To use cpu stepping or not?

[capttripppp]

My MB has a stepping setting to OC. Now my question is this... Should or would any of you use this feature? I haven't tried it yet, but when I try to push my cpu past 4304.2 mhz it will not post. My thoughts were that if I used the stepping I would in theory already be posted into windows by the time I reached my ultimate goal of 4725.69. Temps, I am not overly worried about because this will just be for my cpuz bench and 4725.69 is the highest. As I was saying about temps, at 4304.2 my temps were only at 40c. So I have room there. I was just wondering anyway about the stepping. I am trying to reach my 20, but I have a looooong way to go, and my equipment is sub-par at best for right now. Here in the near future I am going to try to pick up some other stuff(new cpu, MB, etc etc) but am strapped for right now. So anyway, thoughts on the stepping? It can be set to ___ seconds per step starting @ 2 secs.

 

[capttripppp]

I guess I'll just give it a go, and see how it turns out. I was hoping that someone had maybe tried something similar before

 

[Seebs]

Oh man... sorry about the lack of attention/responses to your question... Peeps here are usually very eager to help people with any/all questions.

If that OC Step feature works as advertised on your boards manual; that would be a very nice thing to have.

I'm not too familiar with MSI boards... well actually... I am not familiar with them at all, but I did download your board's manual and read the part about OC Stepping.... The only suggestion I have is that you need to remember that when the base clock goes up a number of other things go up... It's not just the CPU Speed... The HT Link will go up, the CPU NB Speed will go up and the RAM Speed will go up. So you need to make calculations of what you want those to be when your OC Stepping feature reaches the desired base clock and set the multipliers accordingly. If you simply leave your multipliers for the HTLink, CPUNB and ram untouched; the baseclock will go up and those speeds will rise to the point that they will cause your PC to crash.

Hope this helps.

Sebastian

 

[capttripppp]

Thanks for the reply. I had tried the stepping and in theory it's great, but like everything else in life in practice it didn't work out to well! I had set my multipliers and everything to work out for the ultimate goal, still no dice. So at any rate I Nlited myself a version XP today, and got the harddrive all set up and ready to go so I plan to give it a whirl tomorrow or this weekend depending. I was just having a problem posting into windows7 with my AV and everything else. The HD I set up has very minimal everything so hopefully I can push it to the edge. If this works, the next plan is a new CPU or a pot. Dunno yet
Edit: For the record MSI boards stink, and I will never buy another one!!!!!!

 

[Seebs]

So the HW on your signature is all you have available to you at the moment?

I would be careful not to push the motherboard too hard with the voltages... That board is not particularly well suited for heavy overclocking (notice the lack of heatsinks on the MOSFETS by the cpu socket) and you may blow one of them up if you overvolt a bit too much...

I say do the best you can with that HW, but by all means don't kill your one PC trying to make the team. Best to wait for a little bit while you save money for more HW.

If you want quick points; you'll be looking for Intel LGA775 stuff... Look at my signature, the Intel Benching line in particular... Tons of points and the money spent was not really that much. Some of the chips were in the $30 range and the most expensive component in there is the Q6600 ($90). So look for used 775 motherboard, a cheap CPU (E6300 is a good starting chip) and some decent DDR2 ram and you'll be in the team in no time flat.

I figure something like $150 gets you all you would need to get going with the 775 stuff.

If you can't be spending the money at the moment... I say look to upgrade your motherboard first before anything else. What you want is a Gigabyte 790FTX-UD5P; that is arguably the best AM3 motherboard for overclocking/benching... Except for the Maximus IV Extreme, but that one is WAAAYYY more expensive. If you look in the "For Sale" sections of Overclocking/Benching forums you can find one for less than $100... I paid $80 for mine and it has served me quite well.

Keep at it... You'll make the team soon enough.

 

[capttripppp]

I have an older pentium D LGA775, and I have a line on an Asus board with a celeron 1.6 and another cpu single core lga 775 for 45 bucks. I have RAM and what not just need a board for 775. Hopefully this weekend I can get the one I am talking of. It's listed on Craig's list and the guy has listed it twice so I might be able to get him to lower it a little. But I have already been tracking on the 775 idea. If I were to blow this one up then it would give me a reason to buy something new. I have to try to ease my fiance into my new hobby, and it's easier to say I need it rather then want it. If that makes any sense!? But thank you for the advice, and hopefully in the next few days I will have hit my 100 posts. Could have been there already, but I am not one to try to spam up the boards. Once again thanks