overclocking

[spense]

i hear all of this talk about overclocking. wheather it is video cards or processers. first of all what is overclocking and how do you do it. thanks

[TheCrazedLog]

I understand overclocking as changing a couple of options and making the device run faster. I dont know the technical side of it. However..there are risks such as overheating or frying the component. Not to mention instability due to the heat.

Anthony

[tjkotula]

Overclocking is a tricky process. Not so much the actual overclock, but the many factors there are to consider when you do it. There are many risks mixed in with the benefits. Overheating, instability and system crashing can all result from overclocking along with mild to moderate increases in speed and performance. Some hardware also tends to overclock better than others. Pound for pound, Pentium 4 processors tend to o/c better than Athlon XP's. Modern video cards tend to be good o/cers (particularily the GeForce 4 Ti4200) with good cooling (Good copper fan and RAM sinks).

I suggest that before you try to o/c anything in your system that you study up on the risks and benefits online. There are many good sites out there that can help you make a decision in regards to whether or not you should o/c any of your system's componets. Good luck.

Tim Kotula

XP 1800+ o/ced to XP2000+ (1.67Ghz)
MSI KT3 Ultra Motherboard
512 MB Crucial PC2100 DDR
OC Systems Enhanced GeForce 4 Ti4200 64 MB DDR o/ced to 330/640 Mhz.
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1

Think you've got computer problems? You haven't until you've installed the latest version of FS!

[ilove2ski42]

Overclocking can be accomplished in a variety of ways. First of all, the way a processor's clock speed is determined is the Front-Side Bus speed (FSB) times the Processor (CPU)'s built in multiplier. My AMD Athlon XP 1800 has an 11.5X multiplier, so with the default FSB setting of 133 mhz, my CPU is running at a clock speed of 1529.5 mhz. (note that the "FSB Speed" for AMD processors of this generation is 266 mhz. This is very, very confusing, but I believe it happens because the 133 mhz FSB pipeline either has it's own 2x multiplier, or it heads in both directions (to & from the processor). In fact some benchmarks would actually place my FSB at 66 mhz, which times 2 would be 133, then * 2 again for the 266 mhz. Very weird.

It used to be, with the old processors, that you could just change the CPU's multiplier to get higher clock speeds. In recent years, however, the multiplier has been "locked", so that the only way to change it is through actually soldering or something on the actual CPU itself (way, way more trouble than it's worth in my opinion). The easiest way to overclock right now is to set your FSB speed in the BIOS. The higher your FSB, the faster the CPU runs. For example, currently my CPU is overclocked. I ran my FSB up to 138 (or 276 mhz if you look at it that way), so 138 * 11.5= 1587. This is the performance equivilent of an AMD Athlon XP 1900+. I would over-clock further, but I dont have sufficient cooling right now, and my motherboard doesn't run especially stable at high overclocks.
Anyway, unless you set other-wise (there may be an option in your BIOS), the FSB speed increased the speed going into the components on the motherboard. Your RAM, PCI and occasionaly Graphics Card may be damaged by an increase in the speed. Some BIOS allow individually setting the speed for each component, however.

Anyway, for o'clocking a graphics card, you usually use the driver software provided with the card. Since there are so many variations out there, i can't possibly go into that. Then there is also a utility called GeForce Tweaker, which allows you to overclock GeForce cards. I haven't been able to find a way for my settings to "stick" using this, though, so I have to re-overclock my card w/ each restart. I've o'clocked my Visiontek Xtasy 5864 GeForce 2 Ti 64 mb to a 287 mhz GPU and 461 mhz Memory.

Personally, unless you are familiar with over-clocking and/or have good cooling, I wouldn't recommend it. There is a risk of damaging/burning your hardware. An o'clocked piece of hardware is off warrenty!

==============
Ben Peters
WWA6605
VATSIM KZLC
Senior Student
Visit my Round the World website:
http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/wwrtw

[spense]

thanks for the info. i am thinking of upgrading my processer and i just got a new gf4 ti 4200 128mb card. so i might just upgrade my processer so i dont have to o/c that and just overclock my graphics card a little.