Overclocking

Overclocking can be fun, but it can also be dangerous. It’s fun to get extra “free” performance out of your hardware but you also run the risk of destroying it by overheating or overvolting. So I’m going to show you how I achieved my overclock but I don’t take any responsibility for any damage you may do to your own hardware by following my method.

Here is the stock CPU-Z screenshot 

For the GIGABYTE MA770T-UD3P motherboard, MB Intelligent Tweaker is where you need to be if you are trying to overclock. I started off by turning Cool&Quiet and C1E options off. Then I set all the multipliers from “Auto” to their default values for stock speed. I reached a final speed of 3890 MHz on the CPU with the HT Link and IMC (Integrated Memory Controller/Northbridge) both running at 2510 MHz. The base frequency was 251 MHz. The RAM was set to x6.66 multiplier or DDR 1333 mode and ended up with a max of 1672 MHz with 8-8-8-21-2T timings.

Voltages were as follows:

• CPU  +0.2V
• NB/IMC +0.1V
• DRAM Voltage 1.8V
• All other voltages at default values

If you compare this to the overclock that I achieved on the Athlon II X2 250 in the last part of this series, you will find that the IMC is running at quite a lower speed on the Phenom while the RAM is running at slightly higher speed with slightly looser timings. We will have to see how this affects our benchmark and gaming suite.

Below is the result of the Everest Cache and Memory benchmark with stock settings on left, and overclocked on right