How to get the best from my new CPU

[Gerritdlr]

Hi All, I am in IT, but it has been years since I opened a PC case, in the days of the 1st Pentium CPU I think.

Anyway I upgraded my ECS motherboard (Black Series, A780GM-A, Hybrid Crossfire) by installing a new AMD CPU (AMD Phenom II X2 555 (AM3) Processor Black Edition - 80watt, 7MB, 3200MHz)

I recently also added a decent graphics card that got me around 30fps when playing F1-2010.

I decided that the old Athlon CPU should also make way and I installed the new CPU as metioned above.

My question is that in the ECS Motherboards BIOS, there are various options to overclock the CPU.

Is anyone familiar with these settings, and what are the recommended settings that will add speed without causing damage to the CPU.

Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Gerrit de la Rey
South Africa

[nibbler]

If you want to overclock that CPU you are in luck, it's a Black Edition CPU. That motherboard might not overclock like an absolute champ but one thing to try is unlocking. What Chipset does the motherboard run? See if there is an option called Advanced Core Callibration (ACC) which may unlock 2 extra cores! If not then a conservative overclock should be possible. What Cooler do you have? Try upping the multiplier by a notch or two to get a few hundred extra megahertz, I'd say stick below 3.6ghz though.

[Gerritdlr]

Awesome many thanks for such a quick response, I will check it out tonite and give feedbank tomorrow.

Is there a utility I can use that will give me the actual CPU speed when in Windows or whilst playing a game?

Gerrit

[Sputnik]

AMD overdrive is AMD's own program for overclocking.

It can do auto over clocking for you and shows useful info such as core temperatures etc.

You can download it from here http://game.amd.com/es-es/drivers_overdrive.aspx

[nibbler]

CPU-Z is also pretty important. Why don't you fill in your system on your profile so we can see exactly what you are working with.

[Gerritdlr]

Thanks guys you are very helpfull, yes tonte I will fill in the blanks.

gerrit

[Max Tractor]

The board says it has the AMD 780G and SB700 so it wont unlock


http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Pro...uID=20&LanID=0

[Ulti]

Yup you will need at least a SB710 southbridge chip to try unlocking. However, you can try overclocking easily as long as the BIOS allows you to change the CPU multiplier and voltage. If you want to go into slightly more advanced overclocking then you'll need to be able to change the reference clock.

This guide is detailed but will cover pretty much everything: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...hlon,2161.html

[nibbler]

Yup you will need at least a SB710 southbridge chip to try unlocking. However, you can try overclocking easily as long as the BIOS allows you to change the CPU multiplier and voltage. If you want to go into slightly more advanced overclocking then you'll need to be able to change the reference clock.

This guide is detailed but will cover pretty much everything: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...hlon,2161.html

I have an extra core and cahce unlocked and i'm running SB700.

[Max Tractor]

What motherboard?

[nibbler]

MSI 760G-E51
It could be wrong though, just read it off of CPU-Z and it claims that I am running 780G chipset which I know I'm not.
From MSI
AMD® 760G and SB710 Chipset
False alarm then - moral of this is don't trust CPU-Z

[Max Tractor]

That board is running sb710 which will unlock