x2 3800+ overclocks

[Shocker]

How are you guys overclocking yours? Are you just using CPU-Z or is there a way in the BIOS too? I'd like to overclock mine too but don't quite know how.

 

[Nitestick]

BIOS. it mostly depends on your motherboard. if you have a retail pc e.g. compaq or hp you don't have a chance of overclocking because the BIOS does not contain the options necessary. there are about 3 guides on this forum to overclocking all including links to other overclocking guides plus there is the FAQ. thanks for the table idiotec ive been looking for some sort of guide to the actual voltages. i'm just running stock of 2.8v@DDR400 at the moment because of the vcore:vdimm problem. when i get some better cooling i'll just aim for a high oc of say 2.8ghz with a low divider of say 9:10 then it should balance out to DDR504. that way, if i hit 2.8 i should imagine i have sufficiently high vcore to run high enough vdimm. my ram should be able to do about DDR520@3.5v with 2-2-2-5 timings. to me this sounds about the best that could be possibly be hoped for in an overclock

 

[idiotec]

when i get some better cooling i'll just aim for a high oc of say 2.8ghz with a low divider of say 9:10 then it should balance out to DDR504. that way, if i hit 2.8 i should imagine i have sufficiently high vcore to run high enough vdimm. my ram should be able to do about DDR520@3.5v with 2-2-2-5 timings. to me this sounds about the best that could be possibly be hoped for in an overclock

I think those settings would be acceptable

 

[PP Mguire]

That would be mad!

 

[karpfish24]

now running 2.3 ghz, moving slowly

 

[Nitestick]

see. told you you could do it karpfish. see the thing is you have a new processor and you're new to overclocking so naturally it will take a little while. i would love to see anything over 2.6ghz. 2.6ghz is 5000+ by my calculations and it would be equivelant to around about 2x4000+/4100+ cores i think :/ which is just a guess because the venice cores don't go that far.

 

[yisthis]

so i was running of some other posts. that i should set the multiplier that being HTT to a low number..

should i change it to x10?

because i think its really low right now and im running at 206(if i remember right) and its showing as only 2026mhz so its basically like no OC.

 

[Nitestick]

YOU CAN NOT CHANGE THE MULTIPLIER!!! the only way you will get a processor on which you can change the multiplier is paying $1k+ for an FX series processor. you can only change the multiplier downwards e.g if it comes at 10x you can change to anything below. the multiplier you can change is called the LDT multiplier. you want to keep the product of the LDT multiplier and the FSB at around 1000mhz, your motherboard may change it automatically but keep that in mind. if you want a higher overclock you will need to push the FSB higher and hope your memory can take the higher speeds (memory changes in proportion to FSB) or you will have to use a memory divider to stop the memory from going at a higher speed than it is capable of.

 

[yisthis]

it came at 10x or 11x and i changed it down in the 1st place.. sorry i didnt mention that did i.. i turned it down because i was reading different forum posts and 1 says one thing and another says something different. so im asking you should i set it at 10 again??

n2: 1 other thing the mem timings i read. eg: 2-2-2-5 are fine. but i also have other values i can change in my MOBO, i dont know if they need to be changed along with the usual ones to keep the memory balanced so to speak. for example... if i change the usual timings and leave the others, will it in turn effect the performance of the memory because the vaules do not coincide with the rest of the memory timings i changed. is there a way i can take a screen shot of the bios to show what i mean??

 

[Nitestick]

ok, now i know that you changed it i can answer you should probably leave it set at the highest multiplier possible unless you are experimenting with the overclockability of your RAM. 2-2-2-5 are great timings. if you believe your memory is holding back your overclock but wish to overclock your memory with the cpu anyway then either upping the memory voltage (vdimm) or increasing the memory timings are your options. the only timings you need to be worried about are Cas-Trcd-Trpd-Tras. only loosen the first three by say 0.5 or 1 the first time you find you have to increase them, Tras may be able to be left as is. when overclocking at each level you should run stability tests like memtest86 (memory) and prime95 (cpu). that way you can determine which is unstable if you are having trouble. while prime95 will lock up or crash from a memory error memtest86 will only pick out memory errors so through elimination you can figure out the culprit.

edit: if you don't really mind about the memory bandwidth then you can use a "memory divider" to keep the memory speed around its original setting and allow the cpu to still overclock