Should i do overclocking on my sys?

[edijs]

Hi!

If you'll take a look at My Computer, you'll notice the suppressingly odd thing that my Intel Pentium4 3.0GHz w/ HT runs with 533 MHz FSB and a external clock 133MHz (stock). My moboses BIOS allows me to raise the CPUs external clock and modify RAM settings as well (I know that several mobos have blocked overclockings).

So, should I? ...

Thanks!

 

[Big B]

There's nothing odd about a 533MHz FSB for a P4. They operate with a quad-pumped FSB, 4x the external clock. They came in varieties of 400MHz, 533MHz and 800MHz FSB's.

As far as overclocking goes, it's not a matter of should or should not, more for the pure "because I can" aspect of it. Being that you've got a VIA-based board, you're probably still dealing with PCI:FSB dividers, so keep this in mind. The PCI bus (and also AGP) used to be linked to the FSB and ran at a ratio. PCI runs at 33MHz. In order to get that, it's related to your external clock at a ratio of 1:3 (PCI:FSB) for a traditional 100MHz clock. In your case, you're starting off with a 1:4 ratio: 33:133. Most PCI devices start acting up around 40MHz, so you're likely going to end up being capped at 150-160, unless you can reach 166MHz. That's provided you have a 1:5 divider.

If you want to experiment, go for it. Take it slowly and test it with [google]Prime95[/google] for a full 24 hours straight. That's a good indicator that the CPU can fully function at that speed.