Motherboard and overclocking

[satimis]

Hi folks,

I'm planning to build a AMD Athlon64 dualcore 4000+ (cache 2048KB), socket AM2, box and do overclocking.

Motherboard selection :

According to
http://www2.amd.com/us-en/recmobo/Re...~73649,00.html

I preliminary select;
Asus
M2NPV-MX/VM
http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?m...=3&l2=101&l3=0

http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?m...=3&l2=101&l3=0

OR

M2N-SLI Deluxe
http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?m...=3&l2=101&l3=0


Gigabyte
========
GA-M51GM-S2G/GA-M55PLUS-S3G
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...e=GA-M51GM-S2G

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...GA-M55plus-S3G

OR
GA-M57SLI-S4
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...e=GA-M57SLI-S4

Please provide some advice, (economical preferred, IF POSSIBLE). TIA

I heard Gigabyte more suitable for "overclocking". Would it be correct?


This is my 1st time doing overclocking. I found following steps on Internet searching;
Enter BIOS during startup PC. Select the Bios Features Setup -> Modify CPU Host Bus Frequency, External Clock (PCI). -> In CPU Core section find the Multiple Bus Frequency or Multiplier factor and modify the value of the CPU Multiplier -> save the changes to the CMOS and exit.

1) Whether the forgoing steps are correct?
2) What is FSB (Front Side Bus) speed of motherboard. How to find it?

Advice would be appreacited. TIA


B.R.
satimis

[soulestream]

Advice would be appreacited. TIA

okay

Don't overclock an already fast system. Its not going to run that much faster and you only get an unstable system that may burn up.


Soule

[mrrangerman43]

Don't overclock an already fast system.

I second that!

[satimis]

Hi folks,

Tks for your advice.

I adjust my planning as follows;

Motherboard
M2N-SLI Deluxe
http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?m...=3&l2=101&l3=0

CPU
Athlon64 Dualcore 4400+ socket AM2
Cache 2048MB

RAM
1G, dualchannel in pair (512M x2)

The reason for me turning away from "Asus M2NPV-MX/VM" is that they look like a modified socket 939 mobo. Athough their price is much cheaper than "Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe"

The price of AMD cup 4400+ continues to drop. It has 2048MB L-2 cache now.

I'll purchase an economic graphic card because I don't game.

Any comment? TIA

I'll make use of an AMD old box, Athlon 1.4 cpu, to experience overclocking. But I don't know whether 2th Max 8KHA supports overclocking.

B.R.
satimis

[leonpmu]

Believe me, I just built an AMD Athlon64 3800+, 1GB DDR400 RAM, with an ATI Extreme AX550 256DDR PCIExpress. I will not even think about overclocking this baby, it is more than fast enough... I definitely agree, no need to overclock a mchine like that (or this )

[pmrphs2002]

Im a college student who built a pretty nice LAN. My server for lack of money has been running nearly non-stop for 5 years- a dramatically over clocked AMD Athlon 1400 clocked to nearly 2.1GHz. Not the best specs, but its been running air cooled like this for 5 years. Anyone who tells you about blowing up your hardware yadda yadda.... for the most part is crap.

Everyones experiences are different but I've had great sucess clocking processors beyond their specifications. Of course, I may have lucked out immensely- I know that a processor is luck of the draw when their all sorted out and branded say a 1400 mhz processor- it may be able to go far faster, it may be able to go a tiny bit faster.

You need a good motherboard and need to know a bit about your processor to accomplish your feat- my server was easy- I bought it from a shady computer fair and it was already unlocked to hit 1550MHz when I bought it so all I really did was keep tinkering and it got me through all the computers I overclocked.

Yes, especially now you get more computer for your money and for the time and money it takes to do this you could just get a new one built and it would kick so much more ***- but I equate it to the way some people fanatically work on their classic muscle cars- all people know cars are just for transportation, but these people like to strip them down and make them work harder- tada.

After that tangent....

You need a processor that can be sped up- luckily that can be all of them. I find the easiest to work with are AMD Athlons. Their cheap enough if it didn't make it, and seem to be more forgiving to upping the voltage. An intel chip runs cooler, has temperature cut offs and all kinds of other cool features, but they make it hard as hell to unlock it.

You need a motherboard that allows you to up the voltage and multiplier in some regard. You may want to bounce hardware questions off of the people of ExtremeOverclocking.com or Overclockers.com . Im so out of it now I'd be useless. The one piece of advice I CAN give you is to spend the money on good memory- they'll stay stable and accept the upped voltage through the motherboard- I use Crucial in all of my systems.

Have fun!
Pete

[stumbles]

I agree and wouldn't bother with it. I twiddled with overclocking for a little while and there always seemed to be something that needed addressing. Whether it was a more beefy power supply, bigger/better heatsinks, more fans, etc, etc.

IMHO it's not really worth the effort to try and squeeze out that last 2/3 percent or whatever your after.... even it you might notice a performance gain.

[soulestream]

And when you fan gets a little dusty and your really expensive processor melts you can send the bill to pmrphs2002.


Soule

[cybertron]

I dunno, with the overclocks that you can often get on today's processors (20-30% or more on stock cooling in many cases) I find that it makes a noticeable difference in some things, especially compiling and video conversion. As long as you don't mess with the voltage going to your processor it's highly unlikely that you'll fry anything because as you increase the clock speed the processor is going to get unstable faster than it heats up to a dangerous level (do keep an eye on your temps though, if it's running at 60 C under load that's too hot IMHO). Just make sure you run Prime95 for at least 12 hours to be sure that it is stable at each clock speed. If not, back it off.

Also, I've found that I like to overclock simply because I like to push my hardware. I guess I'm just one of those freaks who enjoys tweaking BIOS settings.

A disclaimer however: Overclocking does void your warranty so to be clear: it's nobody's fault but your own if something breaks when you do it. If you can't afford to lose it, don't overclock it.