Overclocking tutorial

[Plasma_Snake]

Can you Overclocking experts give us newbies the tutorials and all the basucs about overclocking our systems? Above thread has AMD overclocking but what about Intel systems and other things. Basically I want to know What? Why? How? of Overclocking. Please quench my yearning for this information...

 

[darklord]

The field is so vast that it is really difficult to compile a tutorial for the same.
Just to give you an idea, here are the factors that matter in overclocking.

1) Platform ( Intel / AMD)
2) CPU ( Single Core/Dual Core/QUad Core)
3) Chipset
4) Memory type
5) Chipset make
6) Memory ICs used
7) Motherboard brand
8 ) maturity of BIOS
9) options available in BIOS
10) power circuitry of motherboard
11) quality of crucial components like Chokes, Voltage regulators, capacitors etc.
12) Cooling apparatus
13) binning of the CPU ( batch, VID etc.)

So these are some of the factors that come into play when you talk about overclocking.
If you consider all this, it is really difficult to draft a simple and easy to understand guide as such.
You can go ahead with your specific doubts, i will try to answer them in the best of my capacity.

Cheers
Darky

 

[Plasma_Snake]

My motherboard, ASUS P5LD2-VM, has an overclock option in the BIOS itself and has 3 default values, 10%, 20% and 30%. How can I find out if selecting anyone of these has really overclocked my system? What if I want to take it up a notch further, increase frequency, tinker with RAM ?
Below is my configuration:

1. Processor- Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86GHZ
2. Motherboard- ASUS P5LD2-VM SE
3. RAM- Kingston PC-5200 DDR2 667 MHz 2x1GB(Dual Channel)
4. GPU-ASUS EN 7600GT 256MB DDR3
5. HDD- Seagate 400GB + 160GB

Rest is all the usual stuff like 5.1 speakers, logitech keyboard mouse combo, Samsung LCD TV as display solution.

 

[ratedrsuperstar]

awesome thread wanted to request one.

Since most of us digitians have similar config to this can anyone help me with my OC

Intel E7200(want it upto 3.6/3.7GHz;is already upto 3.48GHz;1.235v)
Abit IP35-e(bios v18)
OCZ SLI ready RAM 800MHz(already to 1098MHz CPURAM 1:1)
Gigabyte 9600GSO(don't need to overclock it now but still any help is welcome)

plz help with OCing RAM and Proccy

 

[Plasma_Snake]

OK, Darklord I want to OC my GPU can I PM the screenshot showing its specs in GPU-z?

 

[darklord]

Sorry guys for not being able to reply here as i was out of station.Now that i am here, i will try to answer your queries

awesome thread wanted to request one.

Since most of us digitians have similar config to this can anyone help me with my OC

Intel E7200(want it upto 3.6/3.7GHz;is already upto 3.48GHz;1.235v)
Abit IP35-e(bios v18)
OCZ SLI ready RAM 800MHz(already to 1098MHz CPURAM 1:1)
Gigabyte 9600GSO(don't need to overclock it now but still any help is welcome)

plz help with OCing RAM and Proccy

Your chip can easily go upto 4GHz if you have a decent enough cooler.
Anyways while you are bumping FSB, dont forget to bump the vcore a bit. For 3.6 or so, bump it to say 1.25V
As for RAM, i am not sure what chips it has so i cant guess how much it can go.
Since you are already at 1000, it looks good.I would recommend dropping the divider and run the memory a bit slower, first stabilise the CPU overclock and then bump the divider to OC the RAM.

What VDIMM are you using ? Also what are the timings ?

 

[Plasma_Snake]

Darky, What about me man. Now I've decided to upgrade my PSU and GPu so my current 7600GT would be idle so instead of selling it I wanna OC it and mod it with new Cooling solution and stuff to get my taste of modding and OCing stuff. How 'bout guiding me through?

 

[darklord]

Well,
To start off i suggest you get the latest version of Rivatuner and install the latest drivers for your card.
Then you can start off by bumping the GPU and memory clock speeds by 5 MHz.
Run 3DMark 01 or so to test whether the OC is stable. The moment it starts artifacting or the application hangs, you should know that its either heating up ( if using stock cooler) or it has reached its limits.
usually the memory on cheaper video cards doesnt clock too well so you should reach the memory clock limit much earlier compared to the gpu.
Rivatuner also allows you to monitor the GPU temperatures, i suggest doing so would be very helpful.