Step 6: Refine and reiterate

With a 300MHz FSB safely in the bag, I rebooted the machine and returned to the BIOS. Increasing the FSB to 320MHz was an easy next step, and the PC complied without a problem. The next milestone was 350MHz. The PC booted, but hung when loading Windows. Again, temperature wasn't an issue, so I stepped up the vcore. The P5K Premium allows fine-grained control over CPU voltage, so I gradually worked my way up to 1.45V, at which point the PC loaded Windows and could handle a workout in Orthos.

At 350MHz, the CPU was ticking over at 3.15GHz - more than 25 per cent quicker than its reference speed. I left the memory divider at a 1:1 ratio, so it was now running at 350MHz (700MHz effective), 100MHz below its rated speed, which meant there was still some headroom for a higher overclock . The massive FSB and high clock speed were beginning to pay big dividends in the benchmarks too, with my system's video encoding score climbing to 1,731, almost 400 points higher than it was at stock speeds.

From 350MHz, I gradually worked my way up. The system was stable at 360MHz with a 1.45V vcore, but in Orthos, the CPU temperature hit 75˚C. If I planned to keep this overclock permanently, this is the point at which I would consider moving from an HSF to a water-cooled setup. I managed to push the FSB to 385MHz without needing more vcore.

My next goal was a 400MHz FSB, which would increase the CPU's speed to 3.6GHz-1.2GHz above its starting point. The PC wasn't stable until I upped the vcore to 1.5V. With this amount of voltage, the chip reached a scorching 87˚C under load in Orthos - again, not recommended for permanent use. Needless to say, the benchmark scores were very good. This was as far as I could progress, however; beyond this stage, the PC crashed continually.

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