P4 = Greatest overclocker ever???

[SuperCheetah]

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but I'll post it anyway. I know you guys have heard tons about the overclockability of the Northwood 1.6A P4's. I've seen plenty of reviews getting this chip up to 2.4GHZ and it being stable. That is an 800MHZ overclock for all of you non-mathmaticans.

This got me wondering what are some of the most extreme overclocks you guys have seen??? I've also seen plenty of overclocks that take the 2.4GHZ all the way to 4.0GHZ, but that's with Liquid Nitrogen and I seriously doubt it was stable at all. I want to see overclocks that are stable and accomplished with either air or watercooling, but if you see necessary please feel free to blow me away with some crazy overclocks.

My guess is that the old Celerons were the greatest overclockers ever. Anyway, if you feel so obliged, post your specs and overclock that you got your CPU to. I personally have gotten my 1.4 T-bird up to 1.6 stably with air cooling. Also, chime in with your opinion of the greatest overclockable CPU's.

 

[DogStar]

I can't comment on any O'Cing I've achieved(not with se440bx), but by crikey you've got me interested.

 

[Arris]

Related thread :

3DS Competition prize: P4 1.6a running at 2.2Ghz. With what cooling?

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Years ago, I ran my 486SX/25 @ 50 (with pentium hs&f). In percentages, better overclocking than P4 2.4@4.0
I got my dual-Celeron-366 to go to 510 stable. With only one CPU they went to about 560.
I also tried overclocking my Commodore 64, from 1 MHz to 2 MHz but its videochip didn't like that :haha:

 

[SuperCheetah]

Very nice overclocks Mictlantecuhtli!!! :hotbounce

That's what I'm talking about, percentage wise overclocks.

Posted by Mictlantecuhtli:
I also tried overclocking my Commodore 64, from 1 MHz to 2 MHz but its videochip didn't like that

LOL! I bet it didn't. Now that is a legit overclock!!! Keep 'em coming guys.

 

[T-Shirt]

The celeron was a great overclocker, but we have seen everything it can do done.
The northwood is really just starting its life cycle, there is a lot more potential left!

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

*bump*
I thought there'd be more overclockers here. Are you afraid to talk about your experiences?

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Originally posted by Mictlantecuhtli
*bump*
I thought there'd be more overclockers here. Are you afraid to talk about your experiences?

Well, isn't this thread in the wrong forum... Thought it should be in Cooling & modding... oh, well..

Oc'ed a friends celery 450 to around 700 once with only air cooling... (though quite a bit of it )

It died 2 days later when we tried for 900... (Dunno what happened to it, it just died on us... )

Other than that I've only done (on my own systems):
P100 -> p133 (passive cooling)
Duron 750 -> 1Ghz (SuperOrB) (mobo and cpu died due to faulty mobo)

Can't remember anymore right now, though I'm quite sure i've oc'ed my p2 and celery @ one time or another...

 

[SleeperDC]

i am still running 2x 366@550 100% stable on Abit BP6
do some math, that's running at 150%.

while the new P4 1.6 @ 2.2 is only running the cpu at 133%

celeron rules (2yrs ago)

 

[Phantasm66]

Originally posted by Mictlantecuhtli
*bump*
I thought there'd be more overclockers here. Are you afraid to talk about your experiences?

Here is where I have to come clean and say that I have never overclocked my CPU, nor do I have ANY plans to do so whatsoever....

Now, I am more than interested in the science behind it.... And perhaps one day, when I have some free time and the inclination, I shall dig out some ancient 486 machine and attempt it on that. I would find that interesting I am sure. Really just more as an intellectual exercise, yes.... I think that would be good and when I have time I will. I am sure there are plenty of candidate machines I have that I could use...

However, the last time I bought a motherboard and chip for my main machine, it cost me like £400.

I am sorry, but I am not made of money. Don't let this great computing genius fool you I am not very well paid, and can't afford to mess around with as much computing equipment as that. I just can't take the risk of overclocking my machine just to see if it works.... Its bad enough when the software and hardware lets you down.... Encouraging it to do so, or for a £200 CPU to burst into smoke.... That's just not something that I can afford to do.

At work I get exposure to a lot of hardware, ranging from cheapy workstations to large and expensive and complex servers. I have no need to overclock these because they are bought with the CPU horsepower that the user needs, or if its a server and we need more CPU power we buy a new CPU or a new server we don't try to wrangle out each and every last CPU cycle possible...

I am certainly by no means dismissing the practice - far from it - as I said I would like very much if time permitted to do this as an intellectual exercise on some older kit, but to do it on work equipment or my own equipment is quite simply out of the question.

I am interested in hardware but I guess really I am more of a software person as well.... I guess I am more into operating systems and the like than pure electronics. I understand these thing just fine but they are not where my true interests lie....

So I have never overclocked my CPU, and I have no plans to. I tend to get on more with actually using the computer than playing with it in that capacity, despite being deeply interested in posts about it here and also topics on sites like www.tomshardware.com as well.....

 

[TS | Crazyace]

I'm not about to do the math but here are my last 3 overclocks

celeron366 @ 600
celeron566 @ 850
P4 1.6 @ 2.4

BUT-- The P4 bus is at 200MHZ!! Yep, 200MHZ! Overclocking isn't always about FSB in this case..

So if you actually take performance in consideration, the P4 is just amazing. SiSandra scores went from 2000 to 3000 (apporx)

 

[Justin]

I've been overclocking since I first got my hands on a non-compaq 486 board when I was but a wee lad.

In total, I've done the following STABLE (I never count unstable overclocks, but I have several *hundred* of those probably), and by stable I mean the entire system was stable including no freezes due to overheat in either CPU/Video Card/whatever, stable PCI bus, stable and usable components, no anomalies.

286 8mhz to 12mhz
386 SX 16mhz to 22mhz
386 DX 33mhz to 37mhz
Intel 486 33mhz to 45mhz
AMD 486DX2 66mhz to 100mhz
AMD 486DX4 100mhz to 160mhz using only heatsink (believe it or not! In fact I still have this board/processor, one day I will take pics of it)
Intel Pentium 75mhz to 120mhz, stable with heatsink and a standard slot 1 pentium 2 fan (4500rpm)
Intel Pentium 200mhz to 266mhz
AMD k5 75mhz to 90mhz
AMD k5 90mhz to 120mhz
AMD k5 pr133 (90mhz internal to 120mhz)
AMD k6 233mhz to 300mhz
AMD k62 350mhz to 510mhz
ST 133mhz 6x86 to 200mhz (this one was hard, needing a different heatsink and a fast fan)
Intel Celeron 300A (300mhz) to 550mhz
Intel Pentium 2 Deschutes 400mhz to 533mhz with the original heatsink/fan
Intel Celeron 600 to 900mhz (three of these total)
Intel Celeron 600 to 966mhz
Intel Pentium 3 Slot 1 1000mhz Server processor to 1,250mhz
Intel Pentium 3 Tualatin 1200mhz to 1,450mhz
Intel Pentium 3 Celeron 1000mhz to 1,100mhz
AMD Thunderbird 1000mhz to 1200mhz


I've had countless other failures or machines that may have been stable processor wise, but had problems with overheating in other components, or unstable devices. The pentium 3 server processor (for LG boards) could probably go much higher with better cooling, however the board it is currently in is NOT an LG board so it has problems with voltage and therefore stays at 1,100mhz, any higher then that and the CDRW fails to work and the soundcard has issues.

I can't afford new systems, so I'm not able to test much with them, and most of the higher end systems above are owned by people other then myself, however I am an avid overclocker/tweaker and I'm getting into being a mod'er.

I'd say overall, what chip overclocks the best is dependant on an extreme number of factors, including the board used, the type of cooling, the chip itself, and other things. Celerons have always seemed to be very tolerant of overclocking, but even a celeron at a faster speed will still be outperformed by a much slower pentium or duron/thunderbird. The early pentiums were easy to overclock, and easy to keep cool, except for the pentium 60 (it was a pain).

Slot 1 CPUs were more difficult to overclock because of the design, but were the funnest, IMO. I haven't used any of the newer boards personally so I can't comment on those, however when I can afford them I will be having a field day with them all.

Heh... I think people need to stop being so scared of overclocking.

 

[Rick]

Percentage wise, I think the P4 ranks up there most definitely and I think it could very well be the best overclocker per ratio.

The Celeron follows in fairly close though.