New and wanting advice

blodflekk · Posted: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:14:20 Post Subject: New and wanting advice

I am new to this site and pretty new to overclocking, I am running 560w PSU, Asus P5Q Pro mobo (P45), Intel E6850 Core 2 Duo 3.0Ghz, 4GB DDR2-800, WD 1TB SATA2 7200rpm and Gigabyte 9600GT. I am getting tons of lag on most games (biggest problem is fallout 3) I am turning off almost all services and running IObit's Game Booster, and keeping HDD fully defragmented. Nothing it seems to be helping me out, So I thought perhaps I could overclock a few things. I am running only stock Intel fan and heat-sink with no additional cooling for GPU or RAM. Could someone tell me what I am able to safely overclock and how far I can push things, as I'm new and not sure how overclocking works.

**BeerCheeze** · Posted: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:12:12 Post Subject:

Hi Blodflekk, and welcome to the site.

My first thought is your system seems pretty good, with only your video card standing out to me. It's a good card, but the 9600's are a more "value" card and were never top of the line. So with that in mind, I'd focus more there than on the CPU in your system.

Here is a pretty good article on overclocking your card: http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=729 and as you'll see he was able to get just over a 20% gain in performance.

One thing to keep in mind, is when you overclock you are going to be producing more heat and could shorten the life of the product being overclocked. So be very careful here and make sure you have good airflow in your case and that you keep your video card cleaned off (compressed air works best here).

If that isn't quite enough you could overclock your CPU, but I'd suggest tweaking the graphics settings in the game and lowering them a bit. Try lowering things like AA if it's on, textures are another place that can be lowered to help performance, and possibly lowering the resolution.

If you want to OC your CPU there are a couple of good threads here to read through:

http://www.bigbruin.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14564

http://www.bigbruin.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12904

And last but not least, you can always consider a video card upgrade. Personally I'd recommend looking at an ATi 4890 simply because it offers the best bang for the buck right now, with the ATi 4970 close behind. Careful shopping can get a 4980 for under $200 US, and a 4870 under $150 US.

nolonger · Rated R Joined: 19 Apr 2009 Posts: 98

Don't think your CPU could be the trouble, it's most likely your video card. Like Beer said, try to overclock it, but keep in mind you'll lower its life expectancy. If that doesn't suffice and you don't want to get an upgrade, lower your resolution.

**Jason** · Posted: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:24:20 Post Subject:

I had an e6850 for a while, and it was a good chip. I would investigate a better cooler though... Even though I agree that graphics should be focus #1, you could get some overclocking on that CPU and see a nice boost.

This page shows a couple coolers against the stock cooler on the e6850:

http://www.bigbruin.com/2008/nhu12p_6

While this page doesn't show a great cooler to consider, but it shows some stock and overclocked results (CPU running at 3.6GHz):

http://www.bigbruin.com/2007/kingwinhdt_5

blodflekk · Posted: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:27:31 Post Subject:

what temperatures do i need to be careful of when overclocking the GPU, it is running at 70C doing nothing demanding?

nolonger · Rated R Joined: 19 Apr 2009 Posts: 98

70ºC is already getting on the hot side in my opinion. I try not to go above 68ºC at any time, but some people claim 80ºC doesn't generate any problems.

**Jason** · Posted: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:01:57 Post Subject:

The only 9600GT I used (other than in my current laptop), was this ASUS one:

http://www.bigbruin.com/2008/top9600gt_7

idle: 43C
load: 59C

Cooler is always better, and if the card isn't being stressed, 70 does seem high.

blodflekk · Posted: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:06:30 Post Subject:

Yes I did think it was getting pretty hot for no reason. The card I am using is the Gigabyte NX96T512HP (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/VGA/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2785) I also just ran Passmark Performance Test 7 and scored 1344.7

blodflekk · Posted: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:24:35 Post Subject:

I overclocked the GPU a small amount, and ran nVidia's stress/stability test and it is running stable, passed all tests. The temperature is now running at 83C just running firefox

**BeerCheeze** · Posted: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:51:47 Post Subject:

That's pretty warm. Make sure you have most/all the dust removed from your system. A can of compressed air should do it.