overclocking ,

[littlejohn1959]

greetings , a am a frequent user of this forum . great place by the way .

i seldom read anything about overclocking here though . is the sim not ocing friendly? will ocing make any great difference ? as she stands here now , the game runs pretty smooth with this rig . i guess i am just wondering if ocing is a good way to go? maybe increse fps or something . then again , as long as i have smooth gameplay ,fps is only a number , right?did anyone try ocing and maybe found out thats its not all that good? or oced and it was great?

i do use alot of the config / view tweaks that ive read here . no doubt , it makes the game look and run great .

chime in with your opinion on overclocking .

thanks for reading ,

cheers .

[GTengineer]

Most certainly I have the same Asus P5K Premium mobo and I am running between 3.6 and 3.8GHz, I cannot imagine ever running 2.4GHz stock. You have an ideal system for overclocking, as many of those E8400 will reach around 4GHz on air cooling. I can run some quick tests to quantify the difference in FPS between 2.4GHz and 3.6GHz later tonight if you want.

 

Let me know if you need any further help as I have worked with this board for a while.

Edited August 31, 2008 by GTengineer

[littlejohn1959]

Most certainly I have the same Asus P5K Premium mobo and I am running between 3.6 and 3.8GHz, I cannot imagine ever running 2.4GHz stock. You have an ideal system for overclocking, as many of those E8400 will reach around 4GHz on air cooling. I can run some quick tests to quantify the difference in FPS between 2.4GHz and 3.6GHz later tonight if you want.

 

Let me know if you need any further help as I have worked with this board for a while.

 

sounds great . i would apprecitae a comparasion , for sure .

i did oc a asus a8n-e before i got this board .

also i oced my 7600gt before .

i have the zalman 9500 on my 8400 . it runs nice and cool .

thanks for the reply .

i will keep my eyes open for your comparision , for sure .

cheers .

[CAT_101st]

Go here they will have the best ansers for you. and they have guides to help you understand.

 

http://forums.techpowerup.com/index.php

[Vekkinho]

Most certainly I have the same Asus P5K Premium mobo and I am running between 3.6 and 3.8GHz, I cannot imagine ever running 2.4GHz stock. You have an ideal system for overclocking, as many of those E8400 will reach around 4GHz on air cooling. I can run some quick tests to quantify the difference in FPS between 2.4GHz and 3.6GHz later tonight if you want.

 

Let me know if you need any further help as I have worked with this board for a while.

 

Yeah please do make a benchmark comparison between 2.4 and 3.6GHz!

[littlejohn1959]

heres my settings .

i use fraps . i flew the a-10 mission on the first page of the game . top right . '' fly'' .

i am still playing with the graphics config , view , and the nv controll panel .

if you can , run the same a-10 mission , use fraps .

compare the fps . oced , then not oced .

cheers .

Edited August 31, 2008 by littlejohn1959

[GTengineer]

Ok, I ran the track called demo-su-25-cas for consistency so FPS can be compared better. This mission has a good deal of ground pounding, smoke, and explosions. I ran it all the way until around the point when the lead Su-25 jetisons remaining weapons (16-17 minutes).

 

I have included my settings and my mods. I am also running Vista x64 which is more taxing (lower FPS) than Windows XP. I am also running my 8800GT at stock with 8xAA and 16xAF, but my 8800GT is slightly overclocked from factory to 660 core / 1900 memory. The minimum FPS is the key, there is a 50% increase in minimum FPS with a 50% overclock :)

 

Results:

 

2.4GHz (9x266) DDR2@800 5-5-5-15

2008-08-31 19:06:38 - lockon

Frames: 73510 - Time: 1064597ms - Avg: 69.050 - Min: 16 - Max: 319

 

3.6GHz (9x400) DDR2@1000 5-5-5-15

2008-08-31 18:33:49 - lockon

Frames: 98621 - Time: 1018991ms - Avg: 96.783 - Min: 24 - Max: 323

 

Edited August 31, 2008 by GTengineer

[littlejohn1959]

o.k . my 8800gt . core 600 ,,, shader 1500 ,,, memory 900 ..

so , if i oced the 8800gt , and the 8400 my minuim in fraps would go up . that would give me even smoother gameplay?

all i can compare my rig to is the amd3700 and 7600gt with 2 gigs of ram , that i had before this new rig .

i can see AOT of difference performance wise with this new rig .

i guess i could overclock both , and give it a try .

you know about ocing the asus p5k you say .

how about ocing the 8800gt . are you fimular?

there is a shader slider thing there that was not on my 7600 gt .

the bios on the p5k looks a bit simular to my old asus a8n-e .

your over clock do get the minuim fps up . can you SEE the difference in gameplay?

thanks for replieing here .

all this is very intresting to me .

great stuff .

cheers .

 

also , i have v sync enabled , tripple buffering etc , that may or may not help my fps?

its all new to me .

cheers again .

Edited September 1, 2008 by littlejohn1959

[GTengineer]

yeah, I would start ocing the CPU first, so it is easy to troubleshoot any instability.

 

Software you need:

cpuz - system info

coretemp - temperature monitor

prime95 - stress/stability testing

 

Make sure you have the latest BIOS for you P5K premium. I am using 0204 because updating them messed up my RAID setup so I went back to 0204 which still works fine as far as I can tell.

 

This is a good place to start overclocking your P5K, this link is for all P5K series which have very similar BIOS options. Make sure you go step by step enabling or disabling features which may cause instability. Remember to enable CPU voltage damper which eliminates vcore vdroop so your CPU voltage does not drop with CPU load.

 

For your main settings I would start by increasing the FSB say 50MHz at a time with a 9 multiplier, boot back into windows run Prime95 (small FFT stress test) while monitoring your temperatures with coretemp. Continue raising FSB until it becomes unstable and Prime95 gives you errors. The rule of thumbs is no more than 1.4V vcore for Penryn (45nm). I would keep it below 1.39V just to be safe. Try to keep your temperatures below 60C (this is also rule thumb but I personally have been running my Q6600 up to 70-80C for a year with no problems). Also make sure to change the FSB strap accordingly so you are not running your RAM over stock speeds (you have breathing room here since you have PC-8500). There is no much benefit from overclocking RAM, yes there will be some gain in performance but not that much. So focus on CPU clock speed.

 

Your E8400 assuming good cooling and assuming you don't have a "turd" (pardon my french) should be doing around 3.8-4GHz easily.

 

I have done GPU overclocking but honestly my stock speeds are enough for the games I run. You can check out rivatuner as an alternate (more sophisticated) overclocking software to ntune. Make sure if you do oc your GPU to increase the fan speed within ntune or rivatuner. You would not see much improvement between your 8800GT settings and my slight factory overclock.

 

* Also, when overclocking make sure your PCIe link width which is read in cpuz under the Mainboard tab is running at x16 and not x1 or x4. I have this problem when I am running at 3.6GHz where it drops to x1 if I do not run my North Bridge at 1.4V. If the link width drops to x1 your GPU performance will take a heavy hit.

Edited September 1, 2008 by GTengineer

[GTengineer]

Yes you can notice the difference in FPS in the game. Min FPS is the key, but even with 24 min FPS I can notice a little stuttering sometimes with TrackIR when taking off from a busy airfield. This is why I will be moving to a high end dual core like E8600 (which overclock to 4.5GHz-5GHz) in about a year when I will no longer need my quad core.

 

I am not sure about all the vsync and other GPU settings or how they affect performance. Sorry.

 

I just ran the same (2.4GHz run) with vsync off and this were the results:

2008-08-31 20:17:00 - lockon

Frames: 66204 - Time: 1026858ms - Avg: 64.472 - Min: 16 - Max: 216

 

Average FPS decreased.

 

BTW, I owned a Zalman 9500 about 1.5 years ago and I was not very impressed by it. If you do run into heat problems and you know your CPU can overclock more I recommend looking at a Tuniq Tower, Zalman 9700, or the king Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme (fan sold separately).

Edited September 1, 2008 by GTengineer

[littlejohn1959]

thanks for all the links and info .

i use everest ultimate for temps, etc , here . i have cpuz and prime 95 .

i will read , then re-read the link on ocing the p5k . he used the deluxe.

i have the preminum .

my bios is 504 according to everest .

here are my temps at load and idle . stock .

i am in no rush . this rig is barely 2 months old . i am still playing with config files , mods , and the nv controll panel .

this rig shutters also ,like yours , at airstripes useing trackir .

that must be the norm ?

again , thanks for replieing . i love to learn stuff . i have learn lots here .

slow and steady . thats my route .

cheers again .

 

idle temps ,,,

 

load temps ,,,,

[GTengineer]

The Asus P5K Premium and Deluxe are essentially the same board. The Premium has better voltage regulation, and a few other minor improvements but they are almost the same. In fact most of the BIOS settings for all P5K series is very similar too. Everest and coretemp I think give the same temperature readings. I like to use more than one program though just in case. Your idle temps seem a little high for a stock cpu but that could also depend on your ambient temperatures. My Q6600 at 3.6GHz for example idles at around 33-34C on water cooling and my room is at around 22-23C.

 

The Asus P5K Premium is a dream to overclock, add an E8400 to the mix, oh you'll have fun alright ;)