OP
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2001
- Location
- Twin Cities
- Thread Starter
- #81
It's not so much how much higher in frequency you can clock, but how much higher you can take the core voltage, if needed to achieve a stable overclock. Of course, you have to also have good cooling to dissipate that additional wattage. Without the modification, when I ran my core above about 1.75V, I could see the +5V start dropping. By the time the core voltage was at 1.9, the +5 was down to 4.85 and at a core voltage of 2.0, it was down to 4.75. Both of those drops even though the PSU output only went from 5.10 to 5.05.
So, to answer your question. If you have adequate cooling for 100+ watts of heat, then increasing the core voltage will allow you to increase your CPU speed, up to the point where your other system components, even the motherboards characteristics start to be a limiting factor. Keep in mind that every CPU has a sweet zone where increasing the voltage allows you to increase the speed. Once you are outside that sweet zone, it takes a lot more voltage to get a small additional gain in performance. I strongly believe you should not operate your CPU in that region, but rather hang around the top of the sweet zone. I typically test a setup for every additional mhz increase I can squeeze out of it, to find the absolute maximum it can obtain. I look at how hard everything is working to achieve that. Then, with an eye on reliability and longevity, I usually back it down a little bit and leave it there. To some overclockers, that may sound like heresy, but I don't run my car at the Red Line continuously either.
Hoot
So, to answer your question. If you have adequate cooling for 100+ watts of heat, then increasing the core voltage will allow you to increase your CPU speed, up to the point where your other system components, even the motherboards characteristics start to be a limiting factor. Keep in mind that every CPU has a sweet zone where increasing the voltage allows you to increase the speed. Once you are outside that sweet zone, it takes a lot more voltage to get a small additional gain in performance. I strongly believe you should not operate your CPU in that region, but rather hang around the top of the sweet zone. I typically test a setup for every additional mhz increase I can squeeze out of it, to find the absolute maximum it can obtain. I look at how hard everything is working to achieve that. Then, with an eye on reliability and longevity, I usually back it down a little bit and leave it there. To some overclockers, that may sound like heresy, but I don't run my car at the Red Line continuously either.
Hoot