Safe PCI-E Frequency

[mcovalt]

My board (GA-G31M-S2L) has it's FSB frequency linked with the PCI-E frequency. I know it sounds weird, but I have even come up with an equation that I use to determine my max FSB based on what my PCI-E frequency is. With my PCI-E at 110 Mhz I can OC my FSB to 375 Mhz and my E2140 to 3.0 Ghz (this is my goal speed). But 110 Mhz seems dangerous.

What do you guys recommend as my boards PCI-E frequency limit?

 

[Yami]

110MHz is fine, I have mine at 112 (though we have vastly different setups so I'm not sure they're comparable ).

 

[95BlackGA]

110MHz is fine, I have mine at 112 (though we have vastly different setups so I'm not sure they're comparable ).

Not necessarily, I had mine at like 108 and my onboard network controller stopped working. Not saying they are linked in anyway, just saying. Don't just jump up to 110, do it in increments, and test (test, test, and test some more) to be safe.

 

[mcovalt]

Thanks for the info guys. I'll keep it at 105 (2.86 on the E2140) for a while to see how it goes. I remember having PCI freq at auto (3.0 on my E2140) and my sound-card was doing weird things. But, who knows what frequency it was running at auto. In my experience, mobos tend to over do things on their own. So, we'll see.

(though we have vastly different setups so I'm not sure they're comparable ).

haha, my sig is just a joke. But even still, you do have one heck of a setup.

 

[philbar71]

110MHz is fine, I have mine at 112 (though we have vastly different setups so I'm not sure they're comparable ).

Bah, 112. That's a bit high. 110 I would say only for benching. no higher than 108 or so for daily use. I killed my old Nforce 570 by overclocking the PCI-E too much. All though i was at like 115 when it died.

 

[Slaymate]

But, who knows what frequency it was running at auto.

At Auto the system will attempt to keep the pcie bus at 100MHz but it will fluctuate between 99-101.

 

[Antec-User]

I've got mine @ 105.. Had a slightly unstable clock for gaming at 3.8g. Was clipping like CRAZY!! Upped the PCIE Freq and it helped.. Gaming at 3.8 daily now.

 

[Apokalipse]

At Auto the system will attempt to keep the pcie bus at 100MHz but it will fluctuate between 99-101.

A voltage-controlled crystal oscillator will vary in frequency if the voltage input fluctuates.
If you have a low quality power supply and/or power regulation on the board, you can often see the effect just by opening CPU-Z and looking at the CPU/HTT/FSB/QPI frequency.

A power supply that remains stable will usually prevent these fluctuations.

What frequency you can run it at will depend on how the motherboard is built, and on the cards that use the PCI-E bus.

 

[Slaymate]

The pci-e frequency is affect by the "fsb" just like the cpu and memory. As you adjust or change the "fsb" the system will automatically attempt to keep the pci-e at 100 MHz, but simular to the memory this adjustment is not exact. Sometimes the closest it can get to 100 MHz is 99 or 101. The power supply may have some effect on this but it would be very small.

 

[Apokalipse]

Depends on the board.
Most of the boards I've used have an independent PCI-E clock speed.