Overclocking

Back in the day it used to be that overclocking meant that you changed the mhz in th bios and you could squeeze 10% more out of your computer system. Okay I bought Oblivion and I installed it on my home pc and it crawled. DAMN! I was jonsing to play.

Okay my home pc wasn't all that, hell I still had an AGP card in it! GASP the horror of it all. I started to take a look at my system in more detail and I realized I was only able to clock the CPU to 1.25 GHZ. What the hell? I began to fiddle with my BIOS settings and nothing I did was able to get the processor over that 1.25 GHZ speed. I thought I had a 2.8 GHZ processor.

The next day I took the machine apart and disassembled the fan and the cpu. The CPU had a corner of it chipped off. UGH. I thought I'd replace it, but the Socket A CPUs are pretty much a thing of the past and all I could find was a 2.2 GHZ. This would simply not do. How could I play Oblivion on such a slow CPU.

So I upgraded my system, not by choice, but it had to be done. I got a DC 3.8 AMD SLI system. I could only afford one video card right now, but here are the specs for those who care:

A8N SLI Asus mb
3800 AMD X2 (Duel core)
2 gigs ram
7800 GT video card
250 Sata 300/mbs hd

Not a bad system and with the new psu, it runs very quiet. But trying to get some speed out it has been a pain in the ass. I'm not able to clock it very fast as it freaks out and stops working. I think I'm at about 2.3 GHZ about a 5% gain from stock.

What frustrates me is that not only do you have to worry about pure numbers. HTT, FSP, Multipler and memory speeds, but you also have to worry about voltage on each of the three main systems. Since I haven't done much hard overclocking over the years it has been a bit of a relearning process. So I'm left with two thoughts. Either my airflow inside my computer sucks (thinking of using a sideways cooler ) or I don't know what I'm doing - which means I can't comphrend overclocking issues.


Still the game looks beautiful with this system as is. I have most of the settings turned up and I run from 30-60 fps depending on the circumstances. Fights are smooth and beautiful.

One thing I will add about getting Oblivion for the xbox360 vs teh computer. From what I've been reading, getting mods for the xbox has been an issue while I have about 10 mods installed. Modding this game is the way to go, check out the forums for some great addons and textures. There are mods I think should be required to make the game more enjoyable to play.

One final point, playing Oblivion. With the chances I've had to play I've really taken on the whole roleplaying aspect of it rather than hurry up to win the game. I've taken the approach to savor all the possibilities the game has to offer. I've created two characters a knight and a assassin and plan on going down two separate paths of decisions with them.

cya laterz