alright so i'm going with this proc because it's cheap from a friend and i dont need too much omph. What i want to know is: What ram do i buy for overclocking? I'm looking for cheap and i was going to go with pc3200 but i heard that these procs will oc pretty high if you have the ra to keep up. I'm not going to super cool it but it will have a dedicated WC 202 on it at some point (dedicated means the wc 202 will be cooling only it) Should i be going for some PC4000 instead? or do i not have the cooling power needed to achieve the higher clocks?
Right now, my Athlon 64 3000+ (Venice core) with stock speeds is running at 29C idle, and about 34C with Prime95 running. I have some cheap SImpletech PC-3200 RAM and it started crashing with the FSB only at 209MHz. . . It was stable for hours, then right in the middle of a game it started a memory dump. Rebooted and reverted back to stock speeds. So I would say deffinately make sure you get fast, quality RAM like Corsair or Crucial. I doubt you would need watercooling on your CPU, mine is running amazingly cold. Prior to this my Athlon XP 1800+ had hit 57C ideling with an Alpha PAL 8045 (huge heatsink, but old). . . Granted I removed the heatsink and found some huge balls of dust and there was only a very thin layer of thermal paste left (could hardly see it on HSF or CPU). L J
put your ram on a divider. Theres no performance hit on A64s, and if you make it to 250HTT (9*250 = 2250mhz, which should be a piece of cake for any A64), on a 166 divider your ram will be running at 200mhz
Thx. I also found a 3200+ but 754 with a motherboard that has agp instead of pci. It also comes with watercooling. If i were to use this board instead and switch to 754 on a 3200+ would i be running faster than a 939 at 3000?
In my opinion Socket 754 is like the Durons or Celerons, both don't have much of a future. I really don't believe you should choose a board because it comes with watercooling- watercooling is most likely not going to be necessary. What is the board, what is the watercooling system, where are you buying it from? L J
There should be an option in the memory settings somewhere. It'll either be something like 5:4 1:1 etc or 166/183/150/200 and so on Get the 939, the platforms goto a better future. If you're lucky you should get well over 2.6ghz from the venice, which isnt bad at all.
I hate to hijack this thread- but as far as I can tell there is not a setting to set up a RAM speed divider in my BIOS. . . There is a beta F7 BIOS for my board, currently I believe it has an F6. Here is a link to the manual (about 8MB) if anyone else wants to RTFM in hopes of finding out how *I* can setup a divider. I'd really like to OC my 3000+. =) http://www.giga-byte.com/Download/D...oard/FileList/Manual/manual_k8n_ultra_9_e.pdf L J
Hmmm... surely a fast FSB, and lots of memory bandwidth is way more important than outright CPU speed? Using a divider to keep your RAM at 200MHz as you suggest, and then upping the CPU clock will not give as good a result as using quality RAM and getting the FSB as high as you can. You're right when you say they'll be no performance hit compared to how it is now, as the RAM is running at teh same speed as it is now, but the whole point of overclocking is to gain performance, and memory bandwidth is crucial . Personally, I don't really see the point in clocking a system and keeping the RAM at 200MHz. For instance, a CPU at stock speeds with a high FSB will outperform a clocked CPU with FSB still at 200MHz. Plus... what kind of 939 board do you have? WHat chipset does it use? that has a big bearing on how you overclock, as a NF4 chipset will allow you to adjust FSB and CPU divider independantly, and lock the PCI bus speed etc. Avoid 754.. it's dead, and is only really a platform for the low end Semprons. You'll probably not need to watercool a 3000+ as they run very cool. Only if you REALLY go mad with an overclock will you need to go to such lengths, and if that's the case then you will definitely need quality RAM. My advice is get better RAM, and don't use a divider to keep your RAM at a low speed. You'll get much better results from greater memory bandwidth than just clocking the CPU.
If your addressing me- I have 1GB of the cheap RAM, and I don't really want to spend even more $$$ to upgrade it. . . The board is Gigabyte K8N Ultra 9 with an nForce 4 Ultra chipset. More info here: http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-K8N Ultra-9.htm I am certain my BIOS does not have an option for a RAM divider, and I believe my RAM is holding back my CPU. I'd rather stay with stock performance than get new RAM just to be able to overclock. L J
It was aimed at both you, and the original poster I suppose. Well.. if you're sure you can't operate a divider for your RAM, and you don't want to upgrade your RAM, then there's not really anything you can do about it as you have no options left. The only way you could possibly clock your machine with your current RAM is to operate a divider for your RAM. The only thing you can try now, is to give your RAM more voltage. You may be surprised what it can do if you feed them more volts. Also.. check your RAM timings.. are you trying to run them to tight? A faster FSB will overcome higher latencies. Mine is at 280MHz with 3-3-3-8, and it's WAY faster than it was at 200MHz with 2-2-2-5 (obviously). Try losening your timings, and you may get a higher result. What timings are you running now, and at what volts? ALso, remember that your CPU volts has a part to play as well, as not only does it allow a greater overclock, but your memory cntroller is part of your CPU, and that can limit FSB/RAM overclocks as well.
