Re: Good Site for Overclocking Info

In article <DW8Mf.19555$z%5.13968@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "BobS"
<no-spam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<<snip>>

I've found only about a zillion sites for overclocking and 99% of those are
mainly forums where even the geeks have trouble understanding what is being
said.

Thanks,

Bob S.

That is because, it _is_ complicated. If you have a look at the
AMD section on DRAM parameters, you'll realize why. The Athlon64
has to have the largest set of parameters of any memory controller.
And guys do change things and experiment with parameters, without
knowing what they do. So I would say, that not too many people
understand all of it. If AMD doc 26094 had better defined the
purpose of some of them, the "geeks" would have been a lot
better off. (Actually, if I look at the current version, the
section on timing is a little better than it used to be.)

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/26094.PDF

The best way to start, may be to get a copy of CPUZ, and make
small changes to clock rates. Boot into Windows and see what
has changed. Getting a copy of "clockgen" that is compatible
with the PLL in your chipset, is another way to observe what is
happening. The memory setting in the BIOS assumes a 200Mhz clock,
so when the CPU clock is increased, the memory increases also.
That is why, you may need to turn down the BIOS memory setting,
when increasing the CPU clock. CPUZ should report the real
settings, and make the process a little easier to understand.
But there are tons of BIOS settings that people don't really
know what they are doing. (Leaving the setting at "Auto" is OK.)

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
http://www.cpuid.com/clockgen.php
( http://www.cpuid.com/download/ClockGen.zip )

If a "geek" has trouble explaining something, it is because
they don't really understand it :-)

Once you understand a little bit about the fact that there
are separate multipliers/dividers for CPU core, Hypertransport
bus, and memory clock, you can give this settings optimizer a try.
This tool gives settings according to the weightings you
assign. Read the thread first, to understand how to use it.
What this tool basically says is, there are multiple combinations
of setting you can use while overclocking, and depending on
what characteristic you are trying to optimize, the tool
gives the best combination of settings to reach that target.
Use the default values in the tool, and see what it returns.

http://math.gogar.com/athlon64.cgi
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=61939

This table shows the multipliers/dividers at work. How the
BIOS works, is when you set the memory to "DDR333", the BIOS
uses the best divider to reach the target DDR333 rate. But
the BIOS assumes the CPU clock is 200Mhz when doing this.
And that is why the "target" in the BIOS has to be reduced
when overclocking. (I don't know if all Athlon64 BIOS work
that way - in the case of the Intel boards with 865PE/875P,
some boards showed true speed, others showed target speed,
and CPUZ was the best way to understand how it worked.)

http://math.gogar.com/athlon64.cgi?showtable=1

Disable Cool N' Quiet, until you get a handle on how the
controls work. With Cool N' Quiet disabled, the system will
not be adjusting the FID/VID according to system load, so
it'll be "what you see is what you get".

Following a "recipe" from a web page won't teach you anything.
The more you learn about how it works, the better an
overclocker you will become.

Paul
.

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