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Overclocking a GA-965P-DS3

For all you overclockers out there, 2006 was quite an exciting year, especially on the Intel side. Launching their brand new Core™ Microarchitecture, Intel core-based products have been setting new standards for exceptional overall performance. Starting with the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor and shortly followed by the Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme Quad Core processors, overclockers and general power users alike have been squeezing some impressive performance numbers from both.

In conjunction with the new processors, Intel launched their 965 series of extremely overclocking-friendly chipsets. Early on, these chipsets became the overclockers' chipset of choice, with features such as Intel® Fast Memory Access technology, which optimizes the use of available memory bandwidth and reduces the latency of memory access.

It wasn't a surprise that soon after the release of the GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3, supporting both the Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme Quad Core and Core™ 2 Duo processors and featuring the Intel P965 chipset, that FSB overclocking records started popping up in the forums. The GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 was designed with overclocking in mind, providing overclocking and over-voltage software settings through both hardware and software design, including a comprehensive set of overclocking BIOS options and the user-friendly software tools EasyTune5 and M.I.T, which makes overclocking for even the most novice users pretty simple to do.

In addition, the GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 was designed using All-Solid Capacitors, providing enhanced durability to ensure longer system operation and added system stability under extreme conditions such as overclocking. To top it all off, GIGABYTE added the Crazy Cool and Silent-Pipe cooling technologies, which provide the optimum thermal performance for chipsets, CPU power components and the PCB.

So, just how easy is it to overclock the GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3? To give you an idea, I have overclocked my GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 to FSB 400MHz in just a few easy steps that literally took me less than 2 minutes to do. Anyone can do the same, regardless of overclocking experience. Trust me! To follow up, I did some benchmarking to show the performance differences before and after.

*Overclock your system at your own risk. Please use caution!

  
       
     
 
Set Up
  
 
CPU
Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme X6800
Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 BIOS:F8
Memory
GEIL DDR2-1066 1GB x 2
Graphics
GIGABYTE GV-NX76T256D-RH
Hard Drive
Seagate 120Gb

 
     
  Inside BIOS -> Enabling M.I.T  
  Step1. [Delete] into BIOS  
  Step2. [Ctrl]+[F1] to turn on M.I.T BIOS setting function.  
  Step3. [Enter] into M.I.T.  
 
 
     
  How to OC to FSB400  
  Step1. MB Intelligent Tweaker(M.I.T)  
 
 
     
  Step2.Change [CPU Clock Ratio]， 8X  
 
 
     
  Step3.[CPU Host Clock Control] -> [Enabled]，[CPU Host Frequency(Mhz)] -> 400  
 
 
     
  Step4.[System Memory Multiplier(SPD)] -> 2 Memory Frequency 800Mhz( 2 x 400 Mhz).  
 
 
     
 
This is what your final overclocking settings should look like.
  
 
 
     
  Step5. Save your settings [Esc] -> [F10] -> [Y]  
 
 
     
 
Congrats! You have just overclocked your FSB to 400MHz.
  
 
 
     
     
  Performance Comparison (Non-OC vs OC)  
 
So now that we have done a successful overclock, let's look at the performance numbers. Obviously, people overclock in order to get a performance increase. Being able to overclock your CPU allows you to, in a sense, get more performance out of your CPU than you paid for. People on a budget can purchase a cheaper, lower frequency CPU and overclock the performance to that of one higher priced. Of course there is no such thing as a free lunch. The higher you overclock your CPU frequency, the less stable your system can become, and in fact, performance for certain tasks can actually decrease. But that is part of the fun of overclocking; seeing how far you can go while still getting the best performance to match your needs.
  
 
 
2.93GHz (266*11)
3.20GHz (400*8)
PC Mark05 H.D Score
4078
3982          
PC Mark05 Graphic Score
5953
6104    
PC Mark2005 Memory Score
5809
6444    
PC Mark05 CPU Score
7530
8189    
PC Mark05 Total Score
6907
7271    
3DMark06 Score
4191
4232    
Super PI (1M) – Lower is better
17 sec
16 sec

 
     
 
 
     
 

PC Mark05 is a common benchmarking tool that tests and evaluates the performance of your hardware and is broken down into 5 main categories: the hard disk, graphics, memory, CPU and the total score. Looking at the above graphs, you can see an obvious performance increase in the CPU, memory and graphic performance, with an increase in the overall score as well. For the hard drive, notice the score decreased slightly with the overclock. Remember, there are always tradeoffs when overclocking.

3DMark06 is a benchmarking tool that evaluates 3D gaming performance. Obviously, this heavily tests your graphics card performance, but also includes some CPU testing as well. For3DMark06, our overclock showed a performance increase.

Super PI is used to test the performance and stability of your system. Super PI evaluates the floating point unit of your CPU by testing how long it takes for your computer to calculate pi. The lower the score, the better. Again, our overclock showed some improvement.

  
     
  GIGABYTE DS3 OC to FSB500  
 
Of course there is a limit to how far you are able to overclock your CPU. There comes a point where your CPU is just not getting enough voltage. Overvoltage is another way to boost the performance of your system. By supplying your components with more power, you are able to get even greater performance for your overclocks. Again, the GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 has some easy-to-use tools to boost the voltage of your various components. If you noticed earlier in the MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) BIOS screen captures, there is a section dedicated to overvoltage. The GIGABYTE MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) allows you to control the following voltages:
 
 
[System Voltage Control]
 manually changes the voltage to your system
[DDR2 OverVoltage Control]
 manually changes the voltage to your memory modules
[PCI-E OverVoltage Control]
 manually changes the voltage to your graphics card
[FSB OverVoltage Control]
 manually changes the voltage to your Front Side Bus
[ (G)MCH OverVoltage Control]
 manually changes the voltage to your northbridge
[CPU Voltage Control]
 manually changes the voltage to your CPU

 
     
  To give an example, I was able to overclock my DS3 to FSB500 by changing the voltage to my CPU. If you notice below, I increased the voltage from 1.280 v to 1.328 v.  
 
 
     
  A word of caution. Be very careful when overvolting your system, as you can overload the components. Make sure to check with the various manufacturers the recommended voltages, and try not to go beyond them.  
     
 
   
 
 
 
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