Safe overclock speed?

[Haoming]

Hello,

So I finally got some very good suggestions on parts by fellow TFers. This is my first time building a PC & also the first time I will overclock. What's a light/safe/stable overclock for this setup or should I even overclock at all? Or should I just OC the CPU & not the GFX card?
This PC's for my dad so he won't be doing any gaming at all. I might use it every now and then for some games when friends come over though (BF2142, CS:S, CoD2, WC3TFT, NFS:MW) as well as some apps like Photoshop/Flash.

Case - Cooler Master Elite 330
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-M61P-S3
CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Brisbane
RAM - 2 x 1GB G. Skill NQs
Graphics - EVGA 7600GT
Power supply - FSP (Fortron) 400w
Hard drive - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Optical drive - Sony NEC Optiarc DVD Burner
HSF - Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 64
OS - Windows XP Home
External Drive - Western Digital Passport WDXMS1200TN 120GB 5400 RPM USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - Retail

Thanks in advance!

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

For a non-gaming rig, you really won't need an Overclock, unless your pops is going to be doing some CPU intensive media rendering, or encoding audio/video alot.

My AMD 3500+ Venice core handles such things as WoW(well, when I used to play it) and Battlefield 2 without trouble... The 7600GT will be the weak spot when it comes to gaming I am thinkin.

 

[nerdygeek]

OCing it will help speed it up with simple tasks though. I am pretty sure that most people can get that setup to around 3ghz. All you have to do is learn how to OC and if you do it right you should not run into any problems.

 

[jseber1982]

just dont forget to get a decent heatsink. The best way to do it is take you time..... Do it a few mhz at a time. add a few mhz, benchmark benchmark. Add a few more and so on.. When your machine starts crashing on you,, back it off a few mhz and that is about as far as you are going to go. Getting a good quality heatsink pays off when ocing

 

[b1gapl]

wow...jseber1982...where have you been? What's the update on that awesome rig of yours?

 

[veg1992]

with that cooling system, expect 3.0ghz easy...

 

[veg1992]

The Techies Bible: by b1gapl, gurusan, dario03, kobe24, meay_helmet, motoxer4533, nagasama, peterhuang913, , psp_crazy1, QuaziBee, shan1784 Snake91839, rx7i2 ,vernong1992, Zachalmighty and zmatt, thanks for helping write it!!

In the beginning there was an online shop. And it was good. God commanded man to buy parts from the shop and to build a machine. Man worked for 6 days and 6 nights to find the best parts and on the 7th day he built a PC. And it was fast. These were the commandments to be followed during the "Great Rig Building Era" as God commanded man to do so....

Builders Commandments:
1. Thou shall build thy own desktop
2. Thou shall not splurge an unnecessarily huge amount of cash, on one's build.
3. Thou shall not skimp on thy power supply.
4. Thou shall maintain one's computer clean and at cool temperatures.
5. Thou shall handle one's computer with care.
6. Thou shall always overclock and not fear to overclock.
7. Thou shall not covet thy fellow techie's computer.
8. Thou shall not bear false witness about thou's own computer. (Khan!!!)
9. Thou shall not use force when installing components, when components fit in one way.
10. Thou shall always install the latest drivers and updates.

thou shalt always overclock man!!