
03-11-01, 05:27 AM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Connecticut
Posts: 8
|
|
Well, before you start pushing your system there are a few things you should understand.
First off, system bus speeds. All late intel chips are multiplier locked so you overclock them by raising your front side bus speed which is what the cpu bases it's speed on. By raising this fsb speed you affect your pci bus, your agp bus and your memory bus. The thing to do is get a chip with a 100Mhz fsb speed because you could put it in a system designed to run at 133Mhz and the only thing that would be run out of specification would be the processor.
Right now your fsb is 140Mhz meaning your agp bus is 70Mhz...4Mhz higher than spec and your pci bus is 35Mhz...2Mhz higher than spec. Your memory is a full 7Mhz higher than spec. Now most video cards can handle up to 89Mhz agp bus speeds, but not all video cards, so that is a possible limit. Also if you have generic ram it might not handle anything higher than 133Mhz. Your pci bus is generally capable of handling anything you throw at it, but if you have a lot of pci cards one or more of them might not like the high speeds and might decide not to work.
Basically the idea with overclocking is to isolate the processor and the memory as much as possible so that they are your limiting factor. That's why it's good to get a processor with a lower fsb. I can run my 700 at 933 and with pc133 ram the only thing out of spec is the processor.
Also keep in mind that cooling is absolutely a must. If you want more out of your processor you have to cool it or otherwise you will be shortening it's lifespan. So get a good heatsink and fan (I like alpha heatsinks myself). And keep your case cool too.
Air flow through your case is a much bigger factor than you can imagine. A well organized case that allows airflow made the difference for me. Also raising the voltage on your processor can help stable things out.
As for whether or not it's worth it...well, unless you're a game addict the extra speed probably won't do you much good. But a lot of people overclock just for the sake of overclocking anyways. It's a good way to get the most from your handpicked parts and it's a fun hobby for a lot of people...
-eMpTy
|