Need help on overclocking Pentium 4.

power_drain

I have no past experience in overclocking. But I really want to play oblivion comfortably. So I was wondering if I could overclock my 1.99/2.0 Ghz Pentium 4 a little bit. I have absolutly no experience. So if this task is possible, how might I go about it? I asked one of my teachers from school, and he said the trick is, keeping the processor cool?..What does that mean?

temeteus82

He means that if you have stock cooler you need to get after market cooler that can handle the heat better.

Nick0323

I'm running a 3GHz P4 at 3.3GHz but I can tell you now its pointless. You wont get any performance games, your best option is to buy a new Pentium 4 which range from £30 to £50. A 2.4Ghz is a good starting point but a 3GHz is even better.

To give you an example I swapped out my 2.4GHz for a 3GHz and saw a 10FPS improvement in all my games.

If your pentium 4 is a Northwood your standard cooler will be fine, if your going after the more limited 1mb cache Prescott edition than an aftermarket cooler would be essential as these tend to run hotter due to the larger cache dye.

The Prescott's give a better performance gain on their own due to having double the cache compared with the Northwood, you can see how much by looking in my specs below.

power_drain

What socket types are pentium 4's?..btw thanks for the advice Ill see if I can buy a newer Pentium 4.

kris23

they are 478 and 775, i got a 3.0GHzPrescott imnot using anymore....... dunno if it works though......