Will my PC Run this? What CPU/GPU to get? What settings? System Specifications.

[NeMeSiS 11]

So i just need to adjust a setting under CPU ratio?

Just press everything, the options will become clear to you when you see them. (Or just read the stuff on the right hand side, there is some info about every option)

Also, have the manual of your motherboard around in case you fuck up and need to do a CMOS restore. (Very rare these days, though possible)

[sgt gul 0]

i know nemesis, but the thing is i need to change one option according to leon and domokun. But i am not sure what option it really is. I did disable cool n quite.

[NeMeSiS 11]

I already said thats the 'CPU Ratio' option, but i usually mess with the FSB instead.

[sgt gul 0]

you have experience :) i dont dare wander unknown territory.

[pendragonuk 0]

Most CPU's are multiplyer locked unless it's an AMD black. The only way to overclock is to increase the fsb. Frequency wont kill your CPU volts will. So you can't hurt it by running to fast it just wont boot or it will behave strangly if it's too stressed. Heat can kill it too but it will have to get silly hot for that to be an issue. (clarification a CPU running hot enough to cause damage wont POST so that's why I say heat isn't a killer, it is but it's not going to happen unless your running without a heatsink!) Volts kill CPU's! every CPU has a maximum voltage, find out what your is and DON'T go over it!

Don't forget that when you overclock by fsb you are also overlocking the RAM and maybe your PCIe slots too (depending on mobo).

To really find out how fast the CPU will go drop the RAM speed so you know it's the CPU that is causing the limit.

This can take days to do properly!

Increase the fsb until the computer will not POST> Increase the Voltage until it dose. Then increase the fsb till it wont post and again increase the voltage till it dose. you get the pattern. don't forget don't go over the max Voltage for your CPU!!!!

Once you have found the max fsb your CPU can take within the voltage limits. tack it back down and do the same for your RAM. Don't forget over voltage will kill your RAM too!!!

Set them up at the max and see if Windows will boot. I may not and you will have to adjust it down a bit. Now you have windows running you can start stress testing. Prime95 is very good at that. If it's unstable again you will have to lower the settings. What you are looking for is the highest settings that you computer will run at rock solid stable. As you are running a stock cooler you are going to run into a thermal indused stability issue long before you find the limit of the CPU

I run my CPU at a 25% overclock and it's is rock solid stable but then my heat sink is the size of a baby's head!

[Leon86 13]

But he has an amd black edition, so why go the way of blck overclocking?

[pendragonuk 0]

OK then the easiest is to just bump the multiplier, the mobo should have come with software to do this on the fly. If not have a looking the bios, find the line about multiplier and where it says AUTO type over what you want...

[sgt gul 0]

wait wait, you guys are going to fast. heres 2 more screens of bios,:

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s147/mukremin/bios3.jpg

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s147/mukremin/bios2.jpg

i dont see a multiplier.

[Leon86 13]

on the first pic I see a whole list. They even have an "x" behind them indicating they multiply

If you scroll down you can probably find the default 16 as wel.

Edited July 8, 2011 by Leon86

[NeMeSiS 11]

wait wait, you guys are going to fast. heres 2 more screens of bios,:

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s147/mukremin/bios3.jpg

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s147/mukremin/bios2.jpg

i dont see a multiplier.

Those are the multipliers. Like i said before

FSB × multiplier = Frequency

So in your case 200 × 5 = 1000MHz, or 1GHz

200× 10 = 2000

Etc.

[pendragonuk 0]

First one, CPU ratio that is the multipler

real simple maths, the fsb x the ratio = GHz

If you increase one or the other there will be a jump in the final speed of the CPU. FSB can be set in smaller increments the multiplier is like a sledge hammer.

You are currently running at 3200MHz right?

That is 200 x 16 = 3200

So if you try running at 17 and see how she goes. then 17.5 and so on, much over that and you will need to play with the voltage and that's when things get warm! She should go higher but your cooler is poor. I think an ultimate stable clock should be around 3700MHz I have seen that reported on the net.

My Hex core is also 3200MHz by default but runs way faster. I can get her to POST at 4300MHz, Windows will boot at 4200MHz She is a bit too warm for 24/7 use at 4100MHz so I'm happy with 4000MHz. It's a physiological thing 4GHz

[sgt gul 0]

Ah oke, now i understand. I will try is at soon as possible, i will go max for 17,5 now. Maybe ill go higher when i receive my new cooler.

first finish the Blood on the Sand campaign :D

In that campaign i get 30to 70 fps.

Its not that my current machine is bad, but a notch or two would not hurt.

---------- Post added at 04:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:59 PM ----------

oke i did it, the idle heat was at 38C, now it has risen to 39C. It now shows 3.4ghz.

I am starting OCCT with 30 minutes and large data.

Pray for it to work, i will be happy if i can reach 3.6ghz

[NeMeSiS 11]

[/color]oke i did it, the idle heat was at 38C, now it has risen to 39C. It now shows 3.4ghz.

I am starting OCCT with 30 minutes and large data.

Pray for it to work, i will be happy if i can reach 3.6ghz

It will. Like i said, your BIOS already has some predefined OC profiles which you can select. Since 955's are so well overclockable, they added a profile which makes your 955 run at 965 speeds, and another profile which will make it run at 3.6GHz.

Ofcourse you cant be 100% sure and its all at your own risk, but yeah, it will work.

[sgt gul 0]

Well the test goes well, its now on 100% load and heat is at 50C. But the test has -+23minutes to go. I hope i can get it to 3.6ghz without having to mess with the voltages.

[Leon86 13]

Once you reach a setting you're comfortable with dont forget to do a "real" stresstest, say 4 to 8 hours. If you use occt put the max allowed temp (in options/config whatever) on 66 degrees or something, if it reaches that the stresstest will self-terminate.

[sgt gul 0]

Oke the test is done, no errors. Max temp hit was as far as i can see 53C. I will go one step more, 1.8 so that makes it to 3.6Ghz right? When this fails, can i still go back to 3.4ghz?

and if it goes wel to 3.6ghz, shall i do another test with 30 minutes ?

---------- Post added at 04:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:46 PM ----------

oke i overclocked to 3.6ghz. I also did the 30 minute high test, CPU heat went up to max 55C this time. So overclocking from 3.4 to 3.6 gave another 2-3C upwards. But in all, system runs fine. I am going to launch the game, will it increase my performance? i mean from 3.2 to 3.6ghz?

---------- Post added at 05:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:53 PM ----------

Oke i did benchmark 1 for ARMAII, i used to get 31fps average, now i have 41. And benchmark OA, i had around 34fps, and now 47 average. So there is a boost of 10Fps thanks to the overclocking. But i must say that the heat went up, before overclocking i used to have max50C heat. Now it reaches 55C, is that dangerous? I will be getting the new cooler the 16th of July, will be safe to play ArmaII OA until then?

Edited July 8, 2011 by Sgt Gul

[Leon86 13]

Those are impressive gains, far larger than I expected.

55 is pretty cool imo. anything under 60 is perfectly safe for a phenom II

I'm running a Q6600 and It gets over 70 degrees with the hot weather we've been having lately. In fact my idle temp is 50 :) Mainly because I've configured speedfan to run the fans really slowly as long as temps stay under 55. My pc is pretty much inaudible when idle.

If it goes up to 70 speedfan goes into red alert and all fans go to 100%, I have 2 120mm 1900 rpm scythe fans in my system so that's quite a bit of noise, cools it quite nicely though :)

I can easily miss this pc as I have another one and a laptop, if this is your only pc I'd stay under 60 degrees and under 1.4V, that's a very conservative overclock and will probably not noticably degrade the lifetime of your cpu, that is all your other parts will probably have failed before the cpu does.

[sgt gul 0]

Yeah thanks! Ive been playing now for a while, and it stays under 55C. Even with this weather, i dont think i need to overclock it more then i have now. I am happy with this setup, i even put details on high now. I could try benchmark 2 also, see what that shows. And my standard cooler seem to work oke, when i got the new one maybe it will drop to 45C? who know.

But i am sure your system can play almost maxed out, if your computer lives and nothing happens. Then my system is safe :D

[Leon86 13]

Nah, a Q6600 is pretty old, a phenom II is slightly faster clock/clock and you have a higher clockspeed. Everything runs fine on appropriate settings, you can get something twice as fast now (also have to overclock, but possible) but that doesn't give you twice the game. Just not worth it yet as a new system will cost about 1000 euro's and my current rig cost me about 550,-

[sgt gul 0]

You are right, its not the right time. My original system costed 600euros, i bought it from Mycom.nl

Of course now i have upgraded the videocard and the CPU. I will wait and see what happens if i play armaIII, then i will buy a whole new system.

I am really happy you guys helped me out with everything here, settings, overclocking, advice on what to buy etc. You guys made my day, i couldnt even play ArmaII on low. Now i can play on medium/high.

[bestrangerdx 10]

how about these specs will they run arma2 on highest?

AMD Athlon II 250 3.0GHz Processor

4GB 1333Mhz DDR3 RAM

1TB (1000GB) Hard drive

High performance Motherboard

DVD RW

Stylish, Black Mars Gaming case

ATI Radeon HD5450 1GB Graphics Card

WIFI PCI Card

[froggyluv 2130]

how about these specs will they run arma2 on highest?

AMD Athlon II 250 3.0GHz Processor

4GB 1333Mhz DDR3 RAM

1TB (1000GB) Hard drive

High performance Motherboard

DVD RW

Stylish, Black Mars Gaming case

ATI Radeon HD5450 1GB Graphics Card

WIFI PCI Card

Highest? Sorry, no. Both CPU and video card are underpowered for that feat.

[pendragonuk 0]

You are right, its not the right time. My original system costed 600euros, i bought it from Mycom.nl

Of course now i have upgraded the videocard and the CPU. I will wait and see what happens if i play armaIII, then i will buy a whole new system.

I am really happy you guys helped me out with everything here, settings, overclocking, advice on what to buy etc. You guys made my day, i couldnt even play ArmaII on low. Now i can play on medium/high.

I'm glad it worked out for you :bounce3:

Have you chosen a heatsink? if your undecided get the Noctua D14! I know I keep on about it but damn it's a good cooler. Just so long as your case is big enough! My AMD runs at 40 C running ArmA at 4GHz Voltage at 1.45V with that cooler. I'm just doing desktop stuff right now, the ambient temp in the room is 24.8C and the cores are at 27C that is a delta of only <3C!!!

---------- Post added at 10:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:38 PM ----------

how about these specs will they run arma2 on highest?

AMD Athlon II 250 3.0GHz Processor

4GB 1333Mhz DDR3 RAM

1TB (1000GB) Hard drive

High performance Motherboard

DVD RW

Stylish, Black Mars Gaming case

ATI Radeon HD5450 1GB Graphics Card

WIFI PCI Card

Mate look at my sig for my system spec... I don't run this game on the highest setting!

[sgt gul 0]

PendragonUK, ive allready ordered one. Its not a super one, but will get me through, even the standard one i use now seems to be good. Max heat is 55C

Of course my pc is in the second floor, not so much airflow. If i place it downstairs it will get cooler.

[Nicholas 5]

I have similar settings as you Pendragon. It's actually hard to run this game on "Very High" smoothly. I don't think anyone can really with current hardware. People still can't run Operation Flashpoint (From 2001) on the highest settings.

My Settings

Edited July 8, 2011 by Nicholas