TX 2 CPU cooler
Gigabyte EP45 UD3R mobo
Nvidia GTS450
2 GIGS Transcend DDR2 800 pc6400 @ 960
Thermaltake Tough Power 650w PSU
Samsung Syncmaster P2350
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Re: OCers corner (intel)

Postby ket on 27 Jul 2009 15:51

Use the default 333 strap setting. When you get some PC9200 you will be able to just change the divider from 960 up to 1130MHz B-)
Mobo: MSI X570 Tomahawk
CPU: R7 3700X @ 4.4GHz 1.3v
RAM: 2x16GB Klevv BoltX 3600MHz 16-20-20-35
GPU: Powercolor 6800XT Red Devil
Sound: Asus Xonar DX 7.1 PCI-E, Realtek ALC1200
HDD: 250GB & 500GB nVME 3.0 M.2 drives, 2TB Seagate Barracuda, Sata3 64MB Cache, 250GB Hynix SL301
Opticals: DVD-RW, Blu-Ray
PSU: eVGA 1000w G2 Supernova
Case: NZXT Phantom 530

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Re: OCers corner (intel)

Postby VINTAR on 28 Jul 2009 06:02

Thats just the thing. My dividers are not straight forward. They are really confusing. Maybe you can google my mobo and check them out for me. Sorry cant post a link i'm on my mobile. Trust me they are a handful.
Core2Quad Q8300 2.5 @ 3.6ghz
Cooler Master Hyper TX 2 CPU cooler
Gigabyte EP45 UD3R mobo
Nvidia GTS450
2 GIGS Transcend DDR2 800 pc6400 @ 960
Thermaltake Tough Power 650w PSU
Samsung Syncmaster P2350
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Re: OCers corner (intel)

Postby VINTAR on 29 Jul 2009 11:43

OK so not an intel OC question but... I was wandering when overclocking my graphics card, standard is 600 / 900. I cranked it to 630 / 999 and the graphics all went weird, then dropped it to 605 / 999 and all is well. My question is, why would the graphics go weird when it is not overheating? Does it make a difference whether my shader clock is fixed IE: moves up incremently with clock speed. Would this cause the problem?
Core2Quad Q8300 2.5 @ 3.6ghz
Cooler Master Hyper TX 2 CPU cooler
Gigabyte EP45 UD3R mobo
Nvidia GTS450
2 GIGS Transcend DDR2 800 pc6400 @ 960
Thermaltake Tough Power 650w PSU
Samsung Syncmaster P2350
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Re: OCers corner (intel)

Postby ket on 29 Jul 2009 12:35

VINTAR wrote:OK so not an intel OC question but... I was wandering when overclocking my graphics card, standard is 600 / 900. I cranked it to 630 / 999 and the graphics all went weird, then dropped it to 605 / 999 and all is well. My question is, why would the graphics go weird when it is not overheating? Does it make a difference whether my shader clock is fixed IE: moves up incremently with clock speed. Would this cause the problem?


Sounds like your shaders were pushed too high. What you want to do is lock your shaders at their default clock, then increase GPU speed to find your max, set GPU speed back to stock then repeat the process for your memory. Once you know max GPU and memory clocks increase them both but leave yourself 20MHz breathing room for your GPU and memory. Thats your 24/7 stable clock. Easy as pie :d
Mobo: MSI X570 Tomahawk
CPU: R7 3700X @ 4.4GHz 1.3v
RAM: 2x16GB Klevv BoltX 3600MHz 16-20-20-35
GPU: Powercolor 6800XT Red Devil
Sound: Asus Xonar DX 7.1 PCI-E, Realtek ALC1200
HDD: 250GB & 500GB nVME 3.0 M.2 drives, 2TB Seagate Barracuda, Sata3 64MB Cache, 250GB Hynix SL301
Opticals: DVD-RW, Blu-Ray
PSU: eVGA 1000w G2 Supernova
Case: NZXT Phantom 530

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Re: OCers corner (intel)

Postby VINTAR on 29 Jul 2009 14:23

Thanks. I'll tinker tonight and see what happens.
Core2Quad Q8300 2.5 @ 3.6ghz
Cooler Master Hyper TX 2 CPU cooler
Gigabyte EP45 UD3R mobo
Nvidia GTS450
2 GIGS Transcend DDR2 800 pc6400 @ 960
Thermaltake Tough Power 650w PSU
Samsung Syncmaster P2350
-----------------------------------
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User avatar
VINTAR
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