Athlon XP 2800+ (Barton) - FSB of 200 or 166?

[JimNastics]

Hi,

Sorry if this is a bit of a nooby question to ask but... hey, I guess I am just a noob I have searched around but can't really find a definite answer.

I recently replaced my last stick of PC2700 with some PC3200, and then planned to up the FSB to 200mhz Dual Channel. Unfortunately, I then realised that my Athlon XP 2800+ (Barton) is supposed to run at 166 x 12.5 (which runs at about 2083mhz). For fun though, I changed the FSB on my A7N8X-E Deluxe to 200 (I thought it might be locked at 166 but obviously not) and took the multiplier down to 10, and low and behold everything seemed to run fine... and the RAM was also running in 200mhz Dual Channel mode.

This is, however, a slight underclock of the CPU (about 83mhz). So my question is, is it best to have the RAM running at 200mhz Dual Channel rather than 166mhz Dual Channel and underclock the CPU by a bit, or should I leave it how it was (166mhz Dual Channel at 166 x 12.5)?

I'm not an overclocker and don't plan to be. Also, I didn't change any other settings when I changed the FSB and multiplier. What do you think? Any pitfalls I should be aware of?

Thanks for your help in advance,
Jim Nastics

[Stigggeh]

why dont you use 10.5 x 200, that would only be a 17mhz overclock, which isn't much over,

200mhz ram is better, because your fsb is also 200, i doubt you will notice in real life use, but should be better when benching

[CrapshoT]

I have my xp2500 running at 11x210 fsb.What heatsink are you using m8.You must keep an eye on your cpu temps.Mines sitting a 45C at the minute which I'm happy with.Overheating is the main thing to watch out for.I would try running a few benchmarks to test the stability of your cpu.As you stated you're underclocking your cpu so if your temps are ok why not bump your multiplier up to 10.5 and try some more benchies for stability.
Personaly I would try to keep the fsb at 200.Your ram is pc3200 which will be fine at that fsb.It's a matter of making sure your cpu is stable at the o/c and watch your temps.

[Rave]

Yeah what he said, run at 10.5x200, this is a tiny overclock and will do no harm whatsoever....although you could make sure that you're 100% stable by running the Prime95 torture test overnight. For some reason neither of my two NForce2 boards are stable at anything over 185MHz FSB when I'm running 1GB of RAM.

Rich :¬)

[JimNastics]

Ooooh ok, just tried 10.5 x 200 and everything seems fine! Reported CPU as a 3000+ which was pretty neat hehe...

Don't really want to talk about my heatsink / overheating problems as it's a bit stupid but here we go. My heatsink and fan is an Arctic Cooling Copper Silent 2L, which is supposed to be quite good, and I used Arctic Silver to install it. My CPU apparenlty idles at 56 degrees... yes, 56! I even got a proper techie friend round to remove and re-install fan and remove and re-apply Arctic Silver. Still, idles at 56 and creeps upto 62 under stress... he couldn't explain why either. Is that fan actually quite ****e perhaps? We thought that might be the case, or maybe even my mobo is reporting temps wrong. With the new 200 x 10.5, it's still idling at 56 so I guess that's a good sign. Also, I've never experienced any system instability at these temps so I'm happy as it is... but it is a little odd. My case is a pretty great Antec SLK3700AMB which I love, it has 2 x 120mm fans on at front and one at back, temp inside case is reported at 28 degrees.

Thanks for all your help so far

[johnnr892]

motherboard temps vary, what program are you using, trey the bios and something like motherboard monitor 5 or speedfan. See what the results are. If it's still crappy then I wouldn't push your cpu any further with volts with those temps without a better heatsink. You could try to go upto 11x multiplie just to see what stability and temps are like, that would give you a nice 2.2ghz. see what its like. Use prime95 to test stability with memetest86

[Rave]

It could well be that your motherboard is reporting inaccurate temps. In any case, the processor is rated by AMD to run at up to 90C or more, even if it actually is at 63C under load that's nothing to worry about as long as its stable, I ran an old Tbred at 63C at 100% load 24/7 for about three months, did it no harm whatsoever.

[Stigggeh]

maybe it could be too much Arctic Silver ?, it always takes me half a dozen goes to get it right, and i follow the instructions,

that antec case is quite good i used to have one, good airflow,

if its stable, i would leave it