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Overclocking Tips


Seb

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Hey guys!

I know there are a couple of PC wizards here that are well-versed in o/cing. I posted this same question on 3dfiles, but obviously their used to it so i didn't get the answers i wanted.

I am now ready to overclock both my P3 500/Creative TNT2 and Athlon 1G/ATI Radeon 64 DDR systems.

I'm looking to oc the vidcard and the CPU (mobo?), but I'm still not sure.

So, I need you guys to tell me how I'd get the best results, what I should oc and how. I'd like a good program that enables me to easily oc the vidcards, and I'd like to know exactly how I can oc my CPUs.

I'm waiting for your answers!

P.S., I'm not looking for anything REALLY detailed, I'm not a dummy and I know hoe the oc process works, I know that I should only oc in small increments etc.

P.S.2: if someone could also tell me how much I'll probbly be able to oc my hardware, that would save me a lot of time cuz I could go up right away relatively close to the limit.

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I don't know anything about your video cards, but I know about the cpus. What kind of P3 is it? Katmai or coppermine? For the Athlon, is it a TBird?

Until I know that stuff, all I can say is the more burn in time you allow the better. Run 3DMark2000 and Q3A timedemo a few times every time you increase speeds for both cpu and vid card.

Also, do you have temperature moniters for your cpu/mobos? What kind of case/cpu cooling do you have?

What drivers are you using for the tnt? With the D3 drivers, theres a coolbits mod for ocing. Otherwise, for the radeon, keep asking at tweak3d.

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the P3 is an original one, got it when they just came out, cost me 1K...

athlon is a Tbird.

i have temp monitoring for the athlon i'm sure, probbly not for the other cpu/mobo...à

i didn't think of checking out hardocp, good idea hof.

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something you can do to monitor the temp in the case of the one you dont have a temp monitor in, is goto radio shack and buy one of the indoor/outdoor thermometers and hang the outside probe inside the case, it will give you a pretty good idea whats going on in the case in general, I have also heard of people mounting the probe near the CPU to get a good read of the CPU temp... I dont know what tape you would use that wouldnt melt though... maybe thermal tape

also make sure you have plenty of air flow in the case, as in, fans in front pulling in cool air and fans in back pumpin out hot air..

what I have seen a lot of people do is "roll" the IDE and floppy cables, basically splitting them apart and binding them to be really thin..

remember, even with all this cooling your processor may not overclock more than 50MHz or even 20, similar to my Athlon that wont post over 850MHz and its an 800 and I have an Arctic Circle on it (one of the agilent technologies circle coolers)

I would recomment one of those for your TBird and the P3, they make both versions.. They have some nice ones for socket processors that have like 2 fans in them both running at high RPM though quiet...

(NOTE: if you have a KT7 or KT7-RAID you have to dremel off part of some of the circle coolers to make them fit)

(NOTE: some P3s are CLOCK LOCKED... you must physically modify the processor to get them to OC occasionally)

also check out: http://www.thecardcooler.com

they have some pretty nice fan solutions for HDs and case fans, as well as fans that blow straight down onto your board, CPU and graphics card

another good site with stuff is http://www.3dcool.com

they have some nice things if you feel like cutting holes in your case for better air flow..

Other than that I could scan in the article from the Maximum PC magazine that has a watercooled setup http://www.maximumpc.com

or you could go peltier, or you could even purchase a Kryotech (refrigerated) case http://www.kryotech.com

Remember, not all processors will overclock the same, with everything I have mentioned you could end up only getting 50MHz or you could end up getting 350MHz, I have seen both, and more...

If you need any other tips E-mail me, or send me a private message on this board

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What are you trying to get out of your computer by overclocking? Overclocking a little bit will not do much of a performance increase (it's when you go from.. say.. 600 to 800 you see something - I OCed my PII300 to 366 and it was not worth it) TBirds will run hot even when they are not OCed (If you HS is not properly installed, you can fry the chip within seconds)

It is mostly hit-n-miss when overclocking.. Like Gondor said, not all chips will OC the same. The main thing to keep an eye on is the temp

Do not keep your case open when OCing unless you have a large fan on it

Test for stability also.. use some 3D tests (like 3DMark2000 and there is a Q3 torture test I think) being able to OC to a certain thing does not mean it is stable - I was able to clock my GF2 GTS ram (no ramsinks but soon will be) to 390 but it didn't even make it thru the first 10 seconds of 3DMark2000 so I will need to get some RamSinks (also getting a LasagnaII for the GPU)

Hope this helps a little (most you probably know already)

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As paragon said, if you dont overclock atleast a decent amount, then there is almost no point, I said I could get my Athlon to 850 and not 1mhz over, but I still run it at 800, because I dont see the point in creating the extra wear on the processor, even though it is well cooled, unless I can do something noticeable, I'd say 75-150 mhz is noticeable (and 75 not very much so), as for graphics cards, you can overclock those 5-10 mhz and not see all that much diff, or you could see a lot of difference, it depends on whether your system or your card is the bottleneck, and whether or not the memory on the card is a bottleneck. Overclocking a graphics card is much more risky in my opinion because there are less cooling options for them, and all of them run very warm to begin with

if you already have an orb on your athlon, just throw a $8 fan 82-90mm fan in the front of your case to pull in air, and a couple of $5 40mm or larger fans in the back for exhaust and you should be able to get a fair amount out of it, unless its like mine where it wont go more than 50mhz faster

you probably know most of what I have said so far, sorry smile.gif was on a soap box, not meaning to step on any toes smile.gif

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about extra cooling...

ok, i saw some fans that looked really practical, you install them where an expansion card's outputs/inputs would be in the back of your case or on the front in a CDROM spot.

apparently they work pretty well, they are cheap and easy to install.

but i mostly want to oc my vidcards, I have heard of very good results especially with the Radeon 64 DDR.

and since the only thing that would be worth accelerating are 3D games, it makes sense to oc the vidcard, which is the bottleneck in this case. (right?)

basically the only reason i wish to oc the Athlon would be to get a decent 3DMark2000 score (I'm at 4700 approx) and maybe to try and get a decent framerate with FSAA enabled and a high res. in UT. so i might actually oc it and then back it down after...

but it would be more useful for the P3, so I can play at higher res with a good framerate (when I play UT at 1080x768 it gets a bit choppy sometimes in the bigger levels...).

i think I'll try one of the fans i mentioned earlier, cuz I'm not willing at all to drill holes in my case.

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http://gamershq.madonion.com/ for 3DMark2000

Be careful with those slot fans.. some might be too high-powered and will cause most of the airflow to go there instead of by the processor.

I don't know much about the Radeon but with the GF2, most of the problem is with the memory bottleneck, so it is almost useless to OC the core (you can a little but at a certain point, it actually makes the card worse)

Sometimes, hanging a fan right in the case (like by the vid card or blowing to the processor) will help a little.

check www.overclockers.com for an Idea of what others get when overclocking (some go to extremes to OC) compare the batch numbers on you processors to what they have.

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Try Powerstrip for overclocking your video card, and let me know if it works with the Radeon 64MB DDR card. I have the same card, but am in the process of migrating my AMD Tbird 800/Abit KT7-RAID to a new configuration. I'm also waiting on my SuperOrb to get here.

You do know how to unlock your Tbird don't you? If not, just go to ard/OCP and search the forums there. Basically, if the bridges are cut, use a graphote pencil or a condictie pen to connect them. Mine are cut, but I used a pencil on them. It worked, but if I was going to O/C permanently I would use a conductive pen. Maybe you got lucky and got an unlocked processor.

Also, if your Tbird doesn't have the Dresden core (copper interconnects, made in Scottland) then you probably won't get much over 1GHz. The seems to be the bottlneck speed for aluminum interconnects. But, I think all 1GHz and above Tbirds are made in Scotland.

More fans is not necessarily good. I have 2 120mm Aluminum Panaflows inf front sucking in, and 1 120mm Aluminum Panaflow exhaust in back along with the power supply fan. This gives me a positive airflow (more in than out) and that helps keep my system free of dust.

You could also do what I plan as soon as the Cold Forge case arrives, cut a sidehole directly over your processor and use a tude to duct fresh air directly into the top of the Orb. Then fabricate a semi-circle duct to direct the exhaust from the Orb to the rear fans. I don't know just how well that would work, but it looks good on paper. Sort of like a windtunnel for your processor.

I also want to get a BlueOrb and ramsinks for the Radeon. Too bad the Radeon doesn't have holes to mount a cooler.

c>

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quote:

Originally posted by KBlair:

I also want to get a BlueOrb and ramsinks for the Radeon. Too bad the Radeon doesn't have holes to mount a cooler.
c>


I am waiting for the Tennmax Lasagna2 to come out and see how that is (it is only 1 cm high - saves the PCI slot below the Vid card) The first version of the Lasagna was really good from what I have read but the second is bigger to cover the GPU better. If I dont get the Lasagna2, then BlueOrb it is. RAMSinks are a must when Overclocking - mostly, it is RAM bandwidth that holds it back - esp with GF2

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I also want to get a BlueOrb and ramsinks for the Radeon. Too bad the Radeon doesn't have holes to mount a cooler.c>

K, the BLORB comes with frag tape to hold the HSF on. Dont know how well it would work but worth a try. There is also the Artic Silver Epoxy.c>

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I heard that the orbs really arent that good as HSFs. Also, any idea for a fan blowing across your Vid card and onto your system chips... I saw a friend of mine had taken an old card slot cover that you place in when you dont have a card in a PCI or ISA slot, bent the top so that it still screws in, but the cover part sticks out above all the cards but parallel to the board, he ran 2 screws into it, and stuck an 80mm fan on there, that thing is pretty damn sweet, i think I will jurry rig 2 or 3 of them for myself, just an idea for you all

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  • 2 weeks later...

seb,

what motherboards do you have?not all mb are adjustable.

as for the 500 it probably will hit the wall around 600-650.the bird's may make it to 1.2 but im not so familiar with amd's.for either you'll need to bump up core voltage and that also means you'll be upgrading cooling.the superorb isn't going to cut it.

you must find out your mb adjustability before doing anything. good luck smile.gif

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Ya.. The SOrb is going to have a hard time with all of the. I just ordered my new system parts and got a GlobalWin FOP38. However, I heard this a loud mofo of a fan I am getting a BlueCore TBird 1GHz and am hopefully planning on overclocking at least 1.3 <1.4 would be great> on an Abit KT7A-RAID As for case cooling.. I got an AOpen full tower so I will be getting some cheap fans some time to cool the HDs and components.

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This is my setup...

Athlon 500 on Gigabyte 7IXE (Garbage mobo...)

Golden Orb

Creative TNT2, with fan on heatsink

128 MB PC100, Seagate Barrascuda 18.1 SCSI

etc etc...

My athlon hits 770 with a 110mhz fsb. (1.95V) I can also run it at 748 with 115 fsb, but then it hangs during 3DMark testing... 770/110 tests fine. If I put a house fan blowing into my open case I can run everything at 748/115 and its stable.

Vdeo card speed is 160core, 180memory. I did this with TNTCLK. Coolbits also works if you have fairly new nvidia drivers... 3.53 or higher i think. But this will only let you go to 160 clock. TNTCLK will let you go over 200 for both, and also adjust video memory settings... not that this card can run that fast. All I did for cooling is attach a small fan over the heatsink. I don't think this makes a lot of difference though, it runs fine at 160/180 without the fan as well. Also when I used the house fan it still wouldn't go any faster, so I don't think cooling is a big issue with this card.

Raising the core speed makes a bigger difference than raising mem speed in my observations. Also Paragon is right, there is not much difference btw running my cpu at 500 and 770.

My temp probe says 50 degs for cpu at 770/1.95V

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