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hi peeps
im pretty new at all this pc building malarky...and want to get the best out of my system...im slowly but surely learning new things but want to know how to overclock my hardware to a safe level without damaging anything.....all the help from you that know is appreciated :D:D:D
system as follows
K8N Neo Platinum Nforce3
athlon (64) 3400+ 2.4ghz
2 x 512mb 3200 ddr400 twinx corsair
Nvidia 6800 256 ultra
have S@@t loads of cooling ready to use
That's a fast computer as it is. Realistically you'll be lucky to get the processor much further than 2.6-2.7GHz unless you're on watercooling or very good air cooling.
You can establish the limits of the processor by setting the RAM speed to 166MHz, and then cranking up the HTT speed from 200 to find the limit of the processor. Depending on how patient you are, go up in 2-5MHz steps. The chances are you could start out from 210 without any problems, since pretty much any system will take a 5% OC without complaint. At a 12X multi, you'll probably not get it past 220 though. Use Prime95 to test for stability. If the processor can't go any further but it's still at a cool temperature (say less than 50C) you could try giving it a bit more voltage to see if that helps. don't increase voltage more than .05V at a time, and if you do increase the voltage, watch the temperature like a hawk.
Once you've found the maximum speed of the processor, you can turn down the multiplier to maybe 8X, and set the RAM back to 200MHz. Then increase the HTT until you find the limits of your RAM. Again, use Prime95 to test stability, or alternatively use memtest86. Again, RAM can benefit from more voltage, and you can put up to 2.8V into Corsair modules without any problems, as long as your case is reasonably well ventilated.
Once you know the stable limits of your processor and RAM, you can come up with a setting that allows you to run them both close to the limit for maximum performance.
Overclocking is a complicated subject, but that ought to get you started. Go slowly though, and always keep an eye on temperatures, especially the CPU temperature. Once you've OCed your CPU and RAM, you can turn your attention to the video card....:).
Rich :¬)
cheers rave 4 the advice...i will av a go later and let ya know how i get on :)
Good luck:).
Edit: One more point to mention: set the HyperTransport speed to 3x HTT (stock is 4x HTT). Apparently NForce3 boards don't like high hypertransport speeds much; the performance hit from running slower hypertransport speeds is basically nil anyway.
Rich :¬)