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Athlon 64 In-depth Overclocking Guide
jmke writes "Everything you ever wanted to know about Athlon 64 overclocking, and then some. If you are confused about HTT, LDT, memory dividers and relationship between these settings, then read on. This in-depth overclocking guide will show you how to get the maximum from your brand new Athlon 64 system"
Is $150 for a lower end Athlon 64 really THAT EXPENSIVE?
No, of course most wouldn't try to overclock an IBM server or clustered 20 4-way xeons. Why? Most people DO NOT OWN THOSE. That's corporate equipment. People can afford to play with $150 chips at home, and will.
Hardly anyone doing professional work on a machine will overclock it. Generally it just makes your system unstable and prone to crashing and making murphey's law become a reality on your precious data. Overclocking IMHO is more for gamers that want to take out as much juice as possible from their processors, and even so, it won't make that much of a difference. Generally its just for bragging rights.
The kind of "idiot" as you so delicately put it, that refuses to pay $249.00 - $359.00 for a $169.00 Processor.
$482 Athlon 64 4000+ 90nm Rev
$478 Athlon 64 4000
$359 Athlon 64 3800
$369 Athlon 64 3800 512K 90nm Rev E
$334 Athlon 64 3700+ 90nm Rev
$282 Athlon 64 3700
$249 Athlon 64 3500
$249 Athlon 64 3500 939pin
$250 Athlon 64 3500 90nm 939pin
$272 Athlon 64 3500 512K 90nm Rev E
$174 Athlon 64 3400
$152 Athlon 64 3200
$169 Athlon 64 3200 939pin
$169 Athlon 64 3200 90nm 939pin
(Prices from pricewatch.com)
As someone who does real-time generative audio/video processing, I have to say that oftentimes what a 2GHz machine cannot run comfortably, a 2.5GHz machine can do satisfactorily. 12FPS may not be good enough, but 15FPS may be passible. People often dismiss overclocking as something just for gamers, but in reality, it can be useful to anyone doing processor-intensive, real-time processing. I feel that some of the anti-overclocking opinions here are a bit unjustified, and more of a knee-jerk response to a loosely correlated l33t culture. The only games I play are Clan Lord and Civilization III... hardly a reason to overclock. However, for video processing, I need all the power I can get despite my modest budget.
The likelyhood of frying parts is not very high. Before that happens you will get restarts, BSODs etc, telling you that you've messed up the settings. If you do it properly, and test your systems stability with Memtest86, Prime95 and the like, then there is no harm.
I have my Athlon 64 3000+ running at 2.2 gHz up from the stock of 1.8. That's the speed of a 3500+ which at the time of purchase cost $170AU more. Do I need that extra speed? No. Is it handy? Yes. Games run smoother. Compilation is quicker. More research for folding@home is acheived.
Give it a go. It's plain old geeky fun.
Yet another blogger begging for an audience.
lifetime?? the average lifetime is well beyond the time the chip is worth anything.
*Few people get lucky because they need to mark some chips at lower speed than they are truly capable and they keep certain margins on the chip timings to ensure it works.* quite a lot of people "get lucky" as you put it. on a64's you often see 300-400mhz overclocks, that's not much unless you look into the cpu prices and how they hike up at those 300-400mhz. and those run whatever test you want for 24/7.. i got a k6-2 300 that has run at 450mhz for something like 6 years or whatever year they were introduced.
overclocking is not worth it usually when you buy the machine.. but ironically.. INCREASES THE LIFETIME as you can use the chip some time longer to play games etc, comfortably.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.