Front Side Bus Overclocking

[zach101]

Hi, thanks for reading.

I have some questions about front side bus overclocking.
My motherboard is an ASUS P5AD2-E Premium
Here is a link to the ASUS page on it:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5AD2E_Premium/#specifications
and on the page it says the - FSB tuning from 100MHz up to 400MHz at 1MHz increment
What does this mean? What does 1MHz increment mean? How many megahertz can I overclock it to? Is it 400x4 = 1600 megahertz?
Is it possible to overclock FSB without overclocking the cpu?
My cpu is 3.4 gigahertz and when I overclock my FSB from 800 megahertz to 1066, my cpu goes to 3733 megehertz.
If I try to overclock my FSB to 1600, my cpu would be 5600 megahertz because it has x14 multiplier
I don't want to ruin my M/B

 

[nna2]

if you don't want to overclock your cpu then lower the cpu multiplier, but what exactly are you trying to achieve?

 

[zach101]

if you don't want to overclock your cpu then lower the cpu multiplier, but what exactly are you trying to achieve?

I am trying to raise my fsb without overclocking my cpu so high but I guess its not possible since this cpu has a min multiplier of x14

 

[larkspur]

Hi Zach - You probably can't change the multiplier unless your CPU is an Intel Extreme Edition. The multiplier on that generation's non-EE chips is locked so you're likely stuck overclocking with the FSB.

FSB overclocking isn't that difficult. When you raise the FSB, the memory bus also increases. As I recall (and this is from experience with socket-478 Pentium 4 chips) it is best to keep a 1:1 ratio between FSB and DRAM (memory) frequency. So when you run your FSB at 800mhz, your RAM should be running at 800mhz too. If you increase the FSB to 1066 then your ram should be running at 1066mhz too. If you have DDR2-800 ram, then your ram will be overclocked to 1066 when you set the FSB to 1066 (and might be unstable as a result).

Overclocking creates more heat. So as you raise the FSB, you need to monitor that heat (you are using an aftermarket heatsink and not the stock Intel heatsink right???) while testing your system for stability. I use Prime95 and Intel Burn Test to test for stability while watching my temperatures with CoreTemp and HWMonitor. Anyway, try to see where you can get without getting too hot or messing with the CPU's vcore (CPU voltage). Also decide whether the overclock is making enough performance difference to justify it. There are guides out there that can help illustrate what you need to know. Google some guides for OCing your chip. If you have more questions let us know.

 

[zach101]

Hi Zach - You probably can't change the multiplier unless your CPU is an Intel Extreme Edition. The multiplier on that generation's non-EE chips is locked so you're likely stuck overclocking with the FSB.

FSB overclocking isn't that difficult. When you raise the FSB, the memory bus also increases. As I recall (and this is from experience with socket-478 Pentium 4 chips) it is best to keep a 1:1 ratio between FSB and DRAM (memory) frequency. So when you run your FSB at 800mhz, your RAM should be running at 800mhz too. If you increase the FSB to 1066 then your ram should be running at 1066mhz too. If you have DDR2-800 ram, then your ram will be overclocked to 1066 when you set the FSB to 1066 (and might be unstable as a result).

Overclocking creates more heat. So as you raise the FSB, you need to monitor that heat (you are using an aftermarket heatsink and not the stock Intel heatsink right???) while testing your system for stability. I use Prime95 and Intel Burn Test to test for stability while watching my temperatures with CoreTemp and HWMonitor. Anyway, try to see where you can get without getting too hot or messing with the CPU's vcore (CPU voltage). Also decide whether the overclock is making enough performance difference to justify it. There are guides out there that can help illustrate what you need to know. Google some guides for OCing your chip. If you have more questions let us know.

I was able to change my cpu multiplier to its minimum from x17 to x14 because my m/b supports unlocking.
My DRAM and FSB speed ratios are 1:1
I currently overclocked my cpu to 3.733 megahertz by setting the cpu frequency to 266.5 in the bios.
266.5x4=1066 mhz fsb
266.5x2=533 mhz dram
266.5x14=3733 mhz cpu
but my question was whether I could get my fsb higher without making my cpu higher because
I dont think I my cpu needs to be so fast and I think it just causes a bottleneck when it processes
long streams of data because its 3.5x faster than my fsb. So the data from the processor is done 3.5 times sooner than
it takes more data to get to it from the ram through the fsb?
This cpu came 3.4 gigahertz stock...
Should I get a new slower cpu to overclock?