WARNING: Super long post from a noob... read on at your own risk of saying "you idiot" at the end.
Following applies to my signature rig:
I recently been intrigued by the idea of overclocking my computer to squeeze some more juice from it. My last motherboard died (ECS, go figure) and had to replace it on a very, very tight budget. Ended up getting a mobo, cpu, ram, and a couple of round cables for under $130, shipped. Since I didn't spend too much money on it, I felt safe to attempt to overclock even though it's only a single-core Sempron (some day I'll get a nice dual core, black edition).
So I researched, and researched, and researched some more. Found all kinds of "ultimate" and "best" guides. Found alot of them to be quite confusing but found the best of them, you know it, right here on OCN. Won't name what guide it was, but I did attempt to use it and it only helped me go from 2100 to 2200 with a low memory speed (can't remember what it was).
Then I came across durch's guide (http://www.overclock.net/amd-general...ocket-am2.html) and it was very, very helpful... probably the best I've come across in my week long research.
There was no option to overclock my mobo, but I could do the cpu and memory. Was able to OC my cpu to 280 x 10.5 with the loosest timings on the memory before windows would not let me boot at 281. Ran Orthos for almost 4 hrs before I finally became impatient (cpu temp would not go above 32 degrees) and I really wanted to try OC'ing the ram. Found that it survived a 4 hrs Orthos Large FTT test at its rated timings (5,5,5,5,15,24), voltage(1.9), and 280 x 10.5. I was excited that it could do that much and had to wait till the next day to download some benchmark programs. Got NBench, 3dMark05, 3dMark06, and PcMark06. I was disappointed to learn that I had to pay to see my results from the 3dMark's benchmark, but wanted to run them anyways to see how it performs. Considering that my OC'd speed is over 2.5 ghz (requirement for 3dMark06), I decided to run that benchmark first. Not a minute into the test I get a BSOD. Run 3dMark05 and same thing happens. Very disappointed that I wasted all that time relying on Orthos only to find it can't survive a benchmark test. Started over, used durch's guide again, only I used the 3dMark05 instead of Orthos and stuck with the 8.5 as my multiplier (middle of road type thing). If it survives the benchmark test, then it survives my stability test (if you got a criticism about that, lay it out, I'm all ears). Found that the highest I could go was 258 x 8.5. Decided to try other multipliers too and found it could handle 340 x 6.5. When I started with 10.5, I started at the similar speed of 8.5, minuse 1 reference clock (or FSB as some people call it and my motherboard) which was 207. I didn't realize my memory divider would change to 6! And memory speed dropped drastically. But I kept doing my test over and over again, until I reach 251 x 10.5! Might not be a big deal to alot of you, but to me it was! Although I am a bit disappointed that I could only squeeze out 439 mhz memory speed as I was hoping to reach near 500 (someone stated they have with the same sticks I have). By the way, memory speed for maxed at 6.5 was 442 and at 8.5 was 439.
Using NBench, I have found the following:
at default (200 x 10.5), score of 2674 and 69.67 fps
at 258 x 8.5, score of 2882 and 76.88 fps
at 340 x 6.5, score of 2908 and 77.71 fps
at 251 x 10.5, score of 3374 and 89.32 fps
So now I've got some questions:
1. I've isolated that the cpu could OC to about 3.0 ghz but using the rated timings on ram, the memory speed only reaches to around 440. I've heard people go higher with these sticks, am I doing something wrong or is it limited by my single core cpu?
2. After all my research, no one explains what the speed of the multiplier means, only the multiplier itself. Like in my bios, it stated 10.5 at 2100 mhz. What the hell is the 2100? What is that a speed of?
3. According to a guide about memory speeds and divider, it is set by the stock speed. But when I did my overclocking, it actually changed. Even CPU-Z showed that the divider changed to 6 after reaching 2.4+ ghz which would be correct mathematically. But according to the guide, it mentioned that it was set by the stock speed, not current speed. Could this person be mistaken?
4. I'm still using the stock heatsink/fan that came with the processor, yet in bios and 3 other programs, the temperature never went above 32. Even when I OC'd it to 3.0 and loose memory timings, it remained quite cool. I even feeled the air blowing from it since I was not believing what bios was telling me, and it is quite cool. Is this because it's single-core?
Thanks for reading my story and providing a feedback! I'm looking forward to hearing what people say.
Following applies to my signature rig:
I recently been intrigued by the idea of overclocking my computer to squeeze some more juice from it. My last motherboard died (ECS, go figure) and had to replace it on a very, very tight budget. Ended up getting a mobo, cpu, ram, and a couple of round cables for under $130, shipped. Since I didn't spend too much money on it, I felt safe to attempt to overclock even though it's only a single-core Sempron (some day I'll get a nice dual core, black edition).
So I researched, and researched, and researched some more. Found all kinds of "ultimate" and "best" guides. Found alot of them to be quite confusing but found the best of them, you know it, right here on OCN. Won't name what guide it was, but I did attempt to use it and it only helped me go from 2100 to 2200 with a low memory speed (can't remember what it was).
Then I came across durch's guide (http://www.overclock.net/amd-general...ocket-am2.html) and it was very, very helpful... probably the best I've come across in my week long research.
There was no option to overclock my mobo, but I could do the cpu and memory. Was able to OC my cpu to 280 x 10.5 with the loosest timings on the memory before windows would not let me boot at 281. Ran Orthos for almost 4 hrs before I finally became impatient (cpu temp would not go above 32 degrees) and I really wanted to try OC'ing the ram. Found that it survived a 4 hrs Orthos Large FTT test at its rated timings (5,5,5,5,15,24), voltage(1.9), and 280 x 10.5. I was excited that it could do that much and had to wait till the next day to download some benchmark programs. Got NBench, 3dMark05, 3dMark06, and PcMark06. I was disappointed to learn that I had to pay to see my results from the 3dMark's benchmark, but wanted to run them anyways to see how it performs. Considering that my OC'd speed is over 2.5 ghz (requirement for 3dMark06), I decided to run that benchmark first. Not a minute into the test I get a BSOD. Run 3dMark05 and same thing happens. Very disappointed that I wasted all that time relying on Orthos only to find it can't survive a benchmark test. Started over, used durch's guide again, only I used the 3dMark05 instead of Orthos and stuck with the 8.5 as my multiplier (middle of road type thing). If it survives the benchmark test, then it survives my stability test (if you got a criticism about that, lay it out, I'm all ears). Found that the highest I could go was 258 x 8.5. Decided to try other multipliers too and found it could handle 340 x 6.5. When I started with 10.5, I started at the similar speed of 8.5, minuse 1 reference clock (or FSB as some people call it and my motherboard) which was 207. I didn't realize my memory divider would change to 6! And memory speed dropped drastically. But I kept doing my test over and over again, until I reach 251 x 10.5! Might not be a big deal to alot of you, but to me it was! Although I am a bit disappointed that I could only squeeze out 439 mhz memory speed as I was hoping to reach near 500 (someone stated they have with the same sticks I have). By the way, memory speed for maxed at 6.5 was 442 and at 8.5 was 439.
Using NBench, I have found the following:
at default (200 x 10.5), score of 2674 and 69.67 fps
at 258 x 8.5, score of 2882 and 76.88 fps
at 340 x 6.5, score of 2908 and 77.71 fps
at 251 x 10.5, score of 3374 and 89.32 fps
So now I've got some questions:
1. I've isolated that the cpu could OC to about 3.0 ghz but using the rated timings on ram, the memory speed only reaches to around 440. I've heard people go higher with these sticks, am I doing something wrong or is it limited by my single core cpu?
2. After all my research, no one explains what the speed of the multiplier means, only the multiplier itself. Like in my bios, it stated 10.5 at 2100 mhz. What the hell is the 2100? What is that a speed of?
3. According to a guide about memory speeds and divider, it is set by the stock speed. But when I did my overclocking, it actually changed. Even CPU-Z showed that the divider changed to 6 after reaching 2.4+ ghz which would be correct mathematically. But according to the guide, it mentioned that it was set by the stock speed, not current speed. Could this person be mistaken?
4. I'm still using the stock heatsink/fan that came with the processor, yet in bios and 3 other programs, the temperature never went above 32. Even when I OC'd it to 3.0 and loose memory timings, it remained quite cool. I even feeled the air blowing from it since I was not believing what bios was telling me, and it is quite cool. Is this because it's single-core?
Thanks for reading my story and providing a feedback! I'm looking forward to hearing what people say.
