The ask Nil thread! Ask Away!!

[rabb1t]

So here's a question.

When overclocking - how do you know what thingies in the bios to change how to make it overclock?
How do you do a "manual overclcok"?

[Neatton]

It really depends on the bios. I am big on Asus mobo's so I will go off of that bios. If you are wanting to OC your cpu and ram then the best thing to do is start with the CPU. Relax the timings on the Ram by alot way more then you want in the end so you dont have to mess with that at the same time while playing with the CPU. When OCing the cpu you can raise the FSB by a little and see how high you can get it stable and cool enough to run all the time. You have to adjust a combonation of the FSB - Voltage - Multiplier (if not locked). Keep notes as to the highest FSB you can get and run stable at a comfortable level for you. For the ram I do the same thing. Run the CPU at its stock settings so you know it will not be interfering with the Rams OC. Then you adjust the FSB - Voltage on that till you get the timings and FSB you want. Keep notes of the different tears as far as how fast it will go at a certain voltage etc. Once you know both the CPU and the rams limits you start playing around abit. Find a good place in the middle where the rams timinig is tight enough for you but the FSB meets up with the CPU running at a good OCd rate. This is just the simple starting steps of OCing. You can find more detailed info at the forums over at www.hardocp.com thats a good site to learn I have been all over it lately. Hope that helps.

[rabb1t]

Um.... not really?
Sounds like I just tweak something up and then see if it a splodes? and when it doesn't that's a good setting?

Guess I won't worry too much for now. I've seen a ton of posts about peeps OCing their X2 3800 to 2.5 gig, making it match the speed of the FX-60. ("On air", so my being liquid I should be even more stable.)


Soooo... question 2....
Which is better, both not-overclocked and for overclocking.
A - Two 1-gig kits of 2-2-2 timed ram (probably go with OCZ)
B - One 2-gig kit of normal timed ram 3-3-3-8

[Neatton]

It is actually going to be really tough to find 2 2 2 ram for the 1 gig sticks. I looked around and the best I could do was 2 3 2 5. With that being said it really doesnt matter for this question. It is always going to be better on a mobo that does duel channel to have two matching sticks. This is going to double the bandwith that the memory uses to send information back and forth. If you have just one stick of ram chances are that is where your systems bottle neck will be. As far as the timings go the tighter they are the better however you honestly wont see a huge performance difference you can tell when you test it on the different benchmarks.


edit: and as far as OCing a CPU goes as of right now the best for that are the duel core Opteron's they are almost identicle to the X2s however they are meant for the server and so are built much better and can withstand much more OCing. I am going to only moderately OC my Opteron 175 and get it to 2.5. Most ppl run those at 2.6 or higher. This is on air so no telling what you could do on liquid.

[rabb1t]

Um... I think you misunderstood the question.

Which has better performance?

Config A
(1+2 paired, 3+4 paired)
1 - 512 meg, 2-2-2 timed
2 - 512 meg, 2-2-2 timed
3 - 512 meg, 2-2-2 timed
4 - 512 meg, 2-2-2 timed

Config A
(1+2 paired, 3+4 paired)
1 - 1-gig, 3-3-3-8 timed
2 - 1-gig, 3-3-3-8 timed
3 - empty
4 - empty

Some of us don't plan on really needing more than 2 gig on our 939 system. Thus, since 2-2-2 timed ram is an option, is it the better choice?

[Neatton]

The better performer by very small amounts would be the 4X512 rig. This however would not leave you any slots open to upgrade down the road though. I chose to go with 2X1gig so that if they do allow more threads then I can upgrade to 4 gigs and have a gig per thread. Just my choice but if your looking to eek out every bit of performance then 4X512 would be the way to go since you can get 2 2 2 timings.

[Pirotess]

I concur that the 4x512 would be the better performer. Since I measure the lifespan of my machines in months I didnt worry too much about having expandibility past 2gigs with this machine.

[rabb1t]

hehehe

I'd recommend it too. Sadly it's too late for me to go that way unless I want to take a loss on $. But yeah, I'd honestly be surprised if there were any real gaming need for more than 2 gig much before about the end of '07.

And no, you peeps who run 10 apps at once don't count in that category. That isn't a gaming need.

At this point though I've decided to not change anything till the M2 (or AM2) releases. Since I don't really have any hesitation about changing my core (since you can do that at a fairly low cost in most cases by ebaying your 'old' parts) it is worth seeing if the new socket has performance worth considering the upgrade to since I'm already looking at a new CPU at that time anyways. (Though I fear jumping right on the bleeding edge of a new socket.)

More than likely I'll just skip it though and go with X2 and then move on up to the socket beyond the M2 in '08.

[Strokke]

Originally Posted by Neatton

In any case I almost never recommend to wait for the next best thing unless you know exactly when it is coming out and that it will be worth you waiting. If you have the cash and want a new system I say go for it. Something newer is ALWAYS coming out.

While something newer will always be coming out, I would say there are usually optimal times for buying new products. We haven't really seen any innovations in computers that is instantly obsoleting older computer lately, so I would agree with everybody else in the example of the BTX. Waiting for a new computer for a technology like that is not a good choice because you may end up waiting forever . Waiting longterm is bad.

I've found that it does make sense to wait short periods of time in order to hit the market at the right time. Don't buy that $500 graphic card when the company is going to change it from a $500 card to their $400 card with their next new release. That is just common sense though combined with a little bit of research.

[Aegis]

PCI or AGP? I have no idea what's the difference, and which is better, if there is one that is.

Edit: Also, is liquid cooling worth it? I have a 2.8Ghz Pentium4 and a geforcefx6800 256mb with 2gigs of ddr ram, and my comp steams up my room, literaly. Its usually around 115-120 degrees according to the digital thermometer on the case, and I sometimes have to turn on the a/c during WINTER (I live in NY).