Overclocking AMD Phenom II X4 945

[Markfinn]

I'm running a pc I built this summer with a Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H motherboard, an AMD Phenom II X4 945 processor, 12Gb Corsair XM3 DDR3 memory, and an Diamond HD Radeon 5870 1Gb Graphics card. Do you have any advice if I decide to overclock my CPU? (Specific programs, speeds, or coolers required or needed)

 

[Wolygon]

Read a decent guide.

Thats pretty much it, a good guide will tell you everything you need to know.

Though here is a bit of a run down:

-With the stock cooler your OC will be heavily limited from your temps.
-Your OC can be limited if running 1333MHz RAM.
-You should always monitor temps.
-You should always stress test the CPU, this means loading it up to 100% for a while to check for instability. Make your you monitor your temps while you do this an don't let them get past around 65/70. A good program is Prime95
-To check temps there is HWMonitor and Realtemp
-Use CPU-Z to monitor your system (clock speed, RAM speed, etc)

Hope that helps.

 

[buzznut]

Here's a primer:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-overclock-athlon,2161.html

I found it helpful, especially for Reference clock overclocking.

 

[Markfinn]

Thanks guys, cant wait to try it, im gonna wait till i get a better cpu cooler and ill try it!

 

[Markfinn]

Best answer selected by Markfinn.