NCAAbbs

Or anybody else about CPU clock speeds. I notce in your sig here it says your CPU is designed to run at 2.8GHz, but is actually running at 3.219917GHz? I'm not trying to bust your whatever here, but what determines clock speed in a CPU? Is the clock generator built into the chip or is it external? How do you generate a frequency of over 3GHz? When I worked the ships we had a 10cm radar that operated somehwere right about 3GHz. The way the radar generated this frequency was with a strong pulse going through a Magnetron that resonated at that frequency. If you don't know it's OK, but I wonder if anybody on the board knows? As I am a radio technician, my knowledge of computers is limited.

Thanks

I really dont know jack about it, but I think it is called overclocking, you may want to google it to find out more, or GTS will have an answer for you in the morning. lmfao lmfao lmfao

Endzone2 Wrote:Or anybody else about CPU clock speeds. I notce in your sig here it says your CPU is designed to run at 2.8GHz, but is actually running at 3.219917GHz? I'm not trying to bust your whatever here, but what determines clock speed in a CPU? Is the clock generator built into the chip or is it external? How do you generate a frequency of over 3GHz? When I worked the ships we had a 10cm radar that operated somehwere right about 3GHz. The way the radar generated this frequency was with a strong pulse going through a Magnetron that resonated at that frequency. If you don't know it's OK, but I wonder if anybody on the board knows? As I am a radio technician, my knowledge of computers is limited.

Thanks

Terms:
Front Side Bus - Primary data pathway between CPU and Motherboard/RAM.

The clock speed is deduced by multiplying the real Front Side Bus speed by the multiplier on the CPU. I say say real FSB speed because when you see specs of, say a 800 Mhz FSB ... that is really quad 200 Mhz, for an effective 800 Mhz. The multiplier on most CPUs is locked and you cannot change it. It is unlockable on some Extreme Edition Intel chips, and was historically unlocked on AMD chips, though I'm not sure what the current status is in that regard. If the multiplier is unlocked, you can simply increase the multiplier to make (rather large) jumps of CPU clock speed. If it's not unlocked, you have to increase the FSB speed to force the CPU to operate at a higher clock due to its multiplier. You use to have to mess with all kinds of jumpers on the motherboard to overclock, but these days on moderate to enthusiast motherboards, overclocking is as simple as a slider setting in the BIOS. That is the way my desktop, which has an Asus P4P800 SE motherboard, is. You can select 5%, 10%, 20%, and 30% overclocks.... you can also fine tune it (which I have done) to get the most out of your overclock. I can POST at 3.51 Ghz, but cannot boot. I can boot at 3.48 Ghz, but it's not stable. I'm reasonably stable from 3.3 Ghz down.

Also worth mentioning:
Overclocking can void the warranty on your motherboard, RAM, and CPU, because you are forcing higher voltage, faster operating, and higher heat loads on your system. This isn't a problem for small overclocks, especially regarding the CPU. The difference between a PIV 2.8 Ghz and a PIV 3.06 Ghz is that Intel forced one to run slower. They're literally the exact same chip coming out of the foundry. Most enthusiast memory and motherboards these days still allow you to keep your warranty provided you don't go over certain voltage limits. Intel/AMD aren't so overclocker friendly at this time, and likely will never be since you're basically getting a free upgrade from them, costing them several hundred dollars. It's also very important to get a quality CPU heatsink, because you will force the CPU to run a fair amount hotter. Don't even bother with anything more than a small overclock using the stock cooler that came with your PC. If you are a good overclocker, you'll also need to run something like Prime95, a very CPU intensive application that will check the validity of your CPU. If you push it too hard, your CPU can actually tell you 2+2=5 ... and Prime95 checks for such errors.