New Years Resolution: OC my CPU to the max!

[pc_guy]

OK, this is the deal. I have made a new years resolution to overclock my CPU to the max. After seeing the previous post with the Opteron going to 2700mhz, I want to see how far my Athlon will go.

It's a A64 3800+ Venice. Please help the overclocking challanged! I have managed to get it up to around 2560Mhz, and even past 2600mhz which was very unstable.

Below are some cpuZ screens to show the cpu/ram I have.




I was playing around with the multiplier/HT and got this:


If anybody else has this similar CPU, please post the settings you're using.
I have also never tried overclocking the RAM, I'm using this OCZ ram, is it a good overclocker?

[PC_destroyer]

First of all what are your complete specs? A couple things you should consider are can you replace your proc if it gets damaged? Do you have a good reliable PSU? I tried OC'ing my PC but I had a really cheap unreliable PSU and I couldn't get past 2.1GHz on my Athlon 64 3200. And finally do you have sufficient cooling?

[pc_guy]

The specs are:
Asus A8N5X s939 mobo - looks like it's pretty overclockable

OCZ DDR400 Premier Series (2x512MB) - its between the value and performance OCZ ram 2.5 3 3 7

Sapphire X1600Pro 512MB PCI-E
Enermax NoiseTaker 485W - should be enough, a lot better than the smartpower 400W which was faulty and had to be RMA'd

I don't plan on frying my CPU, I will probably not run it at the higher speed for long. I just want to find out how high it will go and be stable at the same time. Down the road when this becomes my secondary computer, I can run it at the higher speeds without any worries that it will fry.

Keep in mind that I have stock cooling on the CPU, which seems to be doing a good job. 33C deg. right now, and no higher than 42C on full load. I know that this will limit in the OC, but let's try to see how high it will go in this situation.

[gvblake22]

Start off by reading through our Athlon 64 overclocking guide. Most all of the content in there can be applied to nearly every system, including yours. If you still have some issues/questions after reading through that, just holler!

As for your RAM, I wouldn't expect it to hit amazing speeds, but it should have a little headroom in it still. It has pretty loose timings at basic speeds, so that right there tells me it isn't meant for speed. Just leave the timings and mem voltage at stock, lower the CPU multiplier to 9x and start increasing the HTT frequency 3-5 mhz at a time and test in Memtest86+ and your choice of 3DMark, PCMark, SiperPI 32M or Prime95 or StressPrime to see if it is stable. If it is stable, then reboot, increase HTT frequency again, and then retest. Rinse and repeat until it is unstable, then report back.

[pc_guy]

One quick question.
I believe my FSB:Dram ratio has to be changed to something lower, but I cannot find it anywhere in the BIOS.
The above article mentions that it should look something like this:
100(MHz)(1/02), 120(MHz)(3/05), 133(MHz)(2/03), 140(MHz)(7/10), 150(MHz)(3/04), 166(MHz)(5/06), 180(MHz)(9/10), 200(MHz)(1/01).

When I had the CPU at around 2580Mhz, the Dram ratio was at CPU/11 = 234Mhz for the ram (showing in CPUz).

Will my mobo allow me to change the dram ratios?

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by pc_guy

Will my mobo allow me to change the dram ratios?

Yes. I don't remember exactly where it is but I know you can on a A8N5X. For that matters, you could check your motherboard manual if you still have it or hit Asus website. :)

[pc_guy]

Only thing I can adjust is the mhz speed of the memory, default is 400Mhz, it lets me move it down to 333mhz, 266mhz. Don't know if this is the way to do it.

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by pc_guy

Only thing I can adjust is the mhz speed of the memory, default is 400Mhz, it lets me move it down to 333mhz, 266mhz. Don't know if this is the way to do it.

Yep, that's exactly what you're looking for. Setting it to 333mhz will change the ratio and give you some CPU overclock headroom. :)

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by pc_guy

Will my mobo allow me to change the dram ratios?

Go the the "Advanced" menu, then into "CPU Configuration", then "DRAM Settings". The option for the memory divider settings is called "Max Memclock (MHz)". You will need to choose the option called "DDR400" to run your memory at its rated speed with everything at stock.

It is pages 2-21 and 2-22 of your motherboard's manual.

Originally Posted by polobunny

Yep, that's exactly what you're looking for. Setting it to 333mhz will change the ratio and give you some CPU overclock headroom. :)

Not while he's trying to find the highest speed his memory can run

[pc_guy]

Thanks for the tips!
Setting the RAM to 333mhz did the trick, now I can run SuperPI without any errors, ran 1M and 16M just fine.

Running at 2583Mhz with
Bus: 246mhz
Multi: 10.5X
HT: 4x
mem: 333mhz
vcore: 1.425 (CpuZ shows 1.45V)

Temps never got past 45C with SuperPi 16M running

I also don't know is its the Asus mobo (during stock speeds, it usually bumps the bus by 1-2Mhz), but one time the FSB went up to 250Mhz, even though it was set at 246mhz.



Lowest SuperPi 1M and 16M I could get with the OC: