AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200 (Windsor) Socket AM2 (940)

[nathan2009]

i'm new here and i'm wondering if it's possible to overclock my cpu. The core speed is 2.2GHz

My PSU is a DPS - 250AB - 22 B
Output: 250W Max
I have the option to upgrade that to an Extreme Power Plus 500W RS-500-PCAR-A3 that is in another computer which is not being used.

My intention in overclocking is to improve my performance in the games i currently play and better my chances of playing the ones i want to own. I seem to be failing alot of minimum requirements on canyourunit because of my cpu speed and sometimes graphics card depending on the game. Which brings me to another question of mine. Would it be possible to overclock my NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT PCI-E 16x?

the rest of my specs are
Memory Type: DDR2
Memory Size: 2048 MBytes PC2-5300
Channels: Dual
Memory Frequency: 200.9 MHz (CPU/11)

Windows Version: Windows Vista Ultimate Edition Service Pack 1 x64
DirectX Version : 10.0

Motherboard: Acer EM61SM/EM61PM
Chipset: NVIDIA

Bios: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
version: R01-B3
date: 02/07/2007

At the moment i don't have the funds to buy new parts so i figure if i can overclock it'll keep me satisfied till i can upgrade. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[buzznut]

Well, it may be possible for you to overclock a bit, but with that hardware you're not gonna see that much benefit. Main pb I see is the slow ram is gonna hold you back from much overclocking.

You have a locked multiplier so you'll have to OC your system bus. It may be possible to do that, but unsure by how much. I am not familiar with that motherboard, but I can't imagine it has a lot of OC options.

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to discourage you. I'm just warning you that this endeavor may not yield what you want.

Another point, you want to have at a minimum for gaming a dual core at 2.4 Ghz for newer games. However your older processor is crippled with an extremely small cache, and that won't improve with an overclock.

Likewise with the 8500GT, I would guess you may see 10-15% performance difference at best. However that is prolly where you'll see the most improvement.

Yes, I would try to overclock both the CPU and GPU. And yes, before you do you should drop the beefier PSU in. Again I am uncertain about the capabilities of that board, but for around a hundred you could get a much nicer processor and faster ram.
That is what I ultimately would recommend.

 

[nathan2009]

I very much appreciate the advice. By what you said i should probably wait till i get hired somewhere and upgrade the CPU/Ram. The 2.4ghz is exactly what i've been failing time and time again on the canyourunit test and since i won't be getting much of an improvement with the overclock it looks like it won't be worth the effort i'll be putting in to it along with the risk of causing more harm then good if something goes wrong.

 

[buzznut]

OH, i think its entirely possible to hit the 2.4 Ghz. I'm just not sure about that board and is capabilities. Such as if you'll be able to overclock that ram to the desired speed.

With a multi of 11, you'd want a reference clock of 220Mhz. I'm not sure you could hit that with that ram, or if you could change the ram divider. But I do think it may be worth the effort. As I said, I wasn't trying to discourage you, merely warning you of the challenges.

As you can tell, there is a reason why I mentioned the 2.4 Ghz mark. That's because most newer games list that as a minimum requirement. It may be possible for your system to actually play the game, but the game producers don't want people to experience a choppy game and complain about how its running.

As for any possible ramifications, overclocking is fairly safe if you keep a close eye on your temperatures. I haven't had an overclocked part fail on me yet. And its obvious that your system will need upgrading as soon as you can afford it. I would imagine your 4400+ will be gone in about 6 mos or so. As in replaced, I mean.

We're talking about a 10% system overclock which should be attainable w/o major voltage bumps. Possibly a .1V on the ram.

Anyway if it sounds like too much trouble, you can drop it and just work toward the future.
gl

 

[nathan2009]

I think i'm ganna give it a try. The only thing that worries me now is if my motherboard will fry if i install the better PSU. I'm ganna have to do research on it and hope it doesn't when i put it in.. Thanks again for the help! It looks very possible now with the added info of your second reply.

 

[nathan2009]

while looking for an extra power cable to test another 500W power supply i have i came across four corsair xms 400mhz pc-3200 ram sticks. if they are compatible with my motherboard would it be loggical to replace the ram i'm currenly using with the ram i've found.

 

[orangegator]

I have that exact cpu and motherboard in my htpc. It is possible to overclock with nvidia ntune. That's the only thing I could get to work. However, neither the cpu or motherboard are good at overclocking. The best I could get was 216 bus (2376mhz) stable. Be sure to turn off cool n quiet or else you'll get random lock ups and crashes.