by ctjoyce » Thu Mar 30, 2006 7:13 pm
Lol, well I've been put in the spotlight so here goes.
Overclocking is a method of makeing your CPU faster than it is stock by increasing the core MHZ or multiplyer (however the multiplyer is very difficult to do, and very dangerous). Power users such as myself use overclocking to get the absolute most out of our chips, and to brag to our mates about how fast we can get our rigs.
How to:
It is rathar simple actually. Enter your BIOS (usually by hitting DEL during startup). Scroll to the menu that has a title about tweaking. (Something like "Advanced M.I.T Tweaking"). Once inside you should be presented with a few options. First we need to enable the clock gen (usually twards the top of the page). Next its time to do the actual clock. This is where math is involved. You must first figure out your multiplyer, then decide what clock you want. Personally my multiplyer is x17, so if I want to achieve a 4Ghz overclock I would use a core clock of 236Mhz (236 x 17 = 4012, then add in a decimal after the first number, so 4.012Ghz is the outcome). Grats, your processer is now has its new clock, but for a stable clock your gonna need to overvolt, so that your processer has enough power to keep going. You really have to fiddle here to figure out what you need. My stock 3.4Ghz was at 1.375V, and my 4.01Ghz is at 1.550V. My theory is about +0.025V for every 100Mhz. Okay your done, save and restart your bios (usually F10) and you will boot up. If you dont, your stock clock will be restored. This means there wasn't enough plower to the CPU, so readjust your voltage, and start again.
Heat:
This is a huge factor in overclocking. Yes you could have a 800Mhz overclock, however you will most likely cause a huge amount of heat damage to the chip (assuming that your computer allows you to even boot up with temps that high). There are a few ways to get rid of the heat in your case. The first is basic, a quick cable tidy (see my case) should get air flowing better in your system, and drop your temps about 1 or 2C The next best thing is to apply high end thermalpaste to your CPU. I reccomend Artic Silver 5 (about a drop of 4~5C) or Artic Cremeque (about 5~6C drop). Now this is a good solution for small clocks such as 100~ 200MHZ but I dont reccomend you go much higher. The third, and best way to cool your system is to change the heatsink on your CPU. Air, Water, and Vap Chill are the three main things used to do this. Air is usually the cheapest and easiest. A Zalman CNPS-7000Cu will cost you $30ish and drop your temps about 5~7C. Not only that, but will keep your range (Idle to Load) a decent 10~12 degrese insted of stock sinks that can range 20+ The best air cooler on the market to date is the Zalman CNPS-9500 (the cooler I use) This coupled with AS5 dropped my temps from about 42C idle (stock clock, stock cooling) to 23C idle (stock clock). I am now running a 600Mhz overclock at 34C idle. For the extreem chill look to vap chill, or water cooling. I dont really know how well, or much less how vap chill works so I'm not going to talk about it, however Water is the grail. Stock temps at 10C, and load at 20C will make anyone drool. However leave it to the expirts. Watercooling is very expensive, and will rouin your computer if set up wrong.
Another thing we need to consider is the north bridge. I couldn't get past 3.97Ghz before I switched my cooler, as the northbridge was overheating.Zalman or Swiftech are the ways to go here.
Well there you have it, how to overclock your system. Also know if you have a ASUS NF4 board there is a windows clock gen that you can use to overclock, however I am not firmilliar with this so it wasn't included.
I take no responsability if you screw up, and break / melt your PC.
Cheers
Cameron
CTJoyce, Modding and voiding warranties since 2003
Sheila's Specs:ASUS Striker Extreme 680i, Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.2Ghz, Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400C4 2GB, 2x eVGA 7900GT KO, Western Digital 80GB SATA & 250GB SATAIII
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