Overclocked e8400

[bootsy72]

Hey Guys,
First, this sight is awesome. This forum is too. Everyone who makes this sight what it is deserves a "You're awesome!"

Second, I just overclocked my e8400 to 3.6ghz from 3.0. My temps are safe and I ran orthos for an hour and all was stable. The reason I am here is because I just ran vista's performance tester and my CPU score DECREASED from 5.9 to 5.8. How is it that .6ghz faster decreased my experience?!

Any thoughts?

I have the RAM and CPU at a 1 to 1 ratio (9 x 400--RAM = 2 x 400)

Thanks!

[The Wise Monkey]

Vista's performance tester isn't that great. Try running PCMark Vantage before and after the overclock and see if your score changes:

http://www.futuremark.com/download/

[bootsy72]

I downloaded 3dMark and my score is improved by 1,000 points with the e8400 oc'd to 3.6 ghz.

I have another question: I am using a Gigabyte P35-DS3L mobo and when I set the voltages to auto with the oc it tells me that the voltage is optimized and boots into windows normally (though I have not run Orthos).

When I manually set the voltage on the CPU (at about 1.23) it boots normally and can handle Orthos, but it tells me that my voltages are not optimized.

I'm afraid to leave it on auto because I'm afraid it might be giving too much voltage. What do you think?

[The Wise Monkey]

Yeah, don't leave it on auto - I did that once on a Gigabyte motherboard when I was overclocking an older CPU and it put so much voltage through the CPU that it exploded... :/

Manually setting it is the best way to get a stable overclock as leaving it on auto tends to err on the high side, as you suspected.

[bootsy72]

Sweet. Thanks WMonkey

[The Wise Monkey]

No problem. Just go carefully with it, and you should get some great results. :D