Overclock advice

[chromefox]

Hey guys recently just installed an extra 6 gigs of ram and a gigabyte gtx 650 so now im looking into tweaking the CPU if possible my system is an acer aspire x3400 which i have recased with a better power supply 500w hence the bigger card an all the CPU is an amd athlon ii x3. i understand im more than likely limited in my options but does anyone know of anyway to OC it or even some software to allow this? there are bios updates available but unless they will unlock some options which i doubt i wont be flashing it , as im not currently having issues

[Coffey]

Software usually only comes with certain Motherboards. But even then Overclocking is best done in the BIOS.

There is hundreds of guides and youtube vids on overclocking, I do it on some builds for people and know a lot about it, but I've never done that CPU personally.

To overclock you will need to know which Motherboard you have, the exact CPU. (435, 440, 455 etc)

Also 6 GB of ram is very vague, you need to explain the exact model, timings and clock speed of the Memory/RAM.

I personally wouldn't advise overclocking if you don't know enough about it or understand it. It can destroy your cpu etc. Overclocking shortens the life of the CPU as well.

You need a good aftermarket cooler on your cpu to overclock efficiently. Would need to know your CPU temperature as well to say if it's possible or not.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Coffey

[chromefox]

i overclocked my old system via the bios i just dont think its a possibility at all with this one but im prepared to state im wrong if so lol the ram is ddr3 pc3 10600 at 1333 mhz if memory serves me right with 8 gigs in total 1 card is kingston and the other 3 are novatech stock the cpu is a 425 ...

http://valid.canardpc.com/2657976

i doubt ill find the mobo brand without opening it all up sigh

[Coffey]

i overclocked my old system via the bios i just dont think its a possibility at all with this one but im prepared to state im wrong if so lol the ram is ddr3 pc3 10600 at 1333 mhz if memory serves me right with 8 gigs in total 1 card is kingston and the other 3 are novatech stock the cpu is a 425 ...

http://valid.canardpc.com/2657976

i doubt ill find the mobo brand without opening it all up sigh

Memory should be fine, just worried about temperature. Download coretemp (it's free) and tell em your CPU temperature if you can please?

Go to the start menu (guessing you are using windows) and type DXdiag in run, then run it/press enter and it will tell you your motherboard on the first page.

[George Ford]

Join a site called Tomshardware and ask there. People will be happy to help you. I went there and got help overclocking my i7 920 from 2.8Ghz to 3.6Ghz. I had to buy a £70.00 CPU fan (its huge!!) and some thermal paste but was way cheaper then buying even a 3.3Ghz cpu! It's been stable for well over 2 years now. There was about 10 different setting I had to change in the bios, and the hardest, most time consuming thing was getting the voltage and -v-droop correct and stress testing it to check voltage consistency, temperatures, memory stability etc. Also, I was lucky in that I got a great motherboard (Asus Extreme Rampage II)from my brother.

Before you overclock get a desktop gadget (free) that will show both memory and CPU % usage. I could have gone up to 3.8Ghz but there was no point as nothing I have uses that amount of power. Not even games like Skyrim, Eve-online, BF3, etc. Also I only have 6Gb of RAM and nothing I ever use will use more then about 4Gb.