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Overclock/Underclock Discussion Thread

M1_Mercenary

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This is for those silly people who cant leave their CPU/GPU settings alone to discuss how they have overclocked their PC's share Overclock settings and such. :p



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As for me, I have a modest Core i5 750. Base clock started off at 2.66GHz, i got it now to 3.2 so my RAM runs at its proper 1600 rated speed.



I did try setting it to run at 4GHz with Turboboost, but it wanted me to bump voltages past spec to be stable. Also oddly enough my CPU refuses to allow me to underclock it (Tried setting it to 2.4Ghz base clock, refused to run xD)



Current settings:

Base Clock: 160Mhz ( gives me 3.2Ghz if Turboboost and EIST was disabled )

Multiplier range: 9-24x (1.4Ghz to 3.8Ghz)

Ram Speed: 1600MHz

QPI Link: 2800MHz



Idle Temp: 38C

Load Temp: 60C



XS Bench testing (Single Core Performance Test)

Base Score: 1000 (C2D E8400 3Ghz)

My Test Score: 1468 (@ 3.8Ghz)

High Score: 2300 (Intel Xeon @5.7GHz) by XtremeSystems

(It seems a i7 980x scores about a 1995 at 5GHz, so I am pretty happy :D)



-Overall, my i5 isn't one of the better binned chips, so its a little intolerable of overclocking like some of the others, but its still stable at what I set it at, and still within Intel's Voltage and current specs :p



As for my 5850, it started off at 725MHz GPU and 1000MHz Memory



It is set to the highest ATI Overdrive and/or card BIOS would allow which is

775MHz GPU and 1125MHz Memory



Idle Temp (40% fan): 40C

Load Temp (40% fan): 60C



-Love my 5850, may not be a top contender in performance anymore, but its amongst the coolest and quietest modern card one could get :D
 

Josrence

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:eek: What does this all mean? I've heard of overclocking before, but is it just to make games run better? I fail at this stuff.
 

Laithes

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Alright, so Jos there's a small device on all motherboards called the system clock. This helps other parts keep time with the rest of the system by doing something by the cycles of the clock. The measurements are in either Mega Hertz (Mhz- 1 million cycles per second) or Giga Hertz (Ghz- 1 billion cycles per second) for a processor that means it can handle one binary switch at a time. Now in M1's case we have a processor running at 2.66 Ghz, He overclocked it to run at 3.2 Ghz. This makes the processor run faster but requires a better cooling system seeing as it'll produce more heat.



This is a very rough outline, but hope it helps.
 

M1_Mercenary

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Laithes basically got it. but its a little trickier with the i5 and i7 with their ability to overclock themselves (Basically "I heard you like Overclocking, so I put a Overclock in yo' Overclock so you can play Crysis while playing Crysis")
 

Josrence

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Thanks guys, that does make sense now. It actually makes a lot of stuff make sense - I never thought much of cooling systems before lol. Maybe that's why I go through computers so quick - stuff melting
 

Woody2371

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I've overclocked my basic dualcore from 3Ghz to 3.5



Nothing major, but provides a nice boost to my gaming on a fairly run-down computer
 

M1_Mercenary

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Thanks guys, that does make sense now. It actually makes a lot of stuff make sense - I never thought much of cooling systems before lol. Maybe that's why I go through computers so quick - stuff melting

For the most part, if you don't touch the clock settings on stuff, the default cooling will do the job, also kinda helps you live in Canada :p



Out of being bored, I may take a Pentium 4 Mobile I have and see how high i can crank the clock on it. I also have a Am2 Socket Sempron to tweak if i can get a good board eventually.



Not a bad overclock there Tom, depending on the CPU, I overclocked this i5 just to squeeze i7 performance out of it :p



Edit: Earlier I hit 4GHz on my i5, i went back to the settings in the first post cause i didn't like the voltages it needed to do that. Intel isn't like AMD where you can just slam up the voltages and go from there.
 

M1_Mercenary

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Just tested with IntelBurnTest (OLOLOL, nice name!) on maximum stress again after tweaking my QPI to its max setting again.

Passes with 46 GFlops and a max temp achieved of 78C (Would be about 10C lower if the top and back fan on my case was working :/ )
 
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