My computer's running too cool! (Overclocking noob wants help)
January 4, 2011 8:53 PM Subscribe
I would like some help overclocking for the first time. I just bought a new CPU cooler (specs below) and my gaming computer is running extremely cool. Unfortunately I believe my motherboard isn't great for overclocking, but I can certainly deal with it temperature-wise.
Any advice on which methods of overclocking I should use given my parts would be very helpful.
Specs:
Case - Rosewill Challenger (has 3 120mm fans)
Cooling - Corsair A70 (direct-contact heatpipes, 2 120mm fans)
MoBo - ECS IC780M-A (this is going to be the problem, but I don't plan on buying a new motherboard until I get a new processor)
CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 955BE
GPU - XFX Radeon HD 6870
RAM - 4gb DDR2
Unless someone tells me this is unsafe, I don't mind my computer getting up to ~160F (71C). It's currently idling around 87-97F (30-36C). The highest I've seen it (just installed the cooler today) was around 107F (42C) playing L4D2 completely maxed.
Specs:
Case - Rosewill Challenger (has 3 120mm fans)
Cooling - Corsair A70 (direct-contact heatpipes, 2 120mm fans)
MoBo - ECS IC780M-A (this is going to be the problem, but I don't plan on buying a new motherboard until I get a new processor)
CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 955BE
GPU - XFX Radeon HD 6870
RAM - 4gb DDR2
Unless someone tells me this is unsafe, I don't mind my computer getting up to ~160F (71C). It's currently idling around 87-97F (30-36C). The highest I've seen it (just installed the cooler today) was around 107F (42C) playing L4D2 completely maxed.
With current processors - the effort required for overclocking isn't rewarded with sufficient performance enhancements. It's fun to do, though.
This looks like a not horrible beginner's guide for your particular CPU. This article suggests that the 995 isn't a great overclocking processor.
I was going to suggest a new video card but it looks like the 6870 is pretty damned good.
I'm much more experienced in overclocking NVidia GPUs, but overclocking your (ATI) GPU might be more fruitful than overclocking your CPU.
Here's some random article about free/inexpensive benchmark programs to "test" how much your overclocking improves your computer.
What program do you use to monitor your CPU/GPU/motherboard temps? I've found realtemp to be reasonable. Keep in mind, though, that it's winter. Unless you keep your room really really warm, your high temps might shoot up a lot more in the summer unless you have climate control or really good room cooling. My i7 on full load has never broken 40'C the last couple of months; during the last summer, even with the portable air conditioner on, it never drops below 40'C even on startup.
The "upper temperature"/heat thing is... nuanced. With older processors, it was much more of a concern; these days, do you really expect to keep your current processor for 5+ years? If you overclock, you're going to be more worried about catastrophic failure rather than the fine processes on the CPU fly off the chip atom-by-atom that higher voltages can accelerate. If you decide to overclock, do it in small increments and do stress tests to ensure that the processor is stable at the higher voltages. Having high (70+ 'C) temperatures aren't necessarily "bad."
Most of the "bad" stuff from overclocking is having unstable processors and random crashes, which a cold reboot (and reducing the overclock) normally fixes. "Bad" GPU overclocks usually manifests as garbled screen or tearing/graphical-anomalies. Keep in mind that lots of GPU sellers won't honour warranties on overclocked cards.
posted by porpoise at 9:28 PM on January 4, 2011 [1 favorite]
This looks like a not horrible beginner's guide for your particular CPU. This article suggests that the 995 isn't a great overclocking processor.
I was going to suggest a new video card but it looks like the 6870 is pretty damned good.
I'm much more experienced in overclocking NVidia GPUs, but overclocking your (ATI) GPU might be more fruitful than overclocking your CPU.
Here's some random article about free/inexpensive benchmark programs to "test" how much your overclocking improves your computer.
What program do you use to monitor your CPU/GPU/motherboard temps? I've found realtemp to be reasonable. Keep in mind, though, that it's winter. Unless you keep your room really really warm, your high temps might shoot up a lot more in the summer unless you have climate control or really good room cooling. My i7 on full load has never broken 40'C the last couple of months; during the last summer, even with the portable air conditioner on, it never drops below 40'C even on startup.
The "upper temperature"/heat thing is... nuanced. With older processors, it was much more of a concern; these days, do you really expect to keep your current processor for 5+ years? If you overclock, you're going to be more worried about catastrophic failure rather than the fine processes on the CPU fly off the chip atom-by-atom that higher voltages can accelerate. If you decide to overclock, do it in small increments and do stress tests to ensure that the processor is stable at the higher voltages. Having high (70+ 'C) temperatures aren't necessarily "bad."
Most of the "bad" stuff from overclocking is having unstable processors and random crashes, which a cold reboot (and reducing the overclock) normally fixes. "Bad" GPU overclocks usually manifests as garbled screen or tearing/graphical-anomalies. Keep in mind that lots of GPU sellers won't honour warranties on overclocked cards.
posted by porpoise at 9:28 PM on January 4, 2011 [1 favorite]
I've played this game, and it almost always isn't worth it. CPU is rarely the bottleneck. And when it is, the 5 or 10% you might get out of an overclock isn't going to help much.
With more modern on-chip power and heat controls, you could run into a situation where you might get the appearance of a higher clock speed, but the chip would be bouncing off its internal limits and giving worse performance.
Even if the processor can take the higher clock speeds, can the board handle it? I'm not sure how AMD boards are set up, but Intel boards have the CPU voltage regulator near the processor and chipset. Will running with the extra power and heat ruin it? I've seen LOTS of ruined boards with clogged heatsinks.
But give it a go- it is hard to screw up if you do it right. If the computer is running stable, it is a pretty good bet you aren't ruining anything.
posted by gjc at 11:36 PM on January 4, 2011
With more modern on-chip power and heat controls, you could run into a situation where you might get the appearance of a higher clock speed, but the chip would be bouncing off its internal limits and giving worse performance.
Even if the processor can take the higher clock speeds, can the board handle it? I'm not sure how AMD boards are set up, but Intel boards have the CPU voltage regulator near the processor and chipset. Will running with the extra power and heat ruin it? I've seen LOTS of ruined boards with clogged heatsinks.
But give it a go- it is hard to screw up if you do it right. If the computer is running stable, it is a pretty good bet you aren't ruining anything.
posted by gjc at 11:36 PM on January 4, 2011
Its been a while since i OC'd my own computer so my info might be a bit out of date and I might not remember it right.
Overclocking the cpu alone is pretty much a useless endeavor, it wont give you any useful speed increase and might even give you a speed decrease if the cpu clock and ram clock goes out of sync.
You basically need to up the speed on the front side bus, the ram and the cpu while making sure they remain in sync. Some motherboards can do them separately, some can do nothing of the sort, and some can just up the speed on the FSB "lifting" the rest of the system speed.
Then you need to find some stress testing software and monitor your systems temp and stability while running all your cpu cores and your ram at max load for hours, adjusting your voltage on the three systems up if your computer is unstable and lowering your voltage/clockspeed if it runs to hot.
But the motherboard is pretty much key to overclocking your system, if you can't fiddle with the voltage and clock speed of the ram and FSB you won't get any real world speed increase.
posted by Greald at 1:14 AM on January 5, 2011
Overclocking the cpu alone is pretty much a useless endeavor, it wont give you any useful speed increase and might even give you a speed decrease if the cpu clock and ram clock goes out of sync.
You basically need to up the speed on the front side bus, the ram and the cpu while making sure they remain in sync. Some motherboards can do them separately, some can do nothing of the sort, and some can just up the speed on the FSB "lifting" the rest of the system speed.
Then you need to find some stress testing software and monitor your systems temp and stability while running all your cpu cores and your ram at max load for hours, adjusting your voltage on the three systems up if your computer is unstable and lowering your voltage/clockspeed if it runs to hot.
But the motherboard is pretty much key to overclocking your system, if you can't fiddle with the voltage and clock speed of the ram and FSB you won't get any real world speed increase.
posted by Greald at 1:14 AM on January 5, 2011
Tom's Hardware has got a lot of good information on overclocking and other hardware related issues...
posted by Glendale at 6:34 AM on January 5, 2011
posted by Glendale at 6:34 AM on January 5, 2011
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posted by N2O1138 at 8:56 PM on January 4, 2011