If you want to skip my really long post, I bolded the question below. Thanks guys!
Hey, I'm new to overclocking and I just overclocked my first system. I've gotten it to run stable in two different configurations and I'm just not entirely positive which one is better over all. I'll describe everything and the stuff that I have.
500W Xclio power supply
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Brisbane 2.2GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor
Kingston 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
BIOSTAR TForce TF720 A2+ AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA nForce 720a ATX AMD Motherboard
Gigabyte GeForce 8800 GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 (Not really important, I'm not overclocking. It came with a core clock of 725mhz)
I'm not on my desktop at the moment, so I can't grab pictures of the bios overclocking, but everything is about the same as what seems to be normal except one thing. When I looked for a memory divider, the only thing that I seem to have found is memory clock, which is set to auto by default. At auto, CPU-Z identifies the ram at 400 MHz. The stock settings are 5-5-5-18 and T2. When I change the CPU Frequency (200Mhz by default) up by 1 MHz, the memory clock goes up by 2 MHz at the default settings.
When I change the memory clock to manual, it gives me four options; 200 MHz, 266 MHz, 333 MHz and 400 MHz. I set it to 200 MHz to see what it does, and at that setting, and if I set the CPU frequency to 250, the memory speed is then at 250, so this appears to be the divider.
Without changing any memory settings, I was able to run the CPU frequency up to about 265Mhz. This increased the processor speed to 2,915MHz and the memory clock to 530MHz still with the stock settings of 5-5-5-18 T2. As I upped the CPU a bit more, I could get it up to about 275 and still boot in, but it did not appear to run perfectly stable. It would not boot in much more above 275 MHz, so pushing stability was about 3.01 GHz CPU and 550 MHz on the memory.
I changed the memory clock to 333 MHz and kept the CPU Frequency at 275, and then it booted in and ran stable, with the memory running at about 430 MHz rather than 550, and the CPU at 3.01 GHz.
Now, since the memory was so much lower and I knew it could still handle more (but the CPU couldn't handle much more) I decided to mess with timing. I am able to get the timing down from 5-5-5-18 T2 to 4-4-4-8 T1.
Now the higher memory clock with slower settings was stable at a .1 GHz slower processor speed (2.9 instead of 3.0,) but the CPU multiplier is only top locked, which means I could change the memory divider and the CPU Multiplier while upping the CPU frequency and through trial and error I could probably get the memory to run stock settings at 530 MHz with the CPU at 3.0 GHz. Assuming this to be true, I will address my question below:
Assuming the CPU is 3.0 Ghz in BOTH cases, which memory settings would be most effective/efficient?
530 MHz clock, 5-5-5-18 T2 timing.
OR
430 MHz clock, 4-4-4-8 T1 timing.
I realize that upping voltage, I may be able to get a bit more out of it. The ram is 1.8V ram, and it runs by default at 1.95 on this motherboard. I do not want to up voltage any if I don't have to because my cooling isn't amazing. My CPU, however, has not gone above 50C at the overclock of 3.0 from 2.2 while playing any video games I use, so this is safe in my opinion. It idles about 31C +/- 2C depending on my room temperature.
I really appreciate any input. Like I said, I'm new to overclocking and this is the first time I've done it. I'm just not too experienced with memory clock vs. memory timing. Thanks a bunch to all who read!
Jeremy
Hey, I'm new to overclocking and I just overclocked my first system. I've gotten it to run stable in two different configurations and I'm just not entirely positive which one is better over all. I'll describe everything and the stuff that I have.
500W Xclio power supply
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Brisbane 2.2GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor
Kingston 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
BIOSTAR TForce TF720 A2+ AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA nForce 720a ATX AMD Motherboard
Gigabyte GeForce 8800 GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 (Not really important, I'm not overclocking. It came with a core clock of 725mhz)
I'm not on my desktop at the moment, so I can't grab pictures of the bios overclocking, but everything is about the same as what seems to be normal except one thing. When I looked for a memory divider, the only thing that I seem to have found is memory clock, which is set to auto by default. At auto, CPU-Z identifies the ram at 400 MHz. The stock settings are 5-5-5-18 and T2. When I change the CPU Frequency (200Mhz by default) up by 1 MHz, the memory clock goes up by 2 MHz at the default settings.
When I change the memory clock to manual, it gives me four options; 200 MHz, 266 MHz, 333 MHz and 400 MHz. I set it to 200 MHz to see what it does, and at that setting, and if I set the CPU frequency to 250, the memory speed is then at 250, so this appears to be the divider.
Without changing any memory settings, I was able to run the CPU frequency up to about 265Mhz. This increased the processor speed to 2,915MHz and the memory clock to 530MHz still with the stock settings of 5-5-5-18 T2. As I upped the CPU a bit more, I could get it up to about 275 and still boot in, but it did not appear to run perfectly stable. It would not boot in much more above 275 MHz, so pushing stability was about 3.01 GHz CPU and 550 MHz on the memory.
I changed the memory clock to 333 MHz and kept the CPU Frequency at 275, and then it booted in and ran stable, with the memory running at about 430 MHz rather than 550, and the CPU at 3.01 GHz.
Now, since the memory was so much lower and I knew it could still handle more (but the CPU couldn't handle much more) I decided to mess with timing. I am able to get the timing down from 5-5-5-18 T2 to 4-4-4-8 T1.
Now the higher memory clock with slower settings was stable at a .1 GHz slower processor speed (2.9 instead of 3.0,) but the CPU multiplier is only top locked, which means I could change the memory divider and the CPU Multiplier while upping the CPU frequency and through trial and error I could probably get the memory to run stock settings at 530 MHz with the CPU at 3.0 GHz. Assuming this to be true, I will address my question below:
Assuming the CPU is 3.0 Ghz in BOTH cases, which memory settings would be most effective/efficient?
530 MHz clock, 5-5-5-18 T2 timing.
OR
430 MHz clock, 4-4-4-8 T1 timing.
I realize that upping voltage, I may be able to get a bit more out of it. The ram is 1.8V ram, and it runs by default at 1.95 on this motherboard. I do not want to up voltage any if I don't have to because my cooling isn't amazing. My CPU, however, has not gone above 50C at the overclock of 3.0 from 2.2 while playing any video games I use, so this is safe in my opinion. It idles about 31C +/- 2C depending on my room temperature.
I really appreciate any input. Like I said, I'm new to overclocking and this is the first time I've done it. I'm just not too experienced with memory clock vs. memory timing. Thanks a bunch to all who read!
Jeremy
