JSYVICK

Hi, can anyone tell me how to overclock my system. I am new to oc, therefore I need help in the way of all mb settings. I have a limited understanding of the mb setup. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks...

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My System:
Thermal Take Tai Chi vb5001sna aluminum liquid cooled
Asus p5n32-e sli 680i nvidia
evga gforce 8600gts 256mb video card
e6600 2.4
2gb crucial ballistic ddr2 800 pc2 6400
w.d. caviar 500gb

Mousey

7950GX2s? How old are those things?
Why don't you get a cheaper intel board with a better chipset.
That way you can overclock better, have more support for faster speed memory and have the chance to go with a more affordable and better supported Crossfire setup

Edit - more on bad hardware choices later, basically ramp up the FSB in the BIOS a few MHz at a time and run stress tests on the system ie. 3DMark, PCMark, CPU Burn In, Prime 95 ECT. When the system gets unstable ie. randomly restarting/locking up under stress go back into the BIOS and put the voltage up a tad then go back to testing.
Make sure you've got optimal airflow around your case for best results

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blibbax

7950GX2s still don't work great in SLI. IMO, if you want to upgrade, you'd be better selling the one you've got and splashing on a newer card.

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kris23

thread moved as the old one was an ancient mess...

as to avoid going too far over budget, i recommend simply getting 2 9800GTX+s

as theyre cheap, far more reliable than a 7950GX2 and pretty close in performance

and to the overclocking, to overclock the system, you bump up the FSB bit by bit, saving then testing the added performance with a CPU stress test

if i remember right, depending on your RAM, you may want to unlink the FSB clocks from the RAM clocks

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Knight_Breed

I agree on upgrading the video cards.

On O/Cing I agree with Kris23 on RAM clocks try and keep these close to the rated speed if you have ratios or settings to do so.

On this CPU like my E6550 I would leave the Vcore alone unless it is completely necessary I am running 7x440 stable @ 1.35V(stock).

The one setting you may want to check andsee if you have is called PCI-E overvoltage(on Gigabyte). Through google, trial and error and many reboots I have found this is the primary changed setting on a Gigabyte mobo set to "Auto" voltage for stability. Auto sets PCI-E overvoltage to 0.35V and Vcore to 1.42 which isn't needed.

But then as mentioned on the viddy cards I wouldn't play with PCI-E overvoltage using them.

Hope this helps and good luck

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blibbax

Pretty close in performance? A 9800GTX will massivley outrun a 7950GX2, and in SLI even more so.

They're not that cheap though, but that depends on your perspective. I have a 9600GT. At £85 it's the most expensive component in my PC, and the fourth most expensive thing I've ever bought.

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Mousey

You could've spent £80 and bought a HD3850 like me, it plays pretty much anything i throw at it.
Or am i getting mixed up with performance levels here

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blibbax

The 9600GT is roughly equal to the HD3850 as far as I know, but it adds better AA performance and CUDA. Yes, I haven't found anything besides F@H for that yet, but hey.

I think I'm wondering of topic a little here.

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Knight_Breed

A 9600gt will outperform an HD3850 easily stock as well as the HD3870 depending on the version. O/Ced it is equivalent in most respects to an 8800gt as I can bench 12k on mine on 3DMark6 without much sweat.

We are getting off topic and just one more mention to the author of this thread.

If you are overclocking at all always test stability and monitor temperatures. Also make sure your cooling for all the components involved are up to par. For my O/C I mentioned check out my rig specs I am not running a Dell

Cheers !!

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Neshi

E6600 should do 3.2Ghz easily, and 3.6Ghz if you are lucky.

I tried to overclock mine to 3.6 and managed to get into windows, but not stable. It would crash after 1 minute of stresstesting (although games were no problem :S)
Anyway, I got it on 3.2Ghz now, 400x8 to keep my memory on a 1:1 ratio. I have just a little over stockvoltage.

What was mentioned before is the best way to do it.
bump up the FSB till it goes no further, then bump up the voltage 1 or 2 steps, and continue with the FSB. If the voltageincrease has no result, you can try to bump up the North Bridge voltage a little and see if that allows you to get the FSB higher.

Do not try it with too big of steps, and always monitor the temperatures. If you've got the desired speed, or it can't go higher it is time for stresstesting. If it fails it means you have to give the cpu more voltage, the NB more voltage or you have to put the FSB down.

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