Whats holding me back?

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Leonidas

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im currently running on an nf7-s 2.0 board, and overclocking my Athlon xp-m from 1800 Mhz to (16x152)2432 Mhz, i am quite happy with the performance boost this has given me, however i do have some questions, first of all, what is holding me at this ceiling?

i am using infineon 3200 DDR, dual channel 2x256mb, my temps are- idle: 36-37 load: 39-41, runnning at a Vcore of 1.568 according to cpuid even tho i truly have it set to 1.6 in bios...

my RAM is running at 2-3-3-7, and the SPD says it should be set at 2-3-3-6 at 133mhz and 2.5-3-3-7 at 166mhz... should i loosen these times? or up my vcorE? i know every situation is individualized when it comes to this but what do you guys suggest?

thanks in advance all.
 
Why do you only have your FSB at 152 when you have DDR400 ram? That's really holding you back. I know what you mean by the SPD Table, my ingston says 2.5-3-3-6 at 333FSB, but I have it running at 380 right now with my FSB set at 190, that's a PC2700 stick that I had to OC from 166 up to 190 because my kingston is PC3200. You need to play with timings some more, and definitely get atleast to 166MHz FSB especially since you have PC3200 RAM, even with that, don't look at the By SPD tables as a 'It'll only work like this' guide, because you'll be surprised how well something will OC after you've burned it in a while.

You should put your timings at 2.5-3-3-6 and go to 166Mhz then adjust your multiplier to 14 and if all works good there, then try a multi of 15 and that'll give you 2,490 which your computer should just show as 2.5GHz

Don't worry about your Vcore readings, the fluctuation is normal, I even posted a thread about it to make sure mine were lol. But yeah it never says EXACTLY what you put it at in the BIOS so don't worry about that.

Have you made sure it's completely prime95 stable? Wish I had gotten the 2600+ now as you guys are definitely getting higher speeds on lower voltages :p I'm testing 2.6GHz right now, but it wants 1.975 VCore, nd 2.05 for it to run 2.7GHz and I don't know if I want to do that, 37C on Full load right now though, so heat definitely isn't a problem :p

Since your RAM is PC3200 and although I realize you have it running tighter timings than if it was at 200FSB, for one you'd probably be able to tighten those timings and two, you only loosen timings when overclocking RAM and adjusting memory instabilities, so if you're getting errors in memtest86+ then you need to loosen timings or raise the Dimm voltage by one to see if your agressive timings will hold.

Raising the Vcore will only impact the stability of the CPU OC, so if you aren't having instabilities, then upping the Vcore shouldn't even be an option at this point.

For best performance I think you should see how much you can get out of that PC3200 stick. You should probably be able to do 2.5-3-3-7 at the bare minimum at 200 if not 2.5-3-3-6
 
thanks, ill try all this out and see what i can do.



by burning in my RAM, do you mean using my computer averagely, or running the memory thing in prime95? or running memtest for a while?
 
ok ive got some questions, perhaps everyone on here can help me(as if anyone but nubius shall respond:))...
when i change the multiplier in the bios what am i actually changing about my processor? also, should i try for a really high FSB and stick with a low multiplier? or what is the best combination in this... also should i go for really highly rated RAM as it will give me amazing overclocks? will this RAM work well? LINK

i think thats it... thanks in advance if anyone responds...
 
by burning in my RAM, do you mean using my computer averagely, or running the memory thing in prime95? or running memtest for a while?
Use like SiSoftware Sandra and run the mem burn in test. I did this at the advice of 4W4K3 because he knows how to OC RAM really good, but you just put that program in a continues loops and it'll heat up your RAM which causes transistors to expand which could lead to better OC's for the ram. Same thing applies to the processor, generally after it's 'burned in' a little it'll clock better.

when i change the multiplier in the bios what am i actually changing about my processor?
lol how do you not know this, your first post makes it seem like you know exactly what it's for. Don't worry leonidas, I'm not making fun of you, I thought you just knew what it was doing. Anyhow it's multiplying the FSB by whatever you're setting it to, that's all it's there for. Just to simply multiply up the FSB to get your Processor speed, and without an AGP bus option like we got then it uses the FSB to adjust the ratio of the AGP:pCI Bus...

You want an FSB that's atleast equal to your RAM. You got PC3200 which is DDR400 which DDR = Double Data Rate, keyword double, so when you see your CPU FSB at 200 then you got a 1:1 ratio with your PC3200 RAM because 200x2 = 400 you want your CPU:DRAM Ratio in the Softmenu to be set at 6/6 so it'll be a 1:1 ratio with that PC3200, from there, upon going past 200 you'll be OC'ing your RAM which will require timings adjustments and possibly upping the Dimm voltage. To answer your next question, yes with better RAM, meaning not only high performance, but a good quality brand name and series, you will get better overclocks than you would with valueRAM as valueRAM is meant to just be stuck into a computer whereas generally high performance RAM is used by high-end users.

So in your case, right now especially, if you got only ValueRAM and it's PC3200, then set your CPU FSB at 200 and just start off at 9, so it's 200x9 = 1.8GHz stock speed, and put it at 1.55Vcore, this may or may not happen to you, but when I put my Vcore at 1.35 the mobile chips actual stock Vcore, it defaulted the multiplier to 6 probably because my system figured it'd be way too low to power whatever processor is in there unless it clocks down....anywho, start there, 200x9 and then work your way up in .5 increments so you'll be going up 100MHz per .5 increment in the multiplier which the processor should easily be able to handle. at 1.55 Vcore you should be able to change it up to 200x10 without any problems, but just to be safe, once you start it up at 2GHz, run prime95, if it doesn't freeze or you get an error within the first 5 mins, then up the multiplier by the .5 Increments until prime95 either errors damn near immediately or causes your computer to freeze. At which point you'll want to add .05 Vcore to whatever you previously had, but it'll probably take up to another .1 added before it becomes completely stable.

You should be able to probably hit 2.4GHz on 1.65Vcore, whether it'll be prime95 stable I don't know, if it makes it atleast 6 hours prime95 stable then it's good to go although I like to leave mine for 10 or more if I can just to make absolute sure. Takes 8 hours for it do repeat itself as far as iterations go, just make sure you use the LARGE FFT test and monitor your temps. ;)

EDIT: Oh yeah don't get PC-3500 RAM, just get a low latency high performance pair of PC3200 like these:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-896&depa=1

Not saying the stick you were looking at was horribly bad, but with a good strong pair you'll be able to OC the RAM past PC-3500 speeds anyway, you'd just need to pass 216FSB and you'll have faster than PC3500 and probably with better timings. Ask 4W4K3 because he knows a good deal about RAM OC'ing and that OCZ is a far superior brand to OC'ing than even Corsair XMS series. I read a review on the OCZ Platinum series Rev. 2 and it outperformaned Corsair XMS in every bench, not only that but they can overclock like a beast. These are the platinum series, I'm hoping I can MAYBE get this pair for christmas, I doubt it though, pretty pricey:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-890&depa=1
 
Nubius said:
lol how do you not know this, your first post makes it seem like you know exactly what it's for. Don't worry leonidas, I'm not making fun of you, I thought you just knew what it was doing. Anyhow it's multiplying the FSB by whatever you're setting it to, that's all it's there for. Just to simply multiply up the FSB to get your Processor speed, and without an AGP bus option like we got then it uses the FSB to adjust the ratio of the AGP:pCI Bus...

yes nubius i know what it does in regards to my actual processor speeds, but i meant what does it do on a technical level, not what it changes about my speeds, but about the Actual processor...
 
Check my edit, regarding the RAM Above, since you posted after. As far as my understanding goes it's merely there to multiply the FSB to get your final clockspeed, don't really know how much more to go into depth about it unless someone else knows.

EDIT: Well I suppose you could look at it in terms of 'pulses' meaning, the multiplier is how many times it'll pulse that 200FSB through the processor which is how it brings up your total in the case of 200x10 to 2GHz because it pulses that 200MHz ten times for processing power, if that makes any sense :p

Sorry leo btw, I hope you didn't take offense to how I worded it, wasn't at all meaning it like 'MY GOD HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW NEWB!' nothing like that, I just misunderstood what you wanted to know ;)
 
I have Corsair XMS 512mb of ram and I plan on getting the same mobo and cpu that both of you have here in less then a month. Would this be my best bet as well? 200*9=1.8 ghz which is stock for the chip, but would it still be faster than the stock frequencies? I know my ram is very overclockable because I've read masses of reviews, plus it has good cooling.
 
its absolutely fine, i shoulda worded a little more clearly myself, and dont worry... and your pulse description is probably close to the truth but i think later tonight i may look it up and see what i can find out, never thought about it til now... and as for the RAM you wanted for christmas that looks good, and i checked a few sites with reviews apparently most the parts in that RAM are rated to run at 250mhz, insane i may look into getting some myself whenever i get some more cash, first im going for a graphics card though... no doubt it will max out my performance for the time being...

oh and BTW thanks for replying, apparently im not a very popular SOB around here or something.
 
the point is to start at 1.8 ghz and step your way up by changing hte multiplier by .5 increments..
 
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