I dont know if all the Bartons are now locked. from week 40 chips onwards. There has been lots of talk that the 2500 is, mainly becuase that is the best overclocker.
i *think* i have seen a xp2600 overclock just as well as a 2500. To about xp3200 standards (2.1-2.3ish)
remember overclocking is unique to the chip. Codes tend not to matter too much on Bartons as muhc as they did with tbreds/pally's.
If you can get an earlier that week 40 chip, then both the xp2600, and xp2500 should go about the same distance. But if they are locked then you wil have to up the fsb lots :)
Will
I thought overclocking the CPU was turing the FSB up? Can somone explian how i overclock and what it means please i am confluzzeled.
i dont really know much, but its about increasing voltages and fsb.
With my motherboard, i can overclock using the bios feature. It automatically changes the voltages etc in ratio when i specify the clock speed i want it at.
About the 2500 vs 2600, there not much in it, so i would go for the 2500 and save a little money
well overclocking is where you increase the speed from the stock level.
This can be done by increasing the multipler, which increases the overall raw speed of the processer. E.g.
12 (muitplier) x 166 (fsb) = 1992mhz.
12.5 (mult) x 166 (fsb) = 2075mhz
OR
by increasing the front side bus. The front side bus (fsb) increase the *bandwidth* so everything runs faster; CPU, RAM (as long as it is synced with the fsb…) GFX, and MOBO.
12 x 166 = 1992mhz
12 x 200 = 2400mhz (an overclock)
When increasing voltage BE CAREFULL! only do it by little bits if the temperature is not too high, it adds uber amounts of heat and stress to the processer. Only increase a little, it increasing it from 1.5 to 1.7 gives you 500mhz then it is prolly worth it, but if it gives you 10mhz its not. With modern processers it is prolly best not to go above 1.8 unless you are confident in your cooling i.e. water, vapo chill……etc (some people will prolly disagree.)
Make sure that you test your processer/RAM at everystage for stability.
have fun
watch those temps
Will
You should know clock speed = fsb x multi.
Intel have multi locked their processors for a long long time in an attempt to sell their more expensive cpu's. So the only way to overclock Intel cpu's is to up the fsb until you hit the max of either the motherboard, ram or cpu. As you have more things that can restrict your overclock, it means you usually cannot reach the max of the cpu.
AMD have not locked the tbred and barton AthlonXP's up until now. This means that, even if your motherboard can't handle high fsb's, you can obtain big overclocks by adjusting the multiplier.
Now which manufacturer do you think is getting higher percentage sales of their top-end processors?? Intel, of course, as it is almost forcing people to go for the higher cpus than the lower ones as overclocking the lower ones would need more expensive other components.
So AMD is trying to maximise sales of their higher end processors by locking the multiplier of the latest XP2500's. It is not clear whether or not all bartons are now locked, or just the xp2500+ so you may want to wait for a few days until the story is out in the open.
I think that covers it all :)
Except I got beat to it :(
use a program like memtest86 (check google), which is a dos based memory utility which you can use to ensure that your ram doesnt give errors while being overclocked, and similarly use a program called Prime95 (coupled with MBM5 to check temps) to ensure that the cpu doesnt give errors and is stable at the new clock speed.
As blockers says, be careful about voltage, if your temps are ok (ie sub 50 on load) then its prolly ok to up the voltage to the next level (ie 1.5 to 1.525) and then see if that helps with stability..) a useful program which you can use is 3dmark2001 as this tests the whole cpu/gfx/mem of the computer so you can see quite quickly if an overclock is stable or not.
mark
links i found :
memtest86prime95list of cpu related programs (testing stability etc)
You dont have to increase the volts to overclock. Try and keep them as close to stock as possible. (1.5v i think for a barton)
If you do get a multi locked Barton then get some fast RAM, PC3700 or something and just keep upping the FSB.
Will
yeh. it is much better to run the ram in sync with the fsb with an AMD system than to run asyne (ie 200fsb with 200mhzx2 ram speed is better than 200fsb and 166ram.. hence 230fsb would be good coupled with ram capable of 230x2 (460mhz - pc3700) ram)… however not all motherboards can get to such high front side bus speeds without modification (ie some people can get 210/220+ fsb with abit nf7-s v2.0 boards, and some need to use a voltage mod to increase the voltage going to the northbridge, but thats another story :))
mark
i always thought it was to do with voltage increase aswell, shows how much i know :(
I have a lanparty pro 875 motherboard, and i just press a button to change the clock speed and the voltage goes up very slightly.
With my p4 3.0c processor, does that mean if i overclocked to say 3.5ghz, the 800fsb goes up to something like 1000fsb??
intel are multiplier locked, so yeh only way is to increase fsb.. thts why people love the 2.4/2.6c processors cos they can get a 250 (quad pumped = 1000mhz) fsb going on :) my 1.6a is at 133fsb (so 2.133) as it crashed the other day at 2.4 :( mostly you dont need to increase the volts of p4s, and some get the random northwood death syndrome thing, where they will run at a certain overclock for weeks or months, and then one day just die…
mark