A simple question about overclocking (I hope)

[tehsucks]

My desktop PC has an AMD Athlon 3000+ 2.16 GHz processor. I want it to go faster, even just a little. I went into my bios (just to check things out) and there is an option in Advanced Chipset Setting for the "System Performance" you can set it to Normal, Turbo, or Manual. Turbo says "use overclocked settings for higher system performance, but with higher risk of instability" I was wondering if would be so bad to switch that on without doing anything else except maybe keeping a closer eye on CPU temp.

I also want to know what FSB and AGP are. If anyone can give me some quick advice that'd be awesome.

[tehsucks]

also I forgot to mention, and it might be important. My CPU is already averaging at about 60 degrees. I'm not sure how much is too much, the warning in the bios is set to 80.

[BUFF]

fsb is frontside bus
AGP is Accelerated Graphics Port

you really don't want to be going over 60C - your PC probably doesn't have a great HSF for the CPU.

[PoDd]

As above really, your temps are plenty high already. If you want that little extra performance, and im assuming it would only be a little, i dont suppose you have performance ram etc?) is it worth a £30 cpu cooler to you? and poss a ram upgrade? what ram do you have, and what mobo is it? If your interested in overclocking, manual is the way to go, and if we know ur kit and the options in ur bios we can help more...

to use the auto overclocking feature, id suggest a min of a new cooler, however, i personally would just do it and see what happened!!

PoDd

[tehsucks]

Yeah, I really didn't want to go to that much effort to get more perfomance. My RAM is crap, DDR1 2 sticks of 256MB pft. I don't see why the cpu is getting so hot as it has a huge heat sink and a good fan.

Ah well, I can wait for a new comp. Thanks anyway guys. If you want to see the specs for the computer I want right now go to the Hexus.opinions and look for the poll.

[jackvdbuk]

imo with such a low spec rig, i wouldnt see the point in overclocking, your temps are pretty high and 512mb ram is a little low to do anything that would mean the need to overclock to get better performance

[tehsucks]

yeah it's all good

[CooperXS]

AthlonXPs require lot of voltage and very decent cooling solution to go above 2.4GHz.
IMO just leave things as they are, just make sure that memory and FSB have equal clocks, e.g. 166MHz FSB - 333MHz DDR or 200MHz FSB - 400MHz DDR. Syncronizing memory and FSB on socket A platform gives better performance than slight overclocking.

[eximius]

you really don't want to be going over 60C - your PC probably doesn't have a great HSF for the CPU.

60C would be pushing it a little I think. You want to be around 55C. I read somewhere that just 5C difference can means you can squeeze a few extra months out of your CPU.