Stupid question #54,089,234 :)

[wannaoc]

I am very new to overclocking in fact never done it outside of coolbits. I just purchased an AMD 2800+ Barton with a Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Ultra. I have been reading this multiplier, vcor(?), and all that and even bought some books on overclocking.
My questions are"
How do I know what multiplier my mobo/AMD are at when set to the default auto.
When I change the muliplier on the mobo is there something else that MUST be changed at the same time in order to work properly or no.
Any help would be great. Thanks.

 

[MRip]

The multiplier on a 2800+ is 12.5

When you change the multiplier there is nothing that you HAVE to change. Multiplier*fsb= mhz speed of chip. If you are decreasing the speed of the chip nothing needs to change. If you are increasing the speed of the chip, you may need to increase the Vcore depending on how high you go.

However, raising the FSB of you mobo will give you better performance increases than raising the multiplier of the chip because the FSB controls how fast the mobo talks to the rest of the components in your system.

If you raise the FSB a lot you will need to lock the agp bus. This should be am option on the same bios page as the multiplier setting. Set it at 66 or 67.

 

[wannaoc]

Thanks so far, but what is a Vcore? Also when you said s"et it at 66 or 67" what do you mean? The FSB, what is it at default then?

 

[TheNamelessOne]

Vcore is the voltage going to the cpu. The default is either 1.5 or 1.6 I'm not sure about the Barton core. The 66 or 67 is the AGP bus. The default is 66 mhz but it goes up as you raise the fsb and that's not good so you need to "lock it" and make sure it stays at 66 no matter what your fsb is.
Oh and... Welcome To The Forums!

 

[mattspalace]

Since I had this board prior to the Soltek I'm currently using, I'll offer some facts and tips..

1. This board doesn't overclock well. Sorry to say that, but it's true. I found out after months of trying everything I could think of. You might have better luck, but most users of the GigaByte board are reporting the same thing.
2. The PCI and AGP clock speeds are NOT lockable. It's too bad, and I always hoped they would incorporate it into the bios..but it didn't happen.
3. These boards do seem to like higher multipliers, and since you have dipswitches for the multies right on the mobo, you can get out your manual and start tweaking those a bit. FSB is great, but there's a lot to be said about higher multipliers as well.. Since you have a Barton 2800+ with a 12.5 multi, you should be able to go right on up to 13.5 (the non-barton 2800+ multiplier) and you'll see a good performance gain there.
4. I tried and tried, and never got my FSB above 180MHz, due to the unlockable AGP and PCI settings.

If you installed Easytune, then you can open that program and you'll see a pretty wide variety of settings for your CPU, like voltage, multiplier, DIMM frequency, CPU and case temps, AGP/PCI frequency, and voltages for the AGP slot and DIMM slots. You can also overclock with easytune (not the multiplier, just FSB), but as soon as you reboot, it will go back to whatever is stored in the bios memory. So when you do start overclocking, use the bios screen to work your magic. If you don't see some specific settings your looking for in the bios, hit F1 and you'll see some additional 'expert' settings become available. Also, watch your temps as the GigaByte's seem to be about 5-8 degrees celcius lower than the actual temp.

I can't think of anything else, but if you've got more questions, post 'em and I'll give my two cents. Head over to the GigaByte mobo section and look for HOOD, he's very knowledgable about the Gigabyte's and can offer a lot of advice.

and welcome!!