Overclocking and other ways to improve system performance.

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bgfan

Grandmaster Knight
Well, as some of you may remember, a few months back I bought a few new parts for my computer (spending a total of $400). Unfortunately, my father decided at the last moment he didn't want to put out another $300 for a good processor. This has caused me to be unable to run games in which large amounts of data need to be handled at any decent graphical level (also known as bottlenecking). I figure I should at least be able to run Battlefield: Bad Company 2 at medium to high settings with an ATI Radeon HD 6850. It is for this reason that I'm requesting a bit more information concerning overclocking and other ways to improve system performance. If all goes well I may even move on to overclock other hardware, however I would rather begin by testing it out on my ****ty processor than my fairly new $200 card and 750 watt power supply. Anyways, any help would be appreciated. Oh by the way would my 1920x1080 resolution monitor perhaps be another major factor in performance?
 
I can't give you any advice on CPU overclocking as I've never done it but with the ATI card you can use the AMD Overdrive in the CCC. I've used it and I gained quite a lot of speed.

As for the resolution, I have a 24" monitor with the same resolution as you and in most cases I've found lowering the resolution has no effect on FPS, correct me if I'm wrong but maybe resolution doesn't effect FPS as much as with older cards.
 
My monitor is 27", so I'm not sure if there would be a difference between mine and yours performance-wise. Oh and would you care to elaborate on this CCC?
 
Core2Duo's are pretty damn good for overclocking, though I've only used the 7400. That was 2.8Ghz, and it went up to 3.4 with minimal tweaking. So you should be pretty good. Your best bet is to google a guide specific to your sort of processor, but it's mostly just messing with settings in the BIOS, assuming you have an overclock section in yours.
 
Download core temp and see what your idle temperature is in both cores and also the temp when playing Battlefield BC2. I discovered that I couldn't really overclock my CPU because the crappy stock cooler means it reaches the mid to high 60's under load already.

 
I bought two 60cm fans, plus I keep it in a well air conditoned room. Oh and here's the readings from HWinfo:

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I am surprised the performance is that bad as dual core utilised at 2.7ghz is still pretty good. I have a 2.4ghz processor and it only really causes me hassle with old one core games (10 fps in Morrowind wtf  :evil: ) and flight sims with a worse graphics card than yours. There are videos on youtube of people playing BFBC2 on high settings with your processor and a worse graphics card, have you got the best 6850 driver released?

How many frames are you getting?

You have 1gb vram which is ample for your resolution, it's not like you are going nuts with 3 screens.


If you are looking to overclock then look for guides and follow them to the letter, preferably with your exact motherboard and CPU.

A quick look for your combo brings up this thread http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/263273-11-asus-5571-board-bios and another which suggests that you cannot overclock on your motherboard due to being locked out. Hopefully a later unlocked bios has been released but this may be a dead end.
 
Pressing delete brings me to a menu with 6 sections:

Main, Advanced, Power, Boot, Tools, and Exit.

I clicked advanced and discovered 6 sections:

Jumperfree, CPU Configuration, Chipset, Onboard Devices Config, USb Config, and PCIPnP

I figured CPU Config was the best choice so I clicked it, it gave me these options:

Manufacturer: Intel
Brand String: Pentium (R) Dual Core CPU E5400 @
                      2.70 GHz
Frequency: 2.70 GHz
FSB Speed: 800 MHZ
Cache L1: 64 KB
Cache L2: 2048 KB
Radio Status: Unlocked (Min:06, Max:13.5)
Radio Actual Value: 13.5
CPUID: 1067A

((This is where things stop being greyed out))

CPU Ratio Settings: Auto
C1E Support: Enabled
Max CPUID Value limit: Disabled
Intel (R) Virtualization Tech: Enabled
CPU TM Function: Enabled
Execute-Disable Bit Capability: Enabled
Intel (R) SpeedStep (TM) Tech: Enabled
Intel (R) C-STATE Tech: Disabled

 
Alright, at this point I've come to believe I'm unable to overclock using BIOS with my current motherboard. For this reason I've downloaded AMD Overdrive, as I've heard these programs will allow me to overclock, despite my issues with Bios. Of course if somebody can find me a Bios update that will allow me to overclock, I'd be extremely grateful.
 
Bgfan said:
Alright, at this point I've come to believe I'm unable to overclock using BIOS with my current motherboard. For this reason I've downloaded AMD Overdrive, as I've heard these programs will allow me to overclock, despite my issues with Bios. Of course if somebody can find me a Bios update that will allow me to overclock, I'd be extremely grateful.

Change CPU ratio to manual. Then you get overclock options.
 
Just found out through that link posted that my laptop is running at 78 degrees...
 
Burgass said:
Just found out through that link posted that my laptop is running at 78 degrees...

Damn, what's the cpu thermal limit?

The other week I opened my laptop up and cleaned the dust off the cpu fan and the vents. It took 10 - 12 degrees out of the temperature straight away. It is well worth doing if it is easy to get to.
 
Nameless Warrior said:
Burgass said:
Just found out through that link posted that my laptop is running at 78 degrees...

Damn, what's the cpu thermal limit?

105, running demanding games like Dod:s (on max) gives a temp of 95, so that's okay.
 
Alright, well I updated my Bios and then went on to install AMD Overdrive, at which point my computer began crashing repeatedly. I did a system recovery and now that problem is fixed, however I have now spent the past 15 hours trying to fix an unidentified network problem in which my computer won't connect to the home network. I'm pretty much at the point where a system restore (causing me to lose 800 gigs of data) is looking pretty good. Please tell me somebody here can tell me what Microsoft support couldn't.
 
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