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Overclocking question

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hello, ive havent really played much arma, cause of the performance of the game, however, i thought if i overclocked my system it may work a little better.

thing is, ive never overclocked before. so i need some advice if you may. ive been experimenting w/ some settings, but want some tips.

ok, first my specs:

AM2 AMD Athlon 64 3800+ (single core)

K9N SLI Platinum MoBo

2048 RAM

Nvidia 7900 GTX 512mb (93.71 driver)

system is watercooled, and i have dials on my case to speed fans up on my card and my cpu. it never gets above 25 C degrees, and thats with the fan running about 75%. so i think i have efficient cooling systems.

ok, here we go, in the nvidia control panel, under performance, manual tuning, there is a button for mobo settings, and gpu settings

under mobo settings, there is a box that says system clocks. in that box, there is a slider for reference clock(HTT). one side has 100MHz, the other side has 250MHz. when i slide that, the CPU core frequency changes from the stock 2400MHz.

my question here is, how far can i push this over, i tried all the way over till the CPU frequency was over to 3000MHz, this crashed the system as soon as i pushed the apply button, so thats too much. right now i have it to 2500MHz, but am asking here for advice so i dont risk frying my processor. there is a slider for reference clock (PCi-E) that has 100MHz on one side of the slider, and 120MHz on the other. there is an adjustable number there now that reads 2750MHz. can someone explain what this is for.

next question is about overclocking the gpu. im using the find optimal button right now. with that, that is giving me about 15 extra frames, and with this game, 15 more is a HUGE! difference. i was running at around 15 to 40. now, im getting about 30 to 70. (medium detail). anyway, i want to see if i can push it more, to enable some more eye candy with little impact on performance.

right now, i have the core bus at 687Mhz, and the Memory bus and 891Mhz. how far do you think i can push this, again, w/o frying my gpu that was oh so expensive last summer.

anyway, thanks in advance for any tips anyone can give me. i have read a little on this stuff, but i think that some advice from the everyday person will help me more.

on a side note, does anyone else think that PC games in general are becoming less and less these days. right now, there is nothing, and i mean nothing that has my intrest. not even a title on the horizon. the only game im looking forward too is Rogue Warrior. isnt that sad. anyway, if anyone would like to recommend anything to me, im all ears. i like playing war sims, and racing sims. notice the word, sim. ive played recently brothers in arms, both copies, (not a sim, but an awesome game to say the least). im playin also at the moment gtr2 (not much, tho, im lazy to drive the wheel and pedals) and slient hunter III w/ the GWX mod. never played the OFP series, and i see its up for download on the main page of the ARMA site. ive been close to downloading it, but just havent yet. anyone care to change my mind?

Factor.

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Erhm. At first may i ask why is your system watercooled if you haven't OCed it ?

And this kind of questions belong to totally different forums i think.

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Erhm. At first may i ask why is your system watercooled if you haven't OCed it ?

And this kind of questions belong to totally different forums i think.

uh, thats kind of a dumb ? isnt it. its water cooled cause i want to overclock it. icon_rolleyes.gif

plus, the guy who built it for me, did just that, put it in there for me to have the option. (free of charge might i add) ive never had a game that strained my system like this game.

ive lowered the card options down for this game for the first time since ive had this machine. i had everything on the card at the highest and thought this rig would cut through ARMA like butter, nope. i was pissed. but im trying to work around it. so thanks for your response.

and, i want to overclock it to suite ARMA, nothing else. so, if it needs to be moved, then im positive it can be. wink_o.gif

Factor

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How the hell did you manage that? The core voltage says 1.440. I thought you needed more juice for that speed. I'm running a Venice 3200+ (stock 2000) at 2400 and it fluctuates too much for my liking when trying to go over 240Mhz. crazy_o.gif

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In all honesty, this forum is not the place to ask this kind of question. Not because its not really related to Arma directly, but because I have seen a TREMENDOUS amount of bad advice given when it comes to general computing and hardware. No offense to everyone here, but the ratio of good to bad advice in this matter here is like 1 to 1 - which is really bad compared to sites dedicated to hardware and forums dedicated to hardware.

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Actually its not Arma related and seems more apropriate in the PC thread, but i agree that this forum might not be the best place to ask and learn about oc'ing smile_o.gif .

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Here is the most sensible advice I can give. If you don't want to learn how to overclock properly, the best thing you can do is look up a number of reviews (like 3) on each of your SPECIFIC hardware components that includes an overclocking segment. Try googling stuff like

AMD AM2 3800+ review overclock

They will usually have a short bit about overclocking in gerenal, and a bit about the process, and then what settings they use to get a stable clock setting. First, take the most sensible settings of the bunch from each of the three or more articles and try it out, testing the system for stability. Be advised that overclocking your video ram can end your videocard pretty fast, so proceed on that path with caution. If you are seeing video artifacts while you are overclocking your vram, reduce your vram speed immediately, then troubleshoot the problem.

Edit: I cannot be held liable for any system damage that may result from any of the advise on this thread, including my own article. I advise you to learn how to overclock properly by searching and reading up on overclocking in general. Take as long as it takes to learn it properly before trying anything.

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AMEN!

worst thing i learned (several times over) is that i feel "fully aware and understand what i am about to do, and have educated myself on the situation quite well for how long i have been researching the process specifically for my set-up"....

FIIIZAAAAAAAAAAP::puff of smoke and/or slight burning smell

dont get greedy. tiny steps. every time

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-Voltage setting in BIOS is 1.5 but the Asus Mainboard undervolt the cpu, so it's at 1.440

- My cooling is a "low cost" heatpipe from Arctic Cooling:

freezer.jpg

The fan is connected with my beQuiet 500W power supply, which has a fan control so you can't hear the heatpipe-fan.

- Temps are ~48° (I can get lower temps with higher fan speeds but I want a silent pc.)

- Motherboard is Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe

- Ram is 2x 1024MB DDR(1) Kingston PC3200 (400) CL2.5 - So you can see, it's no special overclocking ram.

MfG Lee

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hey Lee_H._Oswald

i have a 3800, how did u get to that display that shows your voltage and other info?

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Moving to O-T and merging with existing PC HW thread.

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