Post Your Overclock!

smarteyeball said:

When it comes to Overclocking and stability tests, personal experience and majority opinion will always trump 'the pointless crowd'.

As a member of the Pointless Crowd, I drone on and on, never letting anyone get a word in edgewise until I start foaming at the mouth and falling over backwards.

A Guy said:

Thanks Patrick

A Guy

Any time mate :)

Britton30 said:

Quite true as Patrick said. I think even the lightest stress test does more work than about 90% of day-to-day usage will do.

Very true. Browsing, Word, e-mail doesn't care an iota for OCing. A few apps will but on the whole most light everyday tasks won't.

Personally I've not seen any real world increase in performance with any overclock in CPU clocks or RAM fiddling. These things will get better scores in bench tests though.

Since I game - I do notice a difference in some of them. But on the whole, like pretty much everyone else - it's only done for the fun/hobby aspect.

RAM and BCLK fiddling however - essentially none at all. Benchmark increases are nice, but ultimately they are just for fun and shouldn't be taken to seriously.

Lava King said:

As a member of the Pointless Crowd, I drone on and on, never letting anyone get a word in edgewise until I start foaming at the mouth and falling over backwards.

* Just to clarify - that comment was not directed at anybody in particular :)

At the end of the day our PC's are just that - Personal Computers.

There is no one 'true' method or answer when it comes to testing.

I personally advocate my methods because I've found it's what works for me.

It also can depend on the OC you are aiming for. 'Light OC's' don't need as much testing. But higher OC's where more variables and potential weak spots are introduced do make it easier to narrow down culprits.


Case in point for the pro overkill testing - when I failed the 8hr prime the other night, I knew I was on the right track with my target - but not quite there.

I adjusted settings (more vcore basically and lowering BCLK), did a 10 pass IBT max run. Passed. Even did a 7 pass memtest run to make sure it wasn't the extra mhz on the RAM. passed.

Did a 99 pass Crysis harbour benchmark run (to simulate a more 'realistic load scenario) passed.

I'm now at 10 or so hours into another Prime run. The two cores that failed on two runs are now still going strong.

By rights, the machine is now more 'stable' than it was before. And unless it is a b*stard and x124's randomly, then I'll use the machine as is and 'real world' test it.


By overkill testing, I've narrowed down the weak point - voltage.

It's a method I've been using for years and have personally found works for me for the most part compared to quick and dirty testing.

Extended testing nailed the 'round off' bug.

11hrs - max vcore, temps seen


No errors :)


Now to sit back and 'real world' it


One thing I've learnt from this exercise - BCLK OCing is not really worth it.

The fact that PCI-E lanes (GPUs affected and other devices on PCI-e slots), sata, (possible odd drive flap ups) and Potential memory problems reinforce the idea the sticking to a BCLK of 100.00 and mainly adjusting via multis with SB is valid.




Decent score - but real world notice? Zilch


But overall, as long you keep it as hobby - go nuts!

(of course now that it's done - I want to try for higher simply because I can Plenty of temp /vcore headroom... )

Your minimum temperatures are too low...

A Guy

I'll bet he put his rig in the ref

It's the one advantage to winter

One thing I've noticed since adjusting the BCLK is the infamous Asus POST turn on/turn off/ turn back on normal start.

Never occurred when I solely used the multi

smarteyeball said:

One thing I've noticed since adjusting the BCLK is the infamous Asus POST turn on/turn off/ turn back on normal start.

Never occurred when I solely used the multi

I only use the multi and mine has always done that dance, not all the time but once or twice every few weeks.

smarteyeball said:

One thing I've noticed since adjusting the BCLK is the infamous Asus POST turn on/turn off/ turn back on normal start.

Never occurred when I solely used the multi

Yup my two ASUS boards do the same thing, but usually after some frequency change, other wise the board stays on with a reboot. POST is so slow though that my monitor turns off everytime.

jeepmann4x4 said:

I only use the multi and mine has always done that dance, not all the time but once or twice every few weeks.

Hmm, now that you mention it - mine has done it a few times, but it was very irregular. Certainly not regular enough to be noticeable. I noticed it most on cold boots after the power had been disconnected.

Now it's every cold boot, or restart.

Britton30 said:

Yup my two ASUS boards do the same thing, but usually after some frequency change, other wise the board stays on with a reboot. POST is so slow though that my monitor turns off everytime.

My previous my P5Q PRO did it all the time. I don't recall my P6X58D doing it though. Initializing/ Pre-Post time has always been long with Asus.

They always fiddle and fart and multiple restart after certain changes. (Multi, volts and RAM especially). However sometimes they don't.

When I finish adding my new drives etc - I might reset the bclk back to 100.00 to see if changes anything.

It's not like there's any noticeable difference with 40 odd extra mhz anyway. I'd rather lose the minute mhz increase than double power on every single time


It just makes me curious as to what it's polling/prepping for the 2nd reboot - if that's what it's doing.






***EDIT***

Reset BCLK back to 100.00 and it appears to back normal.

So while you can 'safely' adjust SB using the BCLK with small increments - overall it's simply not worth it.