Am I doing these OC's properly?

[qingdom]

I replaced one box:

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Dell XPS Gen 3

Pentium 4 3.0ghz /w HT (EM-64)
Dell proprietary motherboard w/ i925 chipset
1.5gb PC4200 (2x256) + (2x512) Corsair ValueSelect
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with two boxes:

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Box 1

Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2.0g
Biostar TForce 6100 socket 754
1gb PC3200 (2x512) Corsair ValueSelect


Box 2

Sempron 64 2500+ @ 1.4g
Biostar TForce 6100 socket 754
1gb PC3200 (2x512) Corsair ValueSelect
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Here are some numbers I took down for Box 1 while experimenting:


Setting, Type/Speed, FSB, CPU voltage, Ram Voltage, Mem Frequency

1) Normal, Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2000mhz (stock), 200, 1.376v, 2.66v, 200mhz

Memory Bandwidth: 2460mb/s ; 2460mb/s
CPU Arithmetic: 8916 MIPS ; 4024 MFlops
CPU Multi: 18874 it/s ; 20198 it/s


2) (V-12 Biostar extreme setting), Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2500mhz (OC), 250, 1.744v, n/a, 166mhz

Memory Bandwidth: 2005 mb/s ; 2004 mb/s
CPU Arithmetic: 11153 MIPS ; 5036 MFlops
CPU Multi: 23553 it/s ; 25507 it/s


3) Manual, Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2697mhz (OC), 270, 1.632v, 2.7v, 152mhz

Memory Bandwidth: 1561 mb/s ; 1561 mb/s
CPU Arithmetic: 12001 MIPS ; 5482 MFlops
CPU Multi: 25479 it/s ; 27442 it/s


- (1) and (2) Setting, Type/Speed, FSB, CPU voltage, Ram Voltage, Mem Frequency were done with pick and choose options; (3) was achieved by testing Prime95 to be stable. Any FSB higher than 270 would result with errors.

- mhz, mem freq values were taken with CPU-Z

- Memory Bandwidth, CPU Arithmetic, CPU Multi(media) stats were taken with Sandra 2005.




Box 2, I only ran Prime95 to check for stability. My results are:

Setting, Type/Speed, FSB, CPU voltage, Ram Voltage, Mem Frequency

1) Normal, Sempron 64 3000+ @ 1400mhz (stock), 200, 1.376v, 2.66v, 200mhz

2) Manual, Sempron 64 3000+ @ 1989mhz (OC), 285, 1.632v, 2.7v, (???)mhz


Prime95 showed 1989mhz running stable. Any setting higher than 285fsb would result with errors.



My question:

- Am I overclocking the right way?


The Sempron OC'd 42% than its stock values.
Yet the Athlon 64 OC'd only 35% than its stock values.

The more I lower the mem frequency, I can see that my OS runs slower in terms of application load time and overall system response time, but the numbers shows that it's crunching more than the factory default (normal) numbers.


The Mem Bandwidth in Box 1 clearly shows that it's running less the more I overclock, yet the more MIPS / MFlops are being 'processed' more(?)

Am I to sacrifice response time to get more processing abilities out of the processor or am I doing something wrong?

I tried keeping the FSB to 205 ~ 215 and raising the mem freq to [233] and [250] (in effect, I believe i'm oc'ing the ram rather than cpu) but I can only get up to 1750mhz ~ 1850mhz stable.

I tried raising the voltage of both cpu (from 1.4v to 1.7v) and mem (2.66v to 2.8) which does very little to reach over 1850mhz.

The only way I could get more 'juice' from the processor was by lowering in my bios, the mem freq to 100mhz and raise the fsb. CPUID detects it greater than 100mhz though (as listed above).


Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks.

 

[acidbottle]

ok heres my 2 pennies worth cos i hate seeing threads without replies ::HINT@all::

although im relatively new to the seeded world of o/c, here follows some of my opinions and findings, which feel free to flame me for ..

for a kick off, seemed as though i couldnt o/c the cpu at all without reducing the memory frequency, since i updated the bios however, have had a little success (which im now running tests/benchmarks with).

being a fussy git, i want my 1GB 3200 DDR400 to run at 400/200 and not 166 which was the next available frequency. i did find lowering to 166 ment i could o/c far higher processor speeds. i guess its about trying to strike a balance and then applying the o/c to real world tests (games/apps/stressing).

although i have no exact figures to hand, im currently at 2.97ghz on the cpu with the ram at 400 .. prime95 is running (currently on 40 mins) and seeming stable at the moment. i also lowered the latency of ram to 2.5 and set voltage for the ram at normal (only settings on the p4vm800 mobo are fairly basic but find setting own values better than auto or default on most ocassions).

you ask if its better to have higher cpu speed than mem bandwith .. IMO i would say go for faster processor speed, certainly for gaming you'll find it a better sacrifice. like i say tho, someone else will probably disagree .. im going to stretch the DDR at 400/200 as far as poss with processor speed being upped until prime or HOTcpu says nah within minutes then will consider lowering ram speed and going for cpu speed.

hope some of that ramble helps!