I'm about to undertake my first real overclock experiance and i wanted to know some things. Before joining this forum i had actually never heard of people overclocking ram, just the CPU, so with my WC loop about to be installed i needed to know some things

, i'm running a Gigabyte k8ns PRO mobo with Nforce 3 chipset, and i have a single kingston 512mb pc3200 ram and a amd Athalon 64 2800+ (I'm shooting for around the 3700+ performance which i should be able to get to hopefully with wc on a side note anyone know what speed i'd need to hit i'm at 1.8ghz now i was thinking 2.4ghz would be my target speed to achieve that speed of a 3700+ or maybe higher if my wc loop performes better)

but i am somewhat confused by the terms for OC memory such as timings (I understand the lower the # the better) but what does the statement 1t timings mean how far can i push my kingston ram? Also will my ram be in danger of overheating? Also how do i adjust the memory timings/speeds?

in BIOS i see no way to adjust the timings/speeds i can adjust the FSB (200mhz right now) i have taken a A+ tech course in highschool but they never covered anything like adjusting clock speeds. I do have gigabytes Easy tune 4 and 5 on my computer (5 i belive is still in beta and 4 came with the board) in that setup its a desktop app that has full control over clock voltage and everything else but if i were to change settings with that program does it require me to save/restart to take effect? however i didn't see anything related to memory timings.

sorry for the hassle but i am intrested in pushing my lil rig to the limits.

Try pressing Ctrl+F1 in your BIOS, it unlocks some hidden features on my Gigabyte board. Update to the latest BIOS for your board too.

You should be able to set your RAM control to Manual in your BIOS allowing you to adjust timings and such. 1T and 2T refers to the operation of the RAM per clock cycle. 1T gives the RAM requests and intructions on every clock cycle, where as 2T does the same but every other cycle, so obviously 1T is better.

Your RAM shouldn't overheat, I doubt you'll able to push it far, but there lies the beauty of RAM dividers, allowing you to run your RAM at a slower speed than the FSB.

You shouldn't need to touch your RAM timings until the tweaking stage after your happy with a decent OC.

Also, you'll need to lower your LDT multiplier to 4x or 3x, don't worry it won't affect performance. Once yuo start pushing into the upper limits of your CPU, you may need to give the LDT and North bridge a small voltage increase, and id recommend upping the voltage going to the CPU in increments of .25 until shes stable.

Don't forgot to check your temps in the BIOS regularly, maybe set an alarm if the core goes over a certain temp (I have mine at 50).

EDIT - You could consider using paragraphs in your next post too, I bet some users took one look at your post and left instantly witout even reading the first sentence

what exactly do you mean by LDT multiplier? hmm also i went back through and reorganized my first post.

Quote: Originally Posted by disturbed_pyro I'm shooting for around the 3700+ performance which i should be able to get to hopefully with wc on a side note anyone know what speed i'd need to hit i'm at 1.8ghz now i was thinking 2.4ghz would be my target speed to achieve that speed of a 3700+ or maybe higher if my wc loop performes better

Cache size has something to do with the speed ratings as well. If you could hit 2.4GHz, you'd technically be at the same speed as a 4000+ (or an FX-53). But with the bigger cache on those, I wouldn't expect identical performance (though yours'd still be a screamer!).

Here are the speeds for some of the 90nm socket 939 Venice and San Diego cores:

Model	Speed	L2 Cache

3200+	2.0GHz	512KB

3500+	2.2GHz	512KB

3700+	2.2GHz	1MB

3800+	2.4GHz	512KB

4000+	2.4GHz	1MB

EDIT: I'm no expert, but as I understand it, the HyperTransport (HTT) speed is determined by multiplying the FSB times the LDT multiplier. Get the HTT speed too high and things get unstable. So you lower the LDT to keep the HTT roughly the same while raising the FSB.

A Must-Read: AMD 64 Performance OC Guide

I used this guide to start me on overclocking - i'm an intel guy at the moment, but it had hypertransport stuff and a few extra pointers for noobs like me

sorry my cpu is a socket 754 not the 939 sorry i should have clarified, but i will be running a WC loop with two 80mm rads a DD5 pump and 1/2" lines with a swiftech APOGEE block. The CPU will be the only thing cooled as i cant afford the GPU block quite yet. ( the system will pump from pump->rad1->CPU->rad2->(GPU block later)->res->pump)

I did the ctrl+f1 trick in BIOS and got the advanced setup options also i used @bios and updated my bios to the most current (took about 5 mins and it did it right from the desktop gotta love gigabyte) However i am somewhat confused by some of the things i am seeing. I did after updating find a new feature in BIOS memory dividers (previously not there)

I did read the AMD 64 OC guide several times but its the memory OC thats confusing me also has ANYONE used easy tune 4 or 5 to overclock a system before? It seemed like a good way to OC but i'm still thinking that BIOS OC would be better? The only thing ET doesn't allow access to is memory timings it seems.

Also how do i calculate my LTD/HTT speeds what are the determinants for them.

Anyways i really appriciate all your help so far,
Pyro

Quote: Originally Posted by disturbed_pyro sorry my cpu is a socket 754 not the 939 sorry i should have clarified, but i will be running a WC loop with two 80mm rads a DD5 pump and 1/2" lines with a swiftech APOGEE block. The CPU will be the only thing cooled as i cant afford the GPU block quite yet. ( the system will pump from pump->rad1->CPU->rad2->(GPU block later)->res->pump) I did the ctrl+f1 trick in BIOS and got the advanced setup options also i used @bios and updated my bios to the most current (took about 5 mins and it did it right from the desktop gotta love gigabyte) However i am somewhat confused by some of the things i am seeing. I did after updating find a new feature in BIOS memory dividers (previously not there) I did read the AMD 64 OC guide several times but its the memory OC thats confusing me also has ANYONE used easy tune 4 or 5 to overclock a system before? It seemed like a good way to OC but i'm still thinking that BIOS OC would be better? The only thing ET doesn't allow access to is memory timings it seems. Also how do i calculate my LTD/HTT speeds what are the determinants for them. Anyways i really appriciate all your help so far, Pyro

Easytune5 is easy, but not as good as BIOS overclocking - as it relys on operating OVER windows.
Gigabyte boards are reasonably idiot proof too - they have that SOS (system overclock saver) that restarts with default settings when you push too far.

As for the RAM timings - do you really want to play with them just yet? sounds like you should do a bit more ocing and google based research first and get some more understanding before fudging the ram settings - Just a gentle suggestion though

heh i understand that but after looking into it i'd prefere to mess as little with my RAM as possible and still keep top notch performance. Here is my ? my memory speed is calculated by the max mem speed + FSB(in bios my max mem speed is 200 and my fsb is 200) or is it 2xFSB since its DDR(stock)? I want to basicly OC my CPU more than anything ATM and keep my PC3200 running close to the 400mhz it runs at now.

i was just thinking that if i started to OC very much that would alter my memory timings which are right now 2-3-3-8 according to my BIOS, it has an [AUTO] function for memory timings which i would assume will automaticly adjust the memory timings to a stable setting.

When you OC your FSB, currently at 200Mhz, that affects the speed of the memory, which is also running at 200Mhz (DDR 400Mhz).

By using a memory divider, you can set your RAM to run at slower speeds. For example, set your RAM to run at 333Mhz DDR without adjusting the FSB. Bump up the FSB a bit and you will see your RAM gets closer to its stock 400Mhz DDR, whilst the CPU is running faster than stock.

All you're doing is lowering the speed of the RAM, so when you raise your FSB, the CPU runs faster than stock, but the increase brings the RAM up to around stock speeds.

I hope that makes sense, im tired and need to get some sleep. Good luck by the way. Oh, and that AUTO setting for RAM in the BIOS just sets everything to what the module specifies in its SPD (its on-board chart of timings/settings), so yeah it'll be stable.

My Geil DDR400 comes stock at 2.5-3-3-6 but will happily run at 2-3-3-5 even overclocked.

yeah i got playin around with my bios today and it will read out speeds before makin changes so its easy to check everything, however there is no CPU multiplier to increase just decrease so thats good i think i've got the basics to OC down i'ms tarting to understand the guide much better also how far could i potentially OC my Kingston ram before instability?

Quote: Originally Posted by disturbed_pyro how far could i potentially OC my Kingston ram before instability?

That's where it gets iffy - there's no way to know really - it's all dependent on the cooling you have, the stability of voltage input, the amount of power you are running through it, what you had for lunch and which way the wind's blowing

The only way you'll know is to just inch it all up until it gets unstable (you should DL a program like Sisoft Sandra lite and run the CPU burn in after each adjustment to ensure stability - it's time consuming, but will ensure that you minimise risk of crashes when you're right in the middle of something) once you reach the point of instability, back it off a bit and do some fine tweaking - then you should be right

Here is a ? how do i determine Instability? what kind of artifacts or errors am i going to be seeing? things such as "error refrenced to memory at BLANK" with memory OC i know CPU overclock could produce freezes programs randoming shutting down and all sorts of goodies.

Overclocking your FSB (which actually supposed to be called the HTT), automatically overclocks the RAM as well. If you set it to, say, 210, your RAM will run at DDR420. A RAM divider just takes the HTT frequency and runs a ratio on it. DDR333 runs at a 5:6 ratio, DDR266 runs 2:3, and DDR200 runs 1:2. So, if you take your HTT to 250, for instance, and use a 5:6 divider, your RAM will be at approx. 208Mhz.

In Athlon 64's, the LDT is determined by running a multiplier of the HTT frequency. On Socket 754 systems, the default multiplier is 4. The easiest way to keep things stable is to keep the resulting frequency below 800Mhz (200x4 by default). You can lower this multiplier to 3x, and you won't see ANY difference in performance, while gaining some stability at the same time.

i was planning on setting that down to roughly a 2-3x multiplier (LDT) and according to my FSB i can alter my memory speed pretty fine tuned my mobo starts at a 2/2 ratio and drops about 1/3 or a point in increments. i found my CPU multiplier is locked at 9x but i can drop it as low as 6x.

I really appriciate your guys help.

i think i am now confident in understanding to OC my CPU to its full potential however i have been reading around and several sites have said that 2T timings are preferrable to 1T timings with DDR memory? i was just wondering what you the experts would suggest, i know hte OC guide says 1T but also he said he had to drop to 2T timings for stability.