Processor speed locked?

[Guest]

I currently have an HP desktop. I would like to upgrade the motherboard and case. This is the new motherboard that I want to buy. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131646
I want to know if I will be able to overclock my current processor or if HP locks the speed on the processor.
Here are my specs:
750w Corsair Power Supply

XFX Radeon HD 6870

AMD Phenom II 910 X4 2.6GHz

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus

ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO motherboard

If I am able to overclock the CPU, what would be the max speed I would get?

 

[CDdude55]

I currently have an HP desktop. I would like to upgrade the motherboard and case. This is the new motherboard that I want to buy. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131646
I want to know if I will be able to overclock my current processor or if HP locks the speed on the processor.
Here are my specs:
750w Corsair Power Supply

XFX Radeon HD 6870

AMD Phenom II 910 X4 2.6GHz

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus

ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO motherboard

If I am able to overclock the CPU, what would be the max speed I would get?

I've used that motherboard with a 1055T and i kept it at 3.6GHz (i never ''maxed'' the chip out though), it's a pretty good board, but nothing amazing of course i think you should be able to get that chip up to a good speed without issue on the board.

I'm not sure if HP or any other OEM company lock down the CPU speed, i don't see how they could do that either, i mean they could do it with the motherboards they provide but the CPU provided with it isn't tapered with as far as i know.

 

[inzone]

The only way a cpu can be locked is by the manufacturer and not by the oem , they can do other things that are allowed by the different manufacturers but locking a cpu requires going into the actual die of the chip and AMD/Intel are not going to let that happen. The only thing you have to worry about is if HP was able to order special cpu's from AMD that had special settings and a locked multiplier. I know that the oem's are able to order other components like motherboards , hdd's , video cards and ram because they can order massive amounts and the manufacturers will then make those items because of the large amounts involved.

 

[inzone]

As far as how far you can overclock depends on you and your ability , everybody has different components and abilities so it will depend on what you do to overclock. Not everybody uses the same settings.

 

[halogamer214]

Will I be able to get it atleast to 3.5GHz? I have also heard about RAM overclocking. I have two of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428 RAM chips and 2 of the stock chips that came with the HP. If I were to put the G. Skill chips in one channel and the two stock chips in the other channel, will I be able to overclock both channels or just the one with the G. skill chips? Do you think it would be worth it to also overclock the RAM? Do you think I have enough power to run everything I listed in the specs with the overclocked CPU and RAM? There is also a function on the motherboard to unlock the CPU cores. Will this be useful for me?
In this post the user got the processor to a stable 4GHz: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/258168-29-phenom-910e-review
Do you think I will be able to get that high?

 

[inzone]

When you overclock the ram you overclock it all and not just seperate sticks , there is no seperation for that in the bios. Depending on the motherboard there are different ways to overclock the ram , one is to raise the mhz and the other is to adjust the timings. Raising the mhz is much easier than adjusting the timings.
Your power supply is more than enough for overclocking and you should unlock the cores it will make a difference in the performance of your Pc. You should be able to reach 4ghz or really close. If you don't reach 4.0 and only get to 3.8 , it really isn't going to make that much of a difference. I would say that an overclock of 1ghz above the stock speed is a very good overclock and would be sufficient. So if you went from the 2.6ghz to 3.6ghz then you should be happy with that , if not then you will be going into the risky part of overclocking where you are adding a lot of voltage to different area's and you could potentially be reducing the life of the cpu. If you are not ezperienced with overclocking I would suggest taking it slow and easy untill you are comfortable with making adjustments in the bios to al of the settings and by reading as much as possible about overclocking and all of the different methods and settings. If you go into the bios and look at all the setting options and don't know what each one does then you could be asking for trouble if you start making adjustments to things you know nothing about. Start out small and slow and be patient , your efforts will be rewarded if you do. There is nothing like having a completly stable overclock that provides you with increased performance and no problems.

 

[halogamer214]

Thanks for the reply, it has helped me a lot. Could you check if these steps are good?
1. Increase CPU speed by small increments, checking the temperature as you go
2. Set HT speed to 2000MHz
3. Run stress tests to see if stable. If it isn't, increase voltage by small increments, checking the temperature as you go.
4. When I achieve a stable overclock, raise the RAM speed.
Do I have everything correct? Also, what do I set the CPU ratio as?

 

[inzone]

1 you want to make sure that windows is stable after each speed increase , the temps won't go up that quickly and if they do you should stop untill you find out why.
2 Where did you get 2000mhz?
3 You want to verify windows is stable and only increase voltage if you need to stabelize the OS and after you have reached your target overclock speed and windows is stable then you would do the stress test to make sure that windows can handle the stress at the overclock speed. If the stress test gets a BSOD then you should back off 10% of the speed and rerun the test. You don't want to increase voltage at that point.
4. You should only raise the ram speed a little , in the overall picture it's the cpu you want to overclock. You really don't need to overclock the ram.
The cpu clock ratio is the multiplier , that is what you are going to be increasing to get the desired speed , one increment at a time.