OCing for dummies?

[Zy]

I just built my first system. I'm a bit new to alot of this stuff but learning fast after finding this site. I would have me a new dell if it werent for this site. Anyway just wondering what I should be able to get out of my system. It has a P4 2.6ghz 800mhz FSB cpu, Abit IC7 MB, 2 Sanyo 512mb PC 3200 DDR in daul channel and a geforce 5200 ultra AGP. I played around with it a bit and have it running @ 2.9g with everything running smooth. How high can I safly take it and do I need to change the stock CPU heastink and fan? Should I leave the AGP/PCI speed fixed or change that too?

[ranger2992]

You should be able to hit 3.3 or so with your setup. 2.6C's aren't the best overclockers, but you should be able to get over 3 ghz with your stock cooling. As far as your settings go.

On the soft menu page you are gonna need to play with your memory divider. Your choices should be; auto, 1/1, 3/2 and 5/4. The divider is probably one of the most important settings in the BIOS. Below you can see approx what settings you are gonna need. I am not familar with your ram so I don't know how far it will OC.

1/1 = 200/* 2 = 400 DDR (you're not gonna get too far with this)
5/4 = 200/5*4= 160*2=320 DDR(this setting should get you to 250 fsb
very easy)250/5*4=200*2= 400 DDR
3/2 = 200/3*2=133*2=266 DDR (used in extreme overclocking) 300/3*2=200*2=400 DDR

Make sure your AGP/PCI is locked. leve your voltage at stock until you start to have stability issues. then you can up your Vcore and memory voltage.

Just keep upping your fsb 5 mhz at a time and check your system for stability. Run 3DMarks, prime 95 and mem test to see if you're stable. Once your rig becomes unstable you then up your voltages and run the stability checks again. If all is good, then you can start upping your fsb again. Just keep doing this until you reach a Vcore of 1.7 and memory voltage of 2.8. Any higher than that and your rig will get too hot.

BTW there are a lot of good guides in this forum that are much more complete. This is just a quickie. Do some research and you will be good to go with your overclock.

[Zy]

Thx Ranger for your help. Going to playing with things a little and see what I can get. One thing... the memory I have is not good for OCing?

[ranger2992]

Sorry buddy, but just my guess, I would say no. TwinMos, Corsair, OCZ, Kingston and Geil would be my vote for DDR memory.

[Zy]

Should I use PC 3200 DDR or something else?

[ranger2992]

PC3200 ram is good, but the higher you go, the higher OC you can get on the 1/1 divider. Good ram is more important though. I have TwinMos PC3200 and I can get my fsb to 225(DDR 450) using the 1/1 divider and 268 using the 5/4(228 DDR) divider.

[Zy]

Great. Ok guess I just need to get the CPU temp problem solved then I'll be good to go.