Another Newbie Seeking Help

[cubicl]

I started to dabble in the forbidden arts of overclocking 2 days ago (after being inspired by THG's ‘HowTo’ guide) and I have some questions regarding issues that the guide mentioned, but not in detail. I really hope that someone can answer them as they have been bugging me for the last 2 days.

I am running a PIII 733 on a Gigabyte board (VIA 694X AGPset I have absolutely no idea what that means). It has those very friendly blue DIP switches which I progressively increased the bus speed from 133 to 140 to 150. The machine booted up smoothly at 150MHz to give 824MHz (1MHz less but who cares). I was so happy and tried office applications and they all worked fine. But it just shut down when I started playing MOHAA. So I tuned down to 140 and everything ran smoothly. But I was not satisfied and vaguely remembered that an article mentioned that it helps by turning down the CL from 2 to 3, and I tried just that. It's working fine and I'm typing this post now after some Battle Realms.

So back to what’s bothering me. I read in the BIOS tuning guide that decreasing the CL actually lowers your performance. So my question is:
1. Am I actually getting a performance gain by running at a higher clock speed but lower CL?
2. How does CL actually affect the performance of a system?
3. Am I better off running 770MHz (140 x 5.5) at CL 2 or 825MHz at CL 3?

More doubts and questions:
1. What is the ‘safe’ operating temperature of a CPU? The Gigabyte Utility Manager that came with the MB monitors things like temperature, core voltage etc. The default setting was 92°C before a warning message pops up, so I assume that my current 31-48°C is OK.(?)
2. Which benchmark test is better and gives a more rounded performance figure? I would like to give it a shot but there are so many of them...

Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer my doubts.

 

[CMRvet]

Hi,
Remember that overclocking is different in every system, so the best you can do is to measure the performance changes in a benchmarking program such as Sisoftsandra or 3D Mark. In that way you will know which settings are the best for your particular system.

Also at <A HREF="http://www.overclockers.com" target="_new">http://www.overclockers.com</A> in CPU database you can see different overclocking outcomes and some info about how they reached that speed. That will give you an idea on how high you can go with your CPU.
Hope this helps.

 

[Lonemagi]

Well for benchmarks, you can try <A HREF="http:// www.madonion.com" target="_new">http:// www.madonion.com</A> for 3dmark2001se, or Sisoft Sandra, both are used a lot for pro benchmarking, and you can see what performance you will really get out of your system. Also make sure you have a copy of WCPUID, nifty little program that tells you bout all the speeds in your mobo and processor.

As for temps, Im not that experianced in PIII's but 98 degrees C seems a bit high, most people that I have sen try to keep under 40C. But like I said, dunno bout your CPU. Try getting Motherboard monitor, It lets you check out all the sensors on your board at once, so you can keep tabs on your temps. Plus, search these forums up and down, because the old info is still good info.



Crashing takes on a whole new meaning at 9.8 m/s

 

[Unolocogringo]

31 to 48 degrees celsius is good,very good. If you really want to test for complete stability run CPU STABILITY TEST. It tests erery part of your processor at 100% ALU, FPU ETC....

Probably next I would run 3DMARK 2001se looping for 10 times or so. This will stress all other parts of your system,Video,memory,I/O,hard drive, ETC...

Now for best overall system performance it is best to leave your memory at CAS2 and overclock as far as your memory will let you go.

Unless of course you have chesp memory and it will not run at CAS2 stabily. Sometimes it helps to raise the I/O voltage to 3.45,3.6 volts or so. I've had mine up to 3.72v with no problems.

Which ever way it turns out ,have fun trying it.

I aint signing nothing!!!

 

[cubicl]

Thanks! I'll be sure to try everything out.
THGC is one forum that's actually worth checking out, big time.

Some friends commented that overclocking was unnecessary. But a few MHz free is well, a few MHz free. After testing my system with the benchmark tools you all recommended later tonight, I'll start meddling with my GeForce2.

Thanks again for all the advice!