Safe overclock for stock phenom II x4 940

[bigbrooks10]

Hi there, i just ordered a new desktop system, my first as a matter of fact.
Its a Phenom II x4 940 BE with stock fans and cooling
Asus HD5770 1GB DDR5
4GB RAM
Asus M4N78 Professional mobo
650w PSU
x-blade case

i was just wondering what i can do safely to tweak it for optimal gaming.
i don't want to buy anything else new, i just want to do a little tweaking with what i've got.
seeing as im a novice simple terms will help lol just minor changes to the cpu maybe take it to 3.2GHZ and also a few people in forums have mentioned tweaking the video card to make it a monster or something. any ideas what i can do.
Also i dont want to do any tweaks that will reduce the life of my hardware, just safe tweaks to make them work better.
any comments welcome, thanks.

 

[JofaMang]

Well, if you are not willing to reduce the life of your hardware, then you can't OC. When you overclock, you increase heat and voltages, both of which, even in small doses, will reduce the entire lifespan of your parts.

Now, if you plan on replacing in less than say, 3 years, then mild overclocks (3.0-3.2ghz on the CPU) probably won't cause the CPU to fail before that time. BUT, this is the truth about overclocking: you cannot predict how long an overclocked part will last. Before you consider even mildly overclocking your computer, you must be ready to deal with negative consequences. if you are not willing to take any risk, don't bother overclocking.

 

[unclefester]

Big Brooks, when you get your new setup the first thing you want to do is find out what kind of temps it's running idling and under stress. If they're safe (*always stay under 62c under load) go into the BIOS and set the Vcore to a very safe 1.4v Next step is to set the Processor Multiplier to 17, this will give you @3400 MHz, a 400MHz increase. The amount of life taken from your components will never be noticed and they will be out-dated before they ever fail.

 

[hundredislandsboy]

Well, if you are not willing to reduce the life of your hardware, then you can't OC. When you overclock, you increase heat and voltages, both of which, even in small doses, will reduce the entire lifespan of your parts.

Now, if you plan on replacing in less than say, 3 years, then mild overclocks (3.0-3.2ghz on the CPU) probably won't cause the CPU to fail before that time. BUT, this is the truth about overclocking: you cannot predict how long an overclocked part will last. Before you consider even mildly overclocking your computer, you must be ready to deal with negative consequences. if you are not willing to take any risk, don't bother overclocking.

That's why you buy the retail boxed CPUs for the built-in 3 year warranty and the peace of mind that the CPu is protected, within reason, for 3 years. Unless there's obvious abuse such as burn marks, bent pins, scratched or lapped surfaces, there's no way Intel or AMD can tell you overclocked it by 200 or 600 mhz. Besides, when they're selling a Black Edition ( I have the X4 955 BE running full time @3.8 Ghz, stays cool, 1.375 vcore) they know you will pushing it to its stable limits.

You don't need to predict anything, whether it'll blow up next week or next year. Yes it's a minor inconvenience to RMA in case something goes wrong, but that's why those retail boxed CPUs are, for all intents and purposes, insured for 3 years.

 

[JofaMang]

That's why you buy the retail boxed CPUs for the built-in 3 year warranty and the peace of mind that the CPu is protected, within reason, for 3 years. Unless there's obvious abuse such as burn marks, bent pins, scratched or lapped surfaces, there's no way Intel or AMD can tell you overclocked it by 200 or 600 mhz. Besides, when they're selling a Black Edition ( I have the X4 955 BE running full time @3.8 Ghz, stays cool, 1.375 vcore) they know you will pushing it to its stable limits.

You don't need to predict anything, whether it'll blow up next week or next year. Yes it's a minor inconvenience to RMA in case something goes wrong, but that's why those retail boxed CPUs are, for all intents and purposes, insured for 3 years.

+1
I was ignoring warranties and the like, just focusing purely on the parts and the effect of overclocking. If the RMA process is something you don't mind, then he is exactly right.

 

[megamanx00]

Well, you can probably get at least up to 3.3GHz without increasing the vcore. If you have a very good sample then perhaps 3.5GHz. If you want to extend the life of your CPU and still overclock then use a vcore of 1.375 and see how far you can go on that.

 

[bigbrooks10]

ok, cheers guys.
The computer won't be here till about next week so once i get it i'll reply back and let you know how it goes.
I don't know if its a "boxed" cpu. i have bought it from computerplanet.co.uk as a custom build system so im not sure as to whether it will be under warranty??
Apparantly thought according to a review the asus 5770 valtage tweak version is under warranty overclocked or not within reason.
i'll have to take a look at the BIOS and have a look on the internet about what im doing because i've never overclocked a computer nor have i ever even owned one.
i was usually a laptop man but laptop gaming isn't very good unless you have £££££'s to spend.
cheers for all comments, much appreciated....