Help Overclocking what can be overclocked (lol)

[Brutality]

Dear OverClockersClub.

 

I just spent all my money on new hardware. But unfortunately, I cannot run my favourite game (Need for Speed: Undercover) in the highest graphics possible, which was the goal for upgrading my PC. So I thought maybe I could just overclock my way to the superb graphics Yet I have no experience in overclocking at all, so I thought this might be the right place to ask for guidance

I have written my computer specs in that box "computer specs" when I registered as a member here, so I assume you can find them there, but if needed I can write them here.

I might have to add that everything is stock (so the cpu cooler is that fan that came with it, which is mounted on top of it, and the graphic card has the stock fan on too, and the motherboard has those fancy... hmm dunno the English word for it, but the other type of cooling (not water cooling), I would guess on "cooling ribs" or some radiator thingies), and the case has two fans, one large (12x12cm) and one small (8x8cm)... 12cm = 4.7inches and 8cm = 3.1inches. I figured you need to know how my system in cooled in order to know how far I can overclock it. I've heard you can overclock your CPU, GPU and RAM.

 

So my question is: What can I overclock and how far can I overclock and is it worth it?

 

EDIT: My system is running on Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 3, thought that could be some useful information

Edited August 11, 2009 by Brutality

[Fight Game]

copy and paste your cpu specs here.

 

you'll get some help here, but you may find what your looking for, easier and faster, in the sticky section.

[Brutality]

EDIT: Figured I could just put it in my signature, like you =)

Edited August 11, 2009 by Brutality

[Gunner75]

well those cooling "ribs" are heat sinks, they are used to pull heat off the north and south bridge and put those temps on as much surface area as possible and allow your system fan you disapate them off. but if your gonna overclock then please do your homework as i did. i did my overclocking homework on this forum for 2 weeks while i was having my system built. then once i got my system thats when i decided to overclock but only after i made sure my NON-STOCK heatsink and fan would beable to handle it. Seeing how all i see and hear is how stock heat sink and fans suck from the cpu manufacturers you should start off by replacing it.

 

Second and foremost make sure you have enough airflow through your case, if you dont have enough airflow then your system will overheat and cause it to either crash or cause serious damage to all those expensive components you just went broke on purchasing.

 

Third overclocking is supposed to be a journey to see how far you can push your expensive electronic gear to its limit and still be stable by not causing damage to it.

 

My personal suggestion, look over some overclocking threads to get an idea what cpu performance you could possibly get by overclocking that new cpu you bought without frying it.

 

 

and i cant stress enough read read read, and when your done reading read some more overclocking threads

[slick2500]

And as a side note I don't think you will be able to run Need For Speed maxed out on a 9500GT.

[paulktreg]

You definately need a better graphics card and please replace that power supply! I can't find much info on the HKC 430W power supply but I'm sure it's a low cost generic and you've too much good stuff there!

 

Cheers

 

Paul

Edited August 11, 2009 by paulktreg

[AIinc]

I agree with slick,

 

Your cpu is just fine, and can be overclocked, but as suggested earlier, do as much reading about OC'ing as you can before proceeding. As slick stated your biggest draw back is going to be your 9500GT, and possibly you PSU.

 

Without getting into your PSU, if you had a GTX260, 280, 285.... you'd be in much better shape to game with highest settings!

 

Some video cards are very hard to OC, and see any measurable gains!

 

There's a lot of great info here in the forums, regarding overclocking!

Take your time, and have a good read!

 

Here's a good read about OC'ing

http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.php?showtopic=71656

Edited August 11, 2009 by Inteller

[Brutality]

wow, thank you very much everyone for your help, seems like I got a lot of reading to do if I wanna OC my system =P, but on other thoughts I might just save some money up for a new PSU and GPU, since after reading a bit on other sites, people state you can't OC the 9500GT much so it might not be worth OC'ing. And since that GPU is my drawback, it might just be better to replace it, along with a new PSU, and as you said my cpu is fine so might as well not risk damaging my system by OC'ing... just afraid I might do things wrong.. better keep things in stock if possible.

 

My cousin (computer scientist) told me that I should get a SATAII HDD, since... yea well my MBD doesn't really support old SATA HDDs but it can operate mine. Do you think it's really important to replace it by a SATAII asap, or can I save that money and just go for GPU/PSU?

 

Once again, thanks alot!

 

EDIT: He also told me it might improve my perfomance in games if I switched to Windows Vista or Windows 7... If that is the case I might buy it with the HDD, since I gotta install new OS anyways..

Edited August 12, 2009 by Brutality

[thebridgerofdoom]

overclocking your proc wont help your current situation. When playing games the usual deciding factor for fps and stuff is usually the graphic card and i doubt the 9500 will give you satisfaction on a 24 inch screen. If you can bear with your slow hd, then save the money. Get the graphic card first. Then you can decide to either upgrade the psu or the harddrive later. My recommendation is to just wait for the new dx 11 cards, so your gaming rig (sorta) is future proof for the next year or so. But make sure you get window 7 or vista, or that dx 11 card is just a damn waste of money. (wait till win 7 comes out, around that time dx 11 cards should start appearing too.)

[slick2500]

I would say get a new gpu and psu.

According to your sig you already have a SATAII hard drive, SATA = 1.5GB/s SATAII = 3GB/s if my memory serves me right. But hard drives are really cheep now days you can get 1TB drives for ~$80 US, so that is really up to you but you can never have to much hard drive space.

You might actually see a decrease in performance in some games going from XP to Vista or 7 really depends on the game and DX10 uses more resources than DX9.

I don't really understand why you got a nice motherboard and cpu and skimped out on the psu and gpu, thats like getting a Porsche and putting in a Dual (the cheep car audio stuff they sell at Wal-Mart) soundsystem.

[AIinc]

Everyone here gave you great advise! Once again, I think slick has the priority of what you need first!

 

Your hard drive, (if it's large enough for you), is just fine. The only way you would see hard drive improvement is to start a RAID Array. For now, it sounds as if you don't need to worry about that!

 

Just remember that the PSU is really the heart of any system! Both for longevity, and stability! The PSU's that have a single 12 volt rail, are usually better. The top manufacture in my opinion is PC power & cooling, or PC p&c.....I would also look for one with no less that 650 watts, plus with PSU's, more is better! Meaning you don't want to buy a PSU and then be using 90% to 100% of it's capacity! I'd say 80% at the most! So for you I might suggest a good 700 to 800 watt PSU.

 

As said earlier in slicks feedback, your GPU is going to decide how good your gaming resolution can be, and with your board you have only one 16X PCI-E slot, so you might want to look into a dual GPU video card! For single GPU cards, I would recommend an nVidia GTX-280, GTX-285, or from ATI, an HD4890. You'll get good performance from any of those cards!

[Brutality]

"I don't really understand why you got a nice motherboard and cpu and skimped out on the psu and gpu, thats like getting a Porsche and putting in a Dual (the cheep car audio stuff they sell at Wal-Mart) soundsystem."

 

Well basically I upgraded my cpu, mbd and ram, but then I realized I had to get a new gfx card because the old one didn't fit in the new mbd, so I just went for the cheapest and least better...

 

I just figured.. Is it true that windows XP won't use more than 3gb of my ram? cuz then I just wasted 1gb using windows XP?

 

EDIT: I just checked in the system tab in control panel and it says 3.25gb RAM... but is it worth changing to windows 7 (I downloaded the Windows 7 Release Candidate 64bit.. I will get like almost 1 gig more ram, but will I do better in Need For Speed Undercover (I haven't checked if it's a DX10 game but at least my gfx card is dx10, quite busy now)

Edited August 14, 2009 by Brutality