How much would I be able to push an Athlon 64 with the setup I have.
My PC consists of:
Athlon 64 3200+
Thermalright SLK-948U Heatsink with a 92mm Panaflo Fan
nForce3 250 chipset
and a 512 block of PC-3200 Mushkin Special CAS 222

The only thing Im planning on doing with the ram is up the voltage.

How far do you guys think I can possibly push this? and what will be holding me back the most?

Welcome to Pimprig.
More than likely what the others will tell you is every chip is different so theres no specific answer to how far you can overclock.

Well AnZ17N, although its been a long time since i have been on the site, Devlyn81 pretty much hit the nail on the head by saying every setup is different.

Unless you can find someone with the same ram and mobo its hard to say. Personally i have never bumbed up the voltage on my ram. Ram is very very picky about what timings and voltages it likes to run at.

One thing to consider is the brand, the better the brand the more voltage the ram can take. I have Corsair and have been extremely pleased. Another thing, does the ram you have have any sort of heat sink on it. If it does then again, it will be able to take a voltage increase (remember increased voltage means increased heat).

I would recommend not messing with the voltage. I have read some bad things about people pushing the voltage to high on ram and burning it up. Ram is not as durable as your proc is.

You will get better gains out of your ram by bumping up the FSB.

And also remember any time you do any sort of oc'ing, you run the risk of it never performing at par again (if it still works).

Have fun and report back with whatever happens.

Quote: Originally Posted by jhoop2002 One thing to consider is the brand, the better the brand the more voltage the ram can take. I have Corsair and have been extremely pleased. Another thing, does the ram you have have any sort of heat sink on it. If it does then again, it will be able to take a voltage increase (remember increased voltage means increased heat). I would recommend not messing with the voltage. I have read some bad things about people pushing the voltage to high on ram and burning it up. Ram is not as durable as your proc is. You will get better gains out of your ram by bumping up the FSB. And also remember any time you do any sort of oc'ing, you run the risk of it never performing at par again (if it still works). Have fun and report back with whatever happens.

I would disagree with a few things here..But you are on the right track

Most brand name ram is rated for between 2.7 and 2.9v, and some people have been using up to 3.4v+ with the old OC'ers choice, Winbond BH-5, it loves voltage!
(Like in Mushkin PC3500 Level 2 Black that you can't buy anymore)
I am not recomending anything that radical, typically up to 2.9v is plenty for all but the most extreme overclockers, and won't cause damage on good brand name ram.
(I believe some new style ram from OCZ comes with "Overvolting" protection built in, capping it at around 2.9v BTW)

Most NForce 250 Chipset based motherboards will hit 250FSB according to Iaternomy, and some of the guys over at Extreme Systems guys have been over 300FSB.

You may need to increase the voltage and loosen the timings to achieve a high FSB with your memory.
If your ram uses the same Samsung chips that all the other CAS 2-2-2 memory that has been showing up lately (Mushkin OCZ and Corsair all have it now) it should be able to reach up to 500FSB using CAS 2.5-3-3-7 with 2.75v, if the rest of your hardware is up to it.
Here is a good article about the Samsung chips at ANANDTECH




The "Heat Spreaders" that companies use do little to help cooling, it's for looks.

If you realy want extra cooling for your ram, check out what Macci uses to cool 3.4v+

Check out CPUDatabase to see how other people have overclocked.