Overclocking the Athlon 64 - Page 1

Overclocking is the process of making various components in your computer run at faster speeds than they were set to do when you first bought them. Overclocking is possible because most components are actually built to handle higher speeds than their default values. Most manufacturers will set their hardware to run at the most stable speed possible (and they often set it to run even slower than this speed). Many people wonder "why not just set the hardware to run at its fastest possible speed?!".

The answer is fairly simple; it's mainly down to reliability, and the shear volume of components that are made by some manufacturers. Selling components that perform at their maximum possible speeds would increase the risk of hardware faults (and thus returns). Would you buy something from a company known for slightly unstable/unreliable hardware? Manufacturers don't want to take this risk. Also, the level of testing required to find the absolute maximum speed for every piece of hardware shipped would quickly add to the production costs, in turn making the retail price for the hardware higher. By overclocking, you are simply taking advantage of that safety margin.

It is also sometimes economically wise to greatly reduce the speed of a 'high-end' product (contrary to what you would think), and then sell it in the budget/mid-range market (where there are more sales, and greater profits to be had), this again affects the amount you can overclock a component. This practice becomes more and more common as a company refines the process of manufacturing its products (when slower and faster chips cost the same to make, it's often wise to simply make the fastest type, and then slow them down later).

The most common component that people overclock is the processor, or CPU (central processing unit), as this is both fairly easy to do, and gives rather significant performance benefits. Now while it's fairly easy to overclock your processor, say, 5-10% over its default clock speed, things can get more difficult as you try to push things further.

Now for some people, overclocking that nice new CPU can be a daunting prospect, which is far too risky to even think about. Some may look at the results of others on the internet and think "mine probably won't go that fast" or "I'll bet that was really hard to do". The truth is that overclocking can be done both safely and fairly easily, as long as you take things slowly and get your head around what's actually happening when you change various settings.

That leads me to today's article, 'Overclocking the Athlon 64'. With this article I hope to help you understand how various settings affect your system, without going into any overly complex jargon. And if anything complex does crop up, you can rest assured that I'll try and go through it slowly and simply. I also hope to share a few of the secrets of overclocking your system as far as it can go, while still remaining safe and stable. This article is therefore not just aimed at beginners, but also the more advanced users who want to know more about what's going on. Those who aren't too sure about this 'overclocking lark' should walk away with something, as should the more experienced users who are trying to get all they can from their system.

I am NOT going to just say "change setting 'X' and 'Z'"; I want you first to actually appreciate what's happening when you overclock. This will make the article long, and for that I apologise, but there simply isn't a quicker way of explaining some of these things! If you do want to skip ahead to the actual overclocking bit, be my guest, I have even made a quick step-by-step guide for the impatient, but I would strongly advise against using it without reading the other information in this article first.

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Article Navigation:

• Introduction
  • What is Overclocking?
  • The Dangers of Overclocking
  • Overclocking basics
• The Differences in the A64 Platform
  • Athlon 64 Multipliers
  • Athlon 64 and the missing FSB..
• RAM and what it has to do with Overclocking
  • Memory dividers
  • Timing is everything...
• Voltage and how it affects Overclocking
• Cooling and Other Hardware Considerations
  • TIM the enchanter
  • The Sometimes Overlooked Hardware
• Let's start Overclocking!
  • Tools of the trade
  • Overclocking the CPU - Part 1
  • Overclocking the CPU - Part 2
  • Overclocking the Memory
  • Putting it all together
• Conclusion
• Overclocking 'Crib Sheet'