Please Read Disclaimer at the bottom of this post.
This guide will be broken up into 4 major sections and smaller sub-sections.
Here is a list of free software i recommend you download to help with performance and overclocking.
Hardware Monitor (Must Have For Benchmarking System Temperatures)
CPU-Z
GPU-Z
ClockGen (Recommended For Software Overclocking Of CPU/FSB)
SetFSB
GameBooster ( Recommended for those with limit system memory)
Overclocking CPU/RAM
“Overclocking” in lamen terms means making something run faster than it was designed for. This sometimes can make your system unstable if overclocked too high. Also overclocking a processing unit makes that processor run hotter than normal so testing under the new speed is a must. These test are referred to as “Benchmarking”.
Hardware Overclocking through your Bios settings is the preferred method to overclock your CPU and RAM. If you have a custom build PC find out from who you purchased the system what motherboard is in your system. This is very important as some motherboards settings are locked in certain models of a company’s brand. All i repeat all OEM a.k.a Store bought branded PCs have lock bios so this is not an option for you. For those with custom systems do a search or look at your motherboard manual on how to get to your bios settings usually (F8, F10, F12, F2 or delete) & for what overclock settings you have and where they are located. Now for most motherboards this setting menu is called Cell. In here you should have a Ratio setting, a FSB setting, and a memory clock setting.
Ratio Setting
Most CPU Ratio Settings are locked, only Black Edition AMD CPUs and Extreme Edition Intel CPUs have unlocked ratios. The frequency at which a processor (CPU) operates is determined by applying a clock multiplier to the front-side bus (FSB) speed in some cases. For example, a processor running at 3200 MHz might be using a 400 MHz FSB. This means there is an internal clock multiplier setting (also called bus/core ratio) of 8. Ratio is more important for extreme overclocking rather than a small bump in clock speed. A lower ratio and higher increase in front side bus speed can sometimes render a more stable overclock. I’ve seen this more often in AMD processors than Intels. I suggest leaving your ratio alone.
Front Side Bus Settings
Setting a FSB speed is related directly to the speed grade of memory a system must use. The memory bus connects the northbridge and RAM, just as the front-side bus connects the CPU and northbridge. Often, these two buses must operate at the same frequency. Increasing the front-side bus to 450 MHz in most cases also means running the memory at 450 MHz. What this means is to run your system at a higher front side bus you need RAM that can handle overclocking to a degree. now most good unlocked motherboards will change the FSB-to-memory ratio to keep your ram around its stock speeds however this can cause bottleneck where the CPU is waiting for the ram to perform its operations before moving onto its next task.
READ BEFORE OVERCLOCK THE FRONT SIDE BUS most motherboards have 2 or 3 options to protect you from a bad overclock. Newer motherboards have a failsafe after a bad overclock or CMOS setting just keep resetting or powering on and off your system with the power button (don’t unplug your PC repeatedly). Newer motherboards also have a pin header that lets you switch between multiple CMOS (bios) chips; This is basically meant to be used as a failsafe, I would not recommend setting both chips to overclock the CPU or RAM because if you need to research as to why you’re getting problems you can’t because both are having stability issues. If al else fails r you have an older motherboard There is a round battery on your motherboard you can pull out that should reset your CMOS (bios) settings.
PHEW now that I got that out-of-the-way time to experiment. one thing to remember is your FSB gets rounded off in a sense. I would suggest the first thing you go is bump your FSB up in small increments (Some boards have a feature that does a gradual increase of FSB speed). Raise the FSB by about 32 mhz and see
1) how high your FSB was set to after the round off
2) how high your CPU frequency went up
With Hardware Monitor (Core 1 through 4 if you have a Dual-core CPU)
3) go into windows and check how hot your CPU is when its idle (not doing any work)
4) check how hot your CPU gets when doing major tasks like compressing data or if you have vista or higher run the system assessment test in the properties menu of my computer.
Software Overclocking
For Most OEM/Branded PCs this is your only option to overclock your FSB. However for a select few OEM systems some excellent coders have created modified bios that unlock the locked bios settings. I will provide a list and a download for these bios. All credit will go to the coder for this
Now there are multiple methods of doing this however I personally have used Nvidia Control Panel and Clockgen. Nvidia control panel is excellent if you have a Nvidia chipset motherboard and a Nvidia graphics card. For those with an Intel Chipset I recommend ClockGen however using is a hit and miss if your PLL is not listed however select the next closest PLL has worked for me. Below is an image of clockgen and its bells and whistles.
Now at some point in overclocking through bios or Software you will hit the FSB Wall of your motherboard and can not clock it any higher. Do not keep trying to push pass this point as you can damage your northbridge controller.
Thought I’d post this so far but there is still more like………
Registry & Startup
Overclocking Video Card
Software
Bios Flash
Hard Drive Space & Free Memory
From Xbox To Playstation 