Should I bother overclocking...

[pitch007]

I currently have an iwill kk266 motherboard with an AMD 900 T-Bird, 256MB pc133, Voodoo3 3500 OEM, 3 HD's that = around 60GB, with the main being a 40GB WD 5400 RPM
and I'm using the onboard sound.

I currently have on order an AMD Athlon XP 1800, 512 MB PC133, 80GB seagate 7200 HD and a volcano 6cu fan. I do not overclock now because I have a mediocre fan on my chip and it runs warm already. Plus I can't get it to boot when I put the FSB jumper on 133 even though I am using 133 RAM. I never bothered to try to change any settings in the BIOS for fear of screwing up my only complete and working rig. And I am no millionaire..... Tax refund is all I will say.

So....I was wondering if it would be worth overclocking with the MB I have and the fan I ordered... Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[BigMoe]

in my OP if you have the stuff on order don't o/c, but again thats my thought

 

[Radiohead]

I do not overclock now because I have a mediocre fan on my chip and it runs warm already. Plus I can't get it to boot when I put the FSB jumper on 133 even though I am using 133 RAM

You just answered you on question right there
You'll have to do more than just play with the bios to oc the TBird. You'll have to unlock it and maybe even do some bridge cutting...

 

[pitch007]

I guess I wasn't quite clear in my first post. I was wondering if I should overclock the XP 1800 when I get it and my new fan.

 

[Cruze8]

why bother overclocking man... when you get your new system the speed is going to blow your mind anyways... why risk damaging your nice new hardware.... I'd start overclocking it in a year or so when software can actually stress your cpu!!!.. just my 2 cents

 

[Mitzi]

I would say no, you would hardly notice a difference in an non-overclocked chip compared to an overclocked chip. When you overclock you run the risk of burning the chip out, you have to spend more cash to cool the system better - its just not worth it, especially if you don't have the cash to replace/buy any additional hardware.

BTW - both my machines are overclocked

 

[mstrblk]

in my opinion the risk is minimal, the gain isnt, i got a system set up, bone stock,a 8500le/xp1.4, i got ~7500 points in 3dmark 2k1, overclocked the chip to 1.6, and the card to 300/300 and i get almost 9000 now, if you have played empire earth you know that even a new system will be stressed, and most newer games will also be demanding, so i would say it depends on what you want to do, if you play quake, or CS, dont bother, you wont notice any difference, if you are playing something more demanding, like undying, or alice, EE, whatever, it may be worthwhile, i would spend some time reading, and making sure you arent going to damage anything, but get mbm or a similar program that will let you view your cpu temp from windows and keep an eye on it, and you should be fine, esp. with the volcano, overclocking is the way to get the best for your money, you can get a ~120 chip to work as fast as a 200 one, (or $500 if you count intel ), and the hardware you bought is aimed at the overclocker, i think you should test the waters, see how you like it, maybe its for you, maybe not, might as well try

 

[DarkOrca]

<< I currently have on order an AMD Athlon XP 1800, 512 MB PC133, 80GB seagate 7200 HD and a volcano 6cu fan. >>



PC133 RAM for AMD XP?? I thought all XP uses DDR now

 

[pitch007]

Most new boards for the Athlon XP are DDR boards. I just happen to have an older board that supports the Athlon XP with a BIOS update. I thought it would be much cheaper to get the PC133 than it would be to get a new MB and 512 MB of DDR.

 

[w9design]

In your case, overclocking probably wouldn't do you much good, since the processor is already going to be starved for memory bandwidth -- DDR has twice the bandwidth of PC133.

 

[SomeGuy03]

Nah, don't do it.

I don't think you'll need the increased speed since you are already going from a slower proc to a faster one. If later on you determine you need more out of your system, try and OC it.

 

[johndoe52]

The next time you think you want to upgrade then oc the hell out of it.

 

[DarkOrca]

pitch, don't expect too much from ur new XP system if you're gonna stick with the PC133 ram, cuz ur CPU won't get enough data to process because of the (very) limited memory bandwidth

I haven't seen any benchmarks of XP + SDR ram, but I'm quite sure it'll disappoint u if compare to the DDR settings