Athlon64 Overclocking

[t0rek]

I upgraded my PC this week. Thanks Aprentice, Martin, Knuckles, Passive, Trotterwatch and everyone that helped me on #emulation64.

Now I want to overclok my Athlon64 3000+. It is a Winchester one. My memory is Kingston DDR400 with 3-3-3 latency. And my MSI mobo specs are here:

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K8T_Neo2-FIR&class=mb

So what do you recommend guys? Where should I start? How much do you recommend to push my processor? How can I test stability? Any help will be good since it will be my first time overclocking.

Edit: I have a stock CPU heatsink and fan!

 

[Eagle]

I upgraded my PC this week. Thanks Aprentice, Martin, Knuckles, Passive, Trotterwatch and everyone that helped me on #emulation64.

Now I want to overclok my Athlon64 3000+. It is a Winchester one. My memory is Kingston DDR400 with 3-3-3 latency. And my MSI mobo specs are here:

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K8T_Neo2-FIR&class=mb

So what do you recommend guys? Where should I start? How much do you recommend to push my processor? How can I test stability? Any help will be good since it will be my first time overclocking.

Well, really do you need to overclock your processor. Its a Athlon 64 3000+ for goodness sake, its not going to provide any more performance to overclock that with todays software and you most likely have bottlenecks elsewhere. I wouldn't reccomend overclocking a CPU unless its an older one that you need to squeeze more speed out of to run newer games and software.

 

[PsyMan]

If you really want to do it try not to overdo it.
Even though Athlon 64 CPUs do not provide as high temperature as Athlon XPs they have lower limit before they get fried. I personally recommend against it if you don't have overclocking experience and you use the cooler that comes with the CPU (get a better one if you can).

Even if your CPU provides low temperature it won't make any good if your RAM is not stable enough to support the CPU. There are RAM DIMMs designed to handle overclocking situations (they usually have matterial that prevents over-heating) but some others cannot handle it (these DIMMS have their memory chips uncovered).
A good utility to test the RAM stability is memtest86+ (get it from here: www.memtest.org )

When your system cannot handle overclocking then the OS may crash during the boot or it may freeze after some minutes/hours.
Last, it whould be better to keep the case of your PC open in case the system cannot boot in order to reset the BIOS easier.

 

[aprentice]

i told him not to overclock and he still comes here and asks about overclocking, that says a lot

 

[Shpongled]

Overclock it, man! Don't listen to anyone. Must have power, speed, faster, it's not enough, push the limits, overstep boundaries, live life to the extreme!!!!!!!!

 

[Martin]

I'd try it at 2.0 Ghz first, you should reach that without problems. Most 3000+ can reach 2.4 Ghz according to reports, but you'd probably need better cooling for that. Just keep an eye on the temperatures and you'll be fine.

 

[Stezo2k]

Well if you want to, it's not as easy as overclocking say an Athlon XP, i'd lower the HTT multiplier to 4 first, this really helps the overclock, next if your RAM isn't over 400MHz, i'd change the settings so the rams clocked lower, so as you up the FSB, the ram gets nearer to 400MHz. And remember, don't have your RAM latencies too low for overclocking.

Remember, the faster the FSB the more chance the ram will need more voltage, I had to buy some new ram for this because my old value stuff didn't like any voltage added to it, thus limiting my overclock stability.

I find halflife 2 is a good way to test stability, if you can run that for 30min no probs it'll be fine

You can achieve some good results if you try, the Athlon 64 90nm CPUs have very nice temps, mines 31C at the moment idle (and that's overclocked as seen in my sig) and suprisingly thats with the stock AMD heatsink

 

[t0rek]

Thanks to everybody! Well, I'm not overclocking after all. The system don't boot at 208 Mhz FSB. That's only a 8 Mhz FSB increment, so I better keep it normal.

 

[Stezo2k]

Thanks to everybody! Well, I'm not overclocking after all. The system don't boot at 208 Mhz FSB. That's only a 8 Mhz FSB increment, so I better keep it normal.

Might be because of your ram not liked being overclocked, try lowering your ram speed and upping your fsb, also lower the HTT multiplier to 4 because that often limits the overclock