Overclock help required !

[hulkbuster]

Hello,
     i have Intel Pentium Dual Core E5700,
Motherboard Model: ECS G31T-M7
Motherboard Chipset: Intel G31 (Bearlake) + ICH7

I want to overclock my pc, but do not know the process to do so.
Could someone tell me how could i achieve that.

Thank you for your patience.

[Ath]

What for?
The most you'll get out of it is around 5 to 10%, but you'll hardly notice the difference.
Replacing the HDD with a current model at 7200 rpm or an SSD is going to gain you much more improvement, especially when processing (stored) data.

Btw, that processor was eol'd over 2 years ago, and the combination of model ('Pentium') and GHz (3.0) doesn't give much room for speed improvement.

[40hz]

A quick rule of thumb is to look up your CPU on the CPU World website and check the overclocking information for the chip as a starting point.

But I agree with Ath, it would hardly be worth it considering its age.* And it wouldn't be easy to replace if you fried it since it's well past its EOL point. So I'd think twice. A faster drive would render the most benefit for your effort and expense.


--------------------------
*Having overclocked in the past, I've since come to the conclusion that unless you get very lucky with the chip you have, the results aren't worth the effort or risk of damage - unless you're primarily doing it for the learning experience.

[Shades]

From memory, the E5700 CPU was never intended to be used for games. And that area is where overclocking is mostly used. Get more RAM and the fastest RAM your motherboard supports, besides the SSD of course.

My Asus motherboard is an inbetween one, hence it supports DDR2 RAM modules but at DDR3 speeds. So I bought 2 of those RAM modules which are almost twice as fast as the normal ones. And with my E8200 CPU (also dual core, but intended for games) + ATi Radeon 4670 I still play games such as Skyrim at 1920x1080 resolution without a hitch. The only thing I regret is having the budget to only buy 2 GByte of those RAM modules.

Lack of RAM is the only reason for me to think about buying a new personal system. For all my other intends and purposes this PC is more than adequate. When creating 7zip archives in ultra mode this system is barely slower than an i5 from a Dell laptop I fixed a month or so ago.

Spend money on getting good hardware parts that work nicely together. That way you don't need to spent so much on hardware every 3 to 4 years or so. If you do your homework with this, the PC you'll end up with will last significantly longer.

My only problem now is that I cannot buy those fast DDR2 modules anymore, only the standard ones that are clocked at 800MHz. And I don't want those modules as these will slow done my faster RAM modules. A sacrifice I don't want to make, hence my regret regarding budget.

Maybe it is a better idea to spent money on a better videocard than your current one if the purpose of overclocking is gaming.

[Innuendo]

I remember the good ole days of having a 300 MHz Celeron and being able to overclock it to 450 MHz.

Unfortunately, those days are gone. If you don't have high quality RAM to go along with a high quality CPU, you're only going to experience headaches when trying to overclock.

It's not worth it and things have gotten to the point that even 3 or 4 year old computers are plenty fast enough to do everything except some demanding games.

[hulkbuster]

Thank you for replying to the post , with all varied suggestion and some insight to overclocking. Its not for the purpose of game, i just want to test and see, how the performance vary when the chipset is overclocked.
Guess i will plug another 2 GB ram and stick with a total of 4 GB in a 32 bit pc, which is old.

[TaoPhoenix]

You didn't say what OS you are running. For Win Vista/7 and maybe Win8 there's a system setting to "tune to best performance" that tells it to quit wasting time on drawing Aero/esque beveled edges and stuff.

You should define "which program exactly do I want to run faster". So if it's just point-and-click, that's one fast and easy trick. If it's not a game, what else do you need to run faster? Aka why are you doing this?

[Shades]

On a 32-bit version of Windows you won't be able to access all of the 4GByte of RAM. If you want a general speedup, use an SSD. According to TLom's hardware, you hardly go wrong with the brands Intel and Samsung, but any brand will give your computer a big boost.

You might even want to consider doing a fresh installation of a 64-bit Windows version. All the "speediness" from a fresh install with 4GBYTE of RAM and an SSD..., you will be amazed about the leap your old computer is able to make.

Then again, the money you will spend on getting your old system fast will also let you buy the core of a new PC (motherboard, CPU, RAM). For example, my Asus motherboard costed me about 100 USD at the time, and decent boards are still had for that price. My CPU was around 200 USD and nowadays 200-250 USD will buy you a decent i5 and spend 50 USD more for 8GByte of RAM (2 modules of 4GByte is better+faster than one module of 8GByte).

You can still use your old PC case, the old power supply is usually capable enough, a PCI express video card can be re-used and your SATA/SATA2 hard disk will work good enough as well, especially with a fresh Windows installation. An optical disk is hardly necessary anymore nowadays, so if you have one that still uses IDE, you might as well drop it. Most new motherboards do not come with physical IDE connectors anymore.

So if you are handy and able to do the work of swapping out motherboards etc. yourself, you'll spend around 400 USD to get a new PC. That amount of money you will also spend on DDR2 modules and an SSD for your old system (prices are just an indication and are based on prices in Paraguay, US prices are normally a bit lower).

With the new PC you can later on spend around 100 USD more to get a new SATA3 disk (1TByte) and a somewhat decent new 1GByte video card. After that, spend 20 USD more to get an el cheapo PC case (with power supply) for your old ECS motherboard and restore that old system with the old hard disk and video card. One (recommended) use is to try Linux on it, you could use it as an extra/backup PC, sell it for whatever pittance you still can get or even donate it to family/poor/church/whatever.

Decisions, decisions, decisions   

[Ath]

Well, I got the impression from the OP that he's looking for a low-to-zero-cost speedboost, but I may be wrong...

[Innuendo]

Well, I got the impression from the OP that he's looking for a low-to-zero-cost speedboost, but I may be wrong...

-Ath (April 22, 2014, 11:47 AM)

Same here...can't spend it if ya ain't got it to spend.

[Shades]

That is the problem with updating previous generation machines. Expanding RAM and newer/better hard disk are the items that give your system the most noticeable speed boost.

It is quite difficult to get those part here in Paraguay and the prices reflect that. For example, take RAM. DDR2 modules are not being produced anymore for quite some time and I doubt you still can get new ones here. And for the price of one slow (secondhand) 1GByte DDR2 module I can also buy a 8GByte module (from the same or better brand) and still have some change left.

Now I assume that this situation is more or less the same globally. And after all, you add new hardware to already older hardware and you should determine if that purchase will be valid for a sufficient amount of time. We are talking about older hardware that is likely going to fail sooner than later, when compared with a new PC.

Hence I always bought/build PC's as best I have budget for...and don't upgrade any part afterwards (the hard disk being the exception). To my mind that has never been cost effective and therefore I start saving for my next PC the moment I buy the current one. A strategy that works for me, at least.