Bottleneck and Overclocking

[Xiahoudun32]

I currently have an AMD Athlon x2 5000+ operating at 2.6ghz and was recently made aware of a bottleneck caused with use of my Nvidia GTX 260 graphics card. In another thread someone gave me the necessary settings to overclock my CPU to 3.0ghz, which they said was safe with stock cooling. My issue is, that I either cannot access my BIOS (I have tried a myriad of F# keys and CTRL + ALT combos) and what I suspect may be my BIOS (labeled "Setup" and accessed via F10) won't let me select my processor.

My other question is more along the lines of upgrading. Would I see any substantial performance boost in games by upgrading to a quad core processor of the same speed? I have been eying a AMD Phenom 9950 Agena at 2.6GHz (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103291) for some time, but have been reluctant to do so if I could overclock a little bit and get the same performance.

My PC is from HP
My motherboard is an ECS Nettle 2 with an Nvidia 6100v chipset
I am using the Phoeniz - AwardBIOS v6.00PG

 

[daft]

i don't think your mobo supports Phenom CPU's. as for the bios, because it is from HP, they may have locked the bios from being able to change cpu clock settings. all i can say is get a better athlon x2. perhaps 6000+

 

[Xiahoudun32]

So far as I have researched, the quad core processor is an AM2+ socket, which is backwards compatible with AM2 sockets

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

HP, make and model?

 

[B-Unit]

Its not a matter of socket compatibility, its a matter of BIOS compatibility, and as you own an HP, it is unlikely they have released a BIOS to support the AM2+ chips.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

OEM selling point in the way?

 

[Xiahoudun32]

My computer is an HP a6200n
I'm not sure I kn ow what you mean by "OEM selling point in the way?"

Right now the primary concern is accessing the BIOS in order to overclock, if at all possible

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

The ONLY way to oc it, is to do it thru windoze. Youll need to find a few things out about the innards, and apply them to the software, and it isnt stable and such, and thats IF the software has the correct setting for your hardware, and thats only after you enter the correct info.
Not a great choice. No bios ocing of the HPs Ive seen. I was looking more towards your model for mobo support for cpus
According to this, youre limited to 89 watt cpus
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01077676&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3548643&lang=en
That means your close to max for upgrades. If you really really want to try to oc your rig, and squeeeze maybe another 2-400 Mhz out of your cpu, try using clockgen