Help to OC for first time (e5200)

Trial and Error

Don't increase your voltage until you get to a point where you can't increase the speed without instability. I think you might be able to get there without a voltage increase.

Look up a guide to overclocking intel online or head on over to our overclocking forum and see if anyone has experience specific to your CPU and ask their settings. Remember also that each e5200 will overclock a bit differently.

Its a stock cooler. Just saying.

Then you might want to just keep the voltage at stock and see how far you can push it.

I overclocked it to 3ghz at first. but i would get stuck at the windows loading window. so then i got it to 2.87 and its just fine. low of 38 degrees and when gaming hits to max of 60. are those okay temperatures?

Yeah. But you might want to run a stability testing program too. I use prime95. Run for 6 hours considered stable no errors. Others include OCCT and intel burn-in. It will also show your highest temperature.

What are your ambient temperatures where you are?

Ambient means like doing nothing right? Well its 38 degrees if i dont do anyting. And max was 56 when i played gta 4

That doesn't sound bad at all. Prime95 is still more CPU intensive than GTA4 lol. I still can't see it getting much hotter. My friend has a similar processor. The E6300 I think? Not sure but his load idle temperatures were about the same.

I will get a aftermarket cooler later and buy a 5770 too. Then i will oc the e5200 to about 3.2 or so.
Hey i wll obv have to increase the voltages. Like is it dangerous or like what is it like. Im noob at OC

Well increasing voltage will create more heat so you will need that after market cooler when you start increasing it. The max voltage Intel says for that CPU is 1.3625 so I wouldn't recommend going much higher than that. You can go a little bit over say 1.38 but I wouldnt suggest going much higher then that. Now when you do start increasing voltage and your temps start rising I would keep it under 68C at full load as long as you keep the temps down you won't damage the CPU but like I said don't go over 1.38 and IMO I would stay with in Intel's spec which is max 1.3625.

thanks man