Overclocking noob

Alright so now that my system is up and running I'm wanting to try some OC'ing out but I have never done it nor do I know much about it.

So here are some system specs.

Phenom II 955 x4 Blk. Ed.
Gigabyte 890FX UD5
Corsair XMS3 8GB (2X 4GB)
XFX Radeon HD 6850

I am a complete noob and have read some info but I learn from doing not reading so it's hard for me to comprehend. Any help/ suggestions would be great.

And a tad more info

ATM I have CPU-Z, Core Temp, and HWMonitor installed

According to CPU-Z I am at 3214.8 MHz
According to both Core Temp and HWMonitor I am sitting at about 30-32°c idle (I havent checked it under a load)

If you need any more info I will be more then glad to get it for you im going to go and do some more research.

For starters, have a quick look through this here

Intel and AMD have two major common factors - higher overclock generally means higher voltage (vcore). Higher voltage means extra heat. Both are things to monitor.

Just added GPU-Z and took a screen shot of all the info as of now



Also this is the specific VGA I have

Newegg.com - XFX HD-685X-ZNDC Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

The baby is crying so no more research for me tonight.

At a real quick glance - it looks fine to begin with.

Just a pro tip - unlock/overclock the GPU first, test it out with some games and then decide if it's worth the time to OC your CPU as well.


OC'ing your chip can be easily done, but it's time consuming to tweak it right. With a bub in the house - a quick OC on the video card may be all that satisfies you at this stage.

Smarteyeball, thanks for the link ill be sure to reference it later.

Technically I probably don’t need to OC anything for what I use the PC for but I am always open to learning new things so I do want to give it a try even if I end up taking it back to normal settings.

Baby is usually pretty good just a tad fussy today.

Well guys just got done OCing the GPU and I think it’s a major difference. Haven't gotten to run any games yet but seems pretty stable.

Heres a pic and I guess yall can see the fam as well (too lazy to crop LMAO)



955/1140 up from 800/1050