Overclocking Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bogdan
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Bogdan

Hello. I was wondering if it was possible to
OC the following system:

P4 2.8C 800FSB
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe
2X512MB PC3200 Dual Channel RAM

I haven't done any overclocking before but
something tells me any CPU overclocking would
need to have the RAM speed down, no? Thanks.
 
Hello. I was wondering if it was possible to
OC the following system:

P4 2.8C 800FSB
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe
2X512MB PC3200 Dual Channel RAM

I haven't done any overclocking before but
something tells me any CPU overclocking would
need to have the RAM speed down, no? Thanks.
Click to expand...

No, you would want either faster memory to support higher bus rate, or
to have chosen a CPU with only 533FSB, so the motherboard and memory
had more margin to increase to 800FSB and beyond, or both the faster
memory and slower spec'd CPU bus.

Since you haven't done any overclocking I suggest you read a few
"howto" type websites. I don't know which are modern enough to give a
good overview of O'Cin' the P4, so perhaps a Google search will help.
 
Bogdan said:
Hello. I was wondering if it was possible to
OC the following system:

P4 2.8C 800FSB
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe
2X512MB PC3200 Dual Channel RAM
Yep



I haven't done any overclocking before but
something tells me any CPU overclocking would
need to have the RAM speed down, no?
Click to expand...

No, you want to run the ram at the same rate as the FSB as P4's LOVE ram
bandwidth as much as FSB speed. I wouldn't get crazy oclocking it, try a
FSB of 205 to 210 (multiplied times 4 will be 820 to 840..) and see if it's
stable. Do you have memory in performance mode (not turbo mode, that's
another setting..)? This helps as well.
 
Bogdan said:
Hello. I was wondering if it was possible to
OC the following system:

P4 2.8C 800FSB
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe
2X512MB PC3200 Dual Channel RAM

I haven't done any overclocking before but
something tells me any CPU overclocking would
need to have the RAM speed down, no? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Why not?
If you want to overclock your system, ou will indeed have to set your DDR
ratio at 5:4 (160 MHz) instead of 1:1 (200 MHz). But this simple setting
will allow you to safely overclock your FSB at up to 250 MHz. At that speed,
your memory will operate at its rated speed of 200 MHz. So it's not "slowed
down", but the global performance of your PC will be significantly increased
with a cpu running at 3,5 GHz!
On top of this, there is a big chance that you could achieve this without
changing voltages or cpu cooler.
There are a few important things to keep in mind in your case:
1. using EZFlash, upgrade first to the latest bios version.
1. set the agp / pci ratios to the fixed value of 66.66/33.33.
2. increase the fsb speed in small steps of 5 MHz and check each time the
stability of your system.
 
Why not?
If you want to overclock your system, ou will indeed have to set your DDR
ratio at 5:4 (160 MHz) instead of 1:1 (200 MHz). But this simple setting
will allow you to safely overclock your FSB at up to 250 MHz. At that speed,
your memory will operate at its rated speed of 200 MHz. So it's not "slowed
down", but the global performance of your PC will be significantly increased
with a cpu running at 3,5 GHz!
On top of this, there is a big chance that you could achieve this without
changing voltages or cpu cooler.
There are a few important things to keep in mind in your case:
1. using EZFlash, upgrade first to the latest bios version.
1. set the agp / pci ratios to the fixed value of 66.66/33.33.
2. increase the fsb speed in small steps of 5 MHz and check each time the
stability of your system.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info! From the way BIOS reported memory clock (pick
from 400,320,..etc) I was under the impression that was the absolute.
What you are saying is that the actual clock is Reported*(FSB/Rated).
OK, picking 320 as memory clock, I was able to go FSB=225 with default
voltage but I assume 1) For decent performance gain, FSB needs to get
closer to 250 to have RAM operate close to its rating 2) I would need
to increase the CPU voltage for that. Up to what voltage do you think
I should go with with default cooling? (My CPU temp was ~45 max load
at default FSB and ~49 max load at FSB=225). Come to think of it, BIOS
says "Auto" for the CPU voltage so I am not sure what the default
value is. Thanks again.
 
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