Am I at my cpu limit?

[Willeh]

I've been ocing my amd 64 venice 3500+ since Monday and the results are pretty good, I've managed to oc from 2.2ghz to 2.7 ghz with stability and temps are about 33 idle and 45 with heavy load. But I'm not sure if I've hit the cpu limit or if it's my ram that's starting to hold me back.

When I oc to 2.75 ghz and then do a test torture blend test with prime, it fails on the test 1. But with memtest, no errors come up.
My RAM is pc3200 [ddr400], I've lowered the speed to 133MHZ [to apply a divider or w/e] and the ram frequency speed is at 165 mhz.
My timings are: 2-4-2-6 and they are set by my mobo or ram or w/e [the options for them in bios is set to auto].
The question is, have I hit the limit, is it my ram thats starting to hold me back or maybe it's the timings?

Any help is appreciated
Thanks

 

[WorldIndustries]

What board are you using?

 

[Willeh]

It's a nf-ck804 winfast mobo.

 

[aliasaid]

i'm a noob overclocker, so you may want to disregard this post..


anyways.. i don't get how your ram is holding you back if you're running it at below 200mhz... have you tried oc'ing your ram? you should see how far it goes, then run a divider as small as possible. i don't get why its running at 166. ideally, you would have it run at 245mhz so that it matches your cpu, but if won't go that far, get it as close as possible.. or worst yet, just have it at 200mhz...

anyways, if you're at 2.7 ghz, you have nothing to complain about ... so is it perfectly stable at 2.7ghz?

 

[Willeh]

Well I lowered the speed in bios down to 166MHZ to apply a divider. Yes the cpu at 2.7ghz is stable, will do further tests later to recheck x10, but for some reason, I have a feeling that I can go a bit further and hit 2.8ghz

Oh and btw with the divider, the ram runs at 196.4MHZ which is as close as I can get to 200MHZ, I can probably turn the fsb up by a mhz to get it even closer

 

[aliasaid]

ohh.. is there anything between 166 and 200?



i guess if there isn't, then thats the best you can do. i thought there would be more options.. like 11:10 or something tight like that..

anyways... if it failed tests at 2.75, i don't see how it could get to 2.8.. but again.. i'm no pro at this

 

[Willeh]

Nope it only goes from 100, 133 166 and 200. I heard you can set a ldt multi to 3x but I have no idea where to find that in bios and I've searched the whole bios.

 

[Norcent]

Willeh are you using your stock fan that came with the cpu?

I have the same cpu and an msi mobo.

I want to overclock it but don't know if i need a better fan.

 

[Willeh]

yes I'm using the heatsink fan that came with the cpu in the same package.
My case has a fan on the side which is really making temps go low but then my mobo has a little fan which keeps temps down too.

If you need any help or anything, give me a whisper.

 

[WorldIndustries]

I overclocked to 2.8 on stock AMD HSF with the 3500+, and I plan on reaching the 3.0 GHz point when I get my new RAM.