marxsmann

Hi,

I'm currently running:

XP 2700+
PC2700 512mb
Raddy 9700
A7N8X

I'm new to overclocking and was just wondering what I need to do to get the 'basics' of overclocking started on this setup? I know a fair bit about PC's but nothing about overclocking - so any help would be appreciated. There's tonnes of options in the Bios for CPU VCORE VOLTAGE and Fan Speeds and stuff but didn't want to do anything that's going to knacker my PC.

Marc


Edited: Just found out my Raddy isn't a Pro

[Edited by marxsmann - 4/13/2003 9:19:21 PM]

super_si

Hopefully Jye or footlong will assist. I stick with Intel.

Si

Miles

For starters check out Tom's Hardware or Overclockers UK.
Am going indulge in a bit of o/cing meself.

Jye

When you get to XP 2.7 and nForce2 board levels OC is seen by many as a waste of time, personally I like to squeeze every bit of 'free' speed out of any machine.

You have one major bottleneck which is slowing this machine down quite a bit though.

Yor ram is rated as PC 2700 (bandwidth in GB/Sec) and would normally run at 166 Mhz (X2) giving 333 Mhz. So without PC 3200 (3.2 GB/sec or DDR 400) ram I doubt you will ever see the 200 Mhz front side bus (FSB) speeds which your mobo is capable of, hence enabling the mobos PCI devider to kick in and keep everything in sync. This is a very good mobo and uses TwinBank Memory which doubles mem bandwidth giving you a peak bandwidth from between 4.2 to 6.4GB/s, dependent on the memory you use.

So if I were you I would think of getting some fast PC 3200 first

Only then would I bother upping the FSB, one Mhz at a time, then checking for stability in one of the benchmarking or burn in apps. This higher FSB will give you even better bandwith as the FSB is still usually a bottleneck.

Usually people try to run lower clock speeds in order to get the highest FSB they can, i.e 12 X 200 would give you 2400 Mhz as opposed to 2241 Mhz as standard. You will probably be restricted by lack of access to the lower multiplyers, those less that 13.5 and this might require unlocking the chip/mobo by blowing out the L3-5 pins (I think this is how it works but I have no experience of nForce2's), and even this is still mobo dependant. You can only try and see if a lower multiplyer is showing in the BIOS then try it.

I would think 13.5 or 14 x 178 (180 poss) FSB with your present memory should easily be within your reach giving you 2403/2492 Mhz as opposed to the standard 13.5 X 166 and 2241 Mhz. I can get these sort of speeds out of my 2.4 chip without any changes to the voltage. If you cant only then would I think of increasing the voltage slightly, say 1.70 to 1.75 max (1.65V standard) but this will increase heat and hence lessen stability etc.

edited to say GL





[Edited by Jye - 4/14/2003 11:02:37 AM]

Jye

This is a great review of your mobo, it also explains the benefit of running in sync over async mode.

http://www.ocworkbench.com/2002/asus/a7n8x/a7n8xp1.htm