Overclocking..

flyinfishmonkey

I have a Pentium III 450mhz pc and it is dog slow, for obvious reasons. Could someone tell me how to "overclock" my processor and what benefits it would give me then speedwise. It is only a stop gap measure as I am buying a new one in the coming months but since I got broadband I find it really troublesome while playing online games. I asked a guy in Pc world about buying a new processor thats more up to date but he said I would be wasting my time that it would be cheaper to buy a new pc. This doesn't sound right though considering I was being shown pc's at around the 1,600.00 euro. Surely it would come in cheaper than that... Sh*t, now i'm rambling..

Ciaran500

You could not just buy a new processor for that. You will need new processor, ram,motherboard and case. But it will not cost €1,600

I assume you have a prebuilt pc (like a dell), if so you probably will not be able to overclock it.

flyinfishmonkey

No its an old Advent pc bought in pc world 6 years ago.

Jammer

i was able to overclock my old fujitsu siemens P4 1.5GHZ to 1.7GHZ...hadn't got an active PCI/AGP lock though...so that put a stop to things!!

U can overclock some brands of pre built systems

Ciaran500

If you want to try it you have to press a button as the pc starts up. You should see a promt for it (something like "press F10 to enter setup"). Just don't try and overclock it far. Take it a couple of fsb at a time.

BloodBath

I really wouldn't bother. Old pc's like that don't overclock too well at all. Your looking at about 500-550 at the most and you might run into problems well before that.

You can build a great budget rig that will play any new game with high detail and a decent res for about 800 euro exc monitor. If you want help I can list parts for you to get.


BloodBath

flyinfishmonkey

Yeah cheers Bloodbath.. Pm me the details and i'll give it a lash so. Have always wanted to try a full build but never really took the leap. I could push it up by another few hundred if you could think of anything else that would make it walk on water, so to speak... I have the monitor from this at present and its a 17" but was thinkin of gettin one of the new flat one's. Could I use two at once? Let me know anyway my friend.
Cheers

Jammer

for 800 + 'a few hunder' i'd recommend...(bare in mind im an AMD head...the P4 boys might not this..)

Mobo - MSI Neo Platinum - 122 (http://www.jes-computer.de/product_info.php?pID=16393&MWbusiness=c58df47feaa1e17a2df792b7e1292807)

CPU - AMD Athlon64 3200+ - 206 (http://www.jes-computer.de/product_info.php?pID=17462&MWbusiness=c58df47feaa1e17a2df792b7e1292807)

RAM - Mushkin Level 1 - 235 (http://www.jes-computer.de/product_info.php?pID=14365&MWbusiness=c58df47feaa1e17a2df792b7e1292807)

GFX - PNY GeForce 6800GT - 400 (http://www.jes-computer.de/product_info.php?pID=17491&MWbusiness=c85824589ee08e681de6a19936d11d59)

963 euro...that sytem wud walk on water ...and overclock well too

flyinfishmonkey

Hey Jammer,

Bear in mind two things.. 1) I need to be able to get these parts by walking into a shop off the street cos don't have credit card facility to buy online. 2) I want to be able to copy movies to vcd and svcd and dvd-r/rw also.
Any changes you would make bearing those factors in mind? Also is 800mhz a bit slow considering most pre-built pc's in shops now seem to have 2.8 - 3.2 Ghz...?

Ciaran500

800mhz is the front side bus (fsb). Look here for an explination http://www.gen-x-pc.com/fsb_info.htm

Remember a processors that has higher speed is not always a better performer. e.g. the Athlon 64 Jammer linked to runs at 2.2ghz but performs similar to a 3.2ghz P4.

You will have trouble buying parts from a shop at similar prices to online. You can buy from Jes without a credit card, you just need to send them a money order.


EDIT: Your probably lookin at about €300 for a good 17" TFT. This will be the same screen size as 19" standard monitor. You can run 2 monitors at once depending on the graphics card you buy. I think the one Jammer linked to has dual monitor support.

flyinfishmonkey

Confucious say.... All is becoming clearer now. Right well thanx for that. I will go on the specs u gave me unless someone else has anything to add. I presume any case will do for housing all these parts or would I need something specific? What about cooling fans.. Should I look for anything extra as regards the details of what I will be using the pc for?

Jammer

these are the best high street shop i have found : http://www.itdirect.ie ...they are on parliment st. in dublin city centre, the staff are a bit wonky tho...sus out the parts u want before going in...

jozi

I can highly recomend a amd 2500 mobile cpu, got one last week and got it to overclock very nicely. From 1866mhz (there abouts) to 2500mhz without to much trouble at all.
And i can recomend jes for orders to, bank transfer does take a few days.

Jozi

BloodBath

Jammer you left out things like psu, case ,hard-drives, dvd-writer ect.

How far can you stretch the budget fishy?


BloodBath

BloodBath

I'm torn between recomending this or a s775 P4 system with pci-e as the P4 system will offer you a lot more upgrade options down the line than the a64 system will.

Anyway if your interested in the a64 have a look at this post and the parts I recomended for him.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=185301

Now swap the graphics card in that post for this

That's a total of about 1070 euro excluding delivery for a high end system with overclocking potential. You could save about 100e off this price by getting ram with lower timings and a cheaper heatsink but i'd advice you to spend the little extra. It will serve you better in the long run.

You asked me in a pm whether you should get a flat screen monitor or not as you still have the 17" off your old system. I wouldn't bother tbh. A decent 17" will cost you about 300e. You would be much better off with a good 19" crt if you have the deskspace. A decent one will set you back about 200e but you can get them as cheap as 130e new. I'd even recomend a second hand one providing it's not more than a couple of years old. They are on sale all the time here on boards at low prices.


BloodBath

Mac daddy

Jammer wrote:

these are the best high street shop i have found : http://www.itdirect.ie ...they are on parliment st. in dublin city centre, the staff are a bit wonky tho...sus out the parts u want before going in...

Shame there site doesn't work

Ciaran500

Works for me

flyinfishmonkey

Bloodbath et all,

I will have enough cash to go the extra on things and I read through that thread you posted details on. Sounded very interesting. For the sake of good parts and stuff worth fitting to boost performance, I would not hold back on the spending end of things but I figure to self build your own it comes in a good deal less and with specific components to match my needs for it, as opposed to just buying a model pre-built to do a multilpe of tasks that I won't use it for. Does this help guide you in a direction you could send me for necessities to fit into my pc??

Ciaran500

flyinfishmonkey wrote:

Does this help guide you in a direction you could send me for necessities to fit into my pc??

How much money you willing to spend?
Do you need any extras like dvd burners etc?
How much harddrive space do you need?

The pc he built in the other thread is about the best you could get for €1324.

flyinfishmonkey

Well Ciaran,

Tops... About 2,800 squids. That doesn't have to include a monitor though as i have one that works perfectly well at present and may invest in one in the future... Yes I would want a dvd burner that can also do cd-r/w's although I thought all dvd burners did cd's anyway..? As for hardrive space, I will be saving alot of music on the HD and do the odd DVD to VCD/SVCD and possibly DVD-R operation so I would need a decent size HD.

Col_Loki

Thats a pretty big budget........ especially when you dont need a screen. TBH theres no way you should spend that ammount, your prob talkin under 2k for a top of the range PC and then you have €800 to think about a flatscreen/speakers/nice keyb&mouse.

If your a big gammer and like high settings (or dont want to worry about any games for 2years) then the 6800GT that was suggested is a great choice.
If you play games a good bit the 9800pro will also play pretty much everything on high settings and is an excellent card for half the price.
Only play the odd game then the 9600pro for half that price again should sort you out.

The AMD64 is great for gaming and general use, if your a big encoder then mabye think about the P4 (there pretty good for gaming aswell).

The specs Bloodbath and Jammer recommend on the AMD64 are the same, and also the best combo you can get IMO ....... very good specs for the € along with a quiet system and quality PSU . (except the DVD writer link doesent work anymore ).

flyinfishmonkey

Col,

Great thanx for that. I just spent some time reading all you posted on making/building pc's.Very informative thread I must say.! I'm new to this Boards thingy and I'm really impressed with the very genuine info "most" people give out from the goodness of their hearts... I reckon this must be the first time I have had my eldest son tell me that I have shown him something new and informative on the auld internet lol. I'll be back if I run into problems, for good advice.
Cheers!

Col_Loki

Yea the people here are great when you need advise or run into problems. I learned a hell of alot from the boards myself.....

That sticky of mine really needs updating, i just havent had time of late with work but its generally pretty bang on. Id go with the specs listed in this thread over the ones i have because of newer boards/chips that have just came out (and i havent updated the thread with).

Advise in this thread was pretty good i must say, and it generally is which means i get to post less and less as people beat me to it . Ack it gives me more time to watch tv and have a few beers!!