Quick Overclocking Question

[Liquid Flame]

I've got a P4 550 3.4ghz.

I changed the multiplier to 14 and upped the FSB to 266mhz (3.73Ghz). Everything runs stable, I had it run Prime95 for 2 days straight and memtest86 for another 2 days with no errors.

Here's the problem though, when I run it with a FSB of 200mhz and the multiplier still at 14 (i.e. 2.8Ghz) Things actually work better.

The best example would be World or Warcraft. There is a definite increase in framerate when I have it underclocked. I've noticed it other games as well, such as Half Life 2 and Doom 3.

What the hell is going on here? Does it have to do with throttling? I just need a quick answer. Thanks!

 

[gobucks]

my guess would be the throttling - is it a P4E? lots of 5xx P4s run hot as hell, and the throttling sucks on them - in some cases, the CPU sits idle every other cycle, resulting in a 50% performance hit! Throttling is a nice safety feature for chips that normally run cool enough, but for chips that regularly hit high temps, throttling is a huge pain.

I'd recommend an aftermarket cooler. Prescotts boxed cooler is pretty crappy from what i've heard, and with a nice cooler (zalman 7700 or thermalright XP90 or XP120), you should be able to get a decent overclock without all the throttling problems.

 

[Liquid Flame]

I've got a Swiftech cooler on my CPU with a Vantec Tornado. Cooling isn't really too big of a problem. I've also disabled throttling to test whether or not that was the problem, and it still seems to be slowing down at the higher clock.

 

[gobucks]

that's a bummer, man. BTW, are you sure it's even possible to disable throttling? I think you can turn off the power management, but i thought the throttling was a hardware safety feature that can't be bypassed, kinda like the multiplier lock.

If your chip does just suck nuts, maybe you should try selling it to someone on ebay (hopefully a non-overclocker) and buying a 6xx CPU. They OC better, and run a hell of a lot cooler - even cooler than 130nm A64s in many cases! Plus, they have AMD64 and hardware virus protection and all those goodies.

 

[stevty2889]

Throttling is a feature internal to the chip, you can't disable it. Download throttlewatch, and run prime95, then you will very likely see that it is throttling. I had the same problem with my 3.4ghz prescott until I went to water cooling. Even with a thermalright XP-120 it was throttling at stock speed.

 

[flightlesscake]

It's probably your motherboard/bios. My p4p800-E deluxe runs fastest at normal stock settings with determine memory by "spd" on. If I overclock just 1 Mhz then my memory bandwith scores lower. It has something to do with the bios changing memory timings and performance acceleration technology "PAT" and some other hidden settings, at least for my motherboard.

 

[Quentin]

Are you sure you actually changed the multiplier? On a P4?

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Liquid Flame
I've got a P4 550 3.4ghz.

I changed the multiplier to 14 and upped the FSB to 266mhz (3.73Ghz). Everything runs stable, I had it run Prime95 for 2 days straight and memtest86 for another 2 days with no errors.

Here's the problem though, when I run it with a FSB of 200mhz and the multiplier still at 14 (i.e. 2.8Ghz) Things actually work better.

The best example would be World or Warcraft. There is a definite increase in framerate when I have it underclocked. I've noticed it other games as well, such as Half Life 2 and Doom 3.

What the hell is going on here? Does it have to do with throttling? I just need a quick answer. Thanks!

I am prolly wrong here. Don't do much with Intel products lately.....

But when I saw 14 x FSB 266. I immediately thought you were actually doing 14 x 133 ?

And, yeah I thought Pentium multi's were locked?

 

[omniviper]

he has probably an ES

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: omniviper
he has probably an ES

Actualy the retail 3.4-3.8ghz LGA775 prescotts also have the 14x multiplier, allowing the use of only 14x and the default multiplier of the chip.