GA-EP43-DS3L w/ E5200 3.5 OC

[jmatyas]

Hey, its been awhile since I've overclocked anything, last ones were a Duron and a T-bird. I'm getting a Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L with an Intel E5200 and Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. I'm building this as a value/gaming PC with my old Foxconn 8800GTS. I would like to overclock it to about 3.5Ghz if stable. Does anybody have any suggestions on the best way to get there and if it will be stable??

Any advice would be great

PS I'm using G.Skill 2x1GB DDR2 PC6400

Thanks

 

[blashyrkh]

I have same board with same CPU but with a 4870 and 2 gb of supertalent. I have to tell you that once it's OCed (otherwise it bottlenecks the gpu big time), this configuration kicks ass. You can OC to 3ghz at about 1,35 and for 3,6Ghz you have to go to 1,4V (depending on chip, maybe 1,45). But If you really wanna kick ass, pump up to 1,505 and hit 4Ghz. It's possible, I've seen it. I must tell you though, this cpu doesn't like the 12,5x multi. OC the fsb as high as you can (it goes up to 1600mhz) and keep the memory at 800mhz and the cpu at 10-11x multi. Good luck!!
(Just to get the idea, at stock I get 8200 3dmark06, at 3.0Ghz I get 12k marks, and at 3,6Ghz about 16k marks)

 

[jmatyas]

So this is kinda wierd to me, I was looking at CoreTemp with my E5200 and for the frequency field it switches back and forth from 2500.14MHz (200.01 x 12.5) to 1200.07MHz (200.01 x 6.0).

The Core temps read:

#0 37C
#1 16C (?)

Is that normal?

 

[Shadow703793]

So this is kinda wierd to me, I was looking at CoreTemp with my E5200 and for the frequency field it switches back and forth from 2500.14MHz (200.01 x 12.5) to 1200.07MHz (200.01 x 6.0).

Yes it is normal. It's called SpeedStep. You can disable this via the BIOS. Not sure about temps though, 16C looks kind of low/unreal.

 

[MaDMagik]

3.5? This little chip will get there without even breakin a sweat Although I dont think you should take any vcore value as a starting point, just work your way up by small steps and you will see if any instability occurs, if so - than increase vcore and try again. Mine @ 3500mhz 280x12.5 was perfectly(prime) stable using only 1.26v, so i dont think you should start with something like 1.35. But 3600mhz seems to be some kind of a boundary for mine, as it requires 1.38v to be stable in prime, looks like a big vcore increase required for a reasonably small speed increase. But this CPU still amazes me, as i can run anything else like 3dmark06 COD4 or crysis, with cpu clocked even at 3937mhz 315x12.5 at 1.41v. Unfortunately i cant prime test it just yet as im using stock cooler and at this speed in prime it reaches over 80 C I would disable c1e/speedstep initially for when you look for most stable settings, once you found them u can switch it back on