CPU overclocking is now a mainstream pursuit. In fact, we’d argue it’s a basic skill that any savvy PC owner should possess. It’s also essential for achieving decent bang for your buck in today’s highly fragmented PC component market. The old days of risking your system are over, thanks to chips being built with integrated safety features. Steer clear of the voltage options, and it's next to impossible to cause any real damage.
The boosts though are more than worth it. Production processes used to crank out current processors have become so advanced and refined that the different speed grades under which processors are sold have become increasingly artificial. Intel’s Core 2 chips are a great example. At standard frequencies, the Core 2 family spans a range of over 1GHz, kicking off with the 1.80GHz E4300 and topping out around 3.2GHz with the QX9970 Extreme. But when overclocked, the gap between a low-end E6300 and high-end X6800 Extreme is typically 300MHz or less.
That’s worth repeating: courtesy of overclocking, the E6300 can give you the same experience as an Extreme edition processor. Here's how to go about it.
The boosts though are more than worth it. Production processes used to crank out current processors have become so advanced and refined that the different speed grades under which processors are sold have become increasingly artificial. Intel’s Core 2 chips are a great example. At standard frequencies, the Core 2 family spans a range of over 1GHz, kicking off with the 1.80GHz E4300 and topping out around 3.2GHz with the QX9970 Extreme. But when overclocked, the gap between a low-end E6300 and high-end X6800 Extreme is typically 300MHz or less.
That’s worth repeating: courtesy of overclocking, the E6300 can give you the same experience as an Extreme edition processor. Here's how to go about it.
1. Prepare the ground
First of all, pick up a good copper CPU cooler such as the Zalman CNPS-7700CU. This modest investment will not only give you a little extra overclocking headroom, but also ensure that your system runs as cool and quiet overclocked as it did with a standard cooler at stock clock speeds. The longer component life that a good cooler contributes towards is just further gravy. In short, it will be the best £30 you have ever spent.
2. Baseline benchmarks
For the love of all things silicon, bag a set of benchmarks of your system before you begin overclocking. Firstly because it’s always nice to able to quantify the gains you have made and you need a reference point to do so. But more importantly because benchmarking is a great way of ensuring that your overclocked system is working smoothly and correctly and is delivering the right performance gains.
3. Get to know your motherboard
Before you start the overclocking process, get familiar with your motherboard. That means a good trawl through the BIoS settings to give you a solid understanding of the changes you can make. For instance, how much control does your BIoS give you over your system memory? It’s also important to know the location and function of the clear-CMoS jumper. If something does go wrong and your system fails to boot, the last thing you need is to panic and end up torching your motherboard by booting with it in the wrong place.
Before you start the overclocking process, get familiar with your motherboard. That means a good trawl through the BIoS settings to give you a solid understanding of the changes you can make. For instance, how much control does your BIoS give you over your system memory? It’s also important to know the location and function of the clear-CMoS jumper. If something does go wrong and your system fails to boot, the last thing you need is to panic and end up torching your motherboard by booting with it in the wrong place.
4. Overclock till it drops
The moment of truth has arrived. Hop into the BIoS and get tweaking. Most CPUs have locked multipliers, so it’s the bus that must be tweaked to increase the operating frequency. Make a note of the multiplier first and then begin making gradual bus frequency changes of no more than 10MHz. Don’t forget that when boosting your bus speed, there’s an equal effect on memory clockspeed. Our advice is to minimise memory problems at first and lower the frequency of your DIMMs to minimum. Once you have found the maximum clockspeed your CPU can cope with, you can then ramp up you memory speed.
5. Reboot and test
Different people prefer different methods, but we favour a three stage testing approach. As before, slowly crank up the clockspeed by 10MHz increments until your system will no longer POST. You’ll then likely have to clear the BIOS settings. Hop back into the BIOS and select settings one notch below the failure point and boot fully into Windows. If Windows fails to boot, it’s back into the BIOS and down by another notch. Back in Windows, run an intensive application like CPU Burn-in for at least 15 minutes to test for stability.
source: http://www.pcplus.co.uk/content/tutorial-overclocking-made-easy
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