Overclocking's only limit: Heat?

[bluestreak84]

I was just wondering, i know you cant oc too gigh cause the chip will just get so hot it melts, but i was wondering, with proper cooling is there any limit to oc'ing? I guess the multiplier would limit it, but theoretically could you push it to the max multiplier and run stabley if you kept the cpu temp around 50C?

Thanks
Dan

[Darthtanion]

Nope. Every processor is different so a lot of luck comes into play when determining the maximum OC of any given chip. You'll find a limit somewhere between FSB and Multiplier settings where the system will no longer be stable. When you get there, just back it off a bit and you're set.

Some other things to consider will be quality and performance level of memory as memory will often create a choking point for overall speeds. Also to consider is whether your motherboard allows you to lock the AGP bus at 66MHz and the PCI bus at 33.3MHz. If so then you're fine, but if not then you'll find a choke point somewhere along the way as you'll be knocking all peripherals on these busses out of spec and they will often quit working properly (or at all).

[CRsurfer]

No all chips have a certain OC limit, and it does not depend exclusively on heat. As you may have noticed, you have to raise your chips voltage setting (Vcore setting) every time your system becomes unstable and you want to keep overclocking. First of all your Mobo will have a certain limit as to how much juice (voltage) you can set your CPU to, and at certain voltages CPU's just won't work. The highest you can go will also vary from CPU to CPU even if they have the same designation. 2600+ for example will have different potentials depending on their stepping and week of production. The highest I have seen anyone take a 2600+ chip is around 2600MHz, and that required even phase changing, which for most people is out of reach since it will cost about 700 bucks.

Now people will probably get sick of me saying this, but mobile AMD chips are the ones that seem to have the highest speed limit. So far some people have been able to reach speeds slightly above 2700MHz on water cooling. So there you go I hope that helps.