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Question

can i overclock a amd athlon 2 x4 3.10ghz processor?

by Oct 1, 2012 12:21PM PDT

i basicly want to get the most i can out of my cpu so is it possible to overclock it? the bios settings now are -gpu engine clock 700, -cpu 200mhz. note: i dont mind if i attempt it and burn up the system in the proses i want a new set up anyway i jsut want to see if i can make this one faster without spending more money. i have a asus m4a88t-m mother board and its unlocked so i can adjust the settings.

Discussion is locked

5 Posts
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Answer
Look like no.
by Former Forum moderator Oct 1, 2012 1:24PM PDT

If you could, you would. Maybe you are asking if anyone knows how and not if you can?

If so, let's find out.

Reading http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3/M4A88TM/ it looks like it's supported. Rather than duplicate the maker's web pages, why not use that?
Bob

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qustion
by custom8080 Oct 1, 2012 3:49PM PDT

so like with the turbo V and turbo key do you know how i can open those programs or do i have to download them or something i have the disk that came with the mother board but i cant find much usefull stuff on it. note: im not used to these newer computers as much as the older ones, still learning

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nvm
by custom8080 Oct 1, 2012 3:56PM PDT

nvm i found it on the cd i was looking in the wrong folder

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I agree.
by r. proffitt Former Forum moderator Oct 1, 2012 4:25PM PDT

Today's documentation is sometimes a hoot.
Bob

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Answer
You can, but
by Oct 2, 2012 12:09AM PDT

You can, but since we're dealing with a quad core CPU, I wouldn't. It was tricky enough dealing with single core CPUs, but now you essentially have four CPUs in one, and if one of them starts getting a little too hot, that heat will bleed over into the others. This is why Intel made their Turbo Boost system dependent upon the number of active cores, and I'm sure AMD does something similar in later CPUs.

I'd also wager a guess that you aren't really using the full potential of your current setup, or rather your programs aren't. There's still a bit of a game of catchup being played by software companies to make better use of parallel processing instead of the old method of just trying to jam each task through as fast as possible. The problem is that programming for parallel CPUs/cores is tricky, and there's really only so much the OS process scheduler can do.

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