Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L Motherboard

[wiggywinger]

Hi everyone 

After my recent upgrade, I have decided to wait 6 months or so, before purchasing a new Motherboard/CPU combo. Due to the impending release of the Intel Sandy Bridge chip and a new AMD six core which was released last week.

Following advice from the contributors on this forum (DM especially). I have decided to try and maximise what I have, till the prices of the I5 series and six core entry level start to fall.(£200 stashed in a bank account the wife doesnt know about,towards it  He He)

So I have purchased 4GB of Crucial Ballistix DDR2 PC2-6400 which arrived today, to tide me over whilst I wait. I will be installing later with a fresh install of Windows 7 64bit.

I have little knowledge of overclocking so Ive gone for the'soft' option of using the C.I.A.2 method in the Bios which has give me a mild overclock of just under 3Ghz from the stock 2.4Ghz which I am really pleased with. And used AMD CCC Overdrive for my Graphics card to achieve a very respectable 700/1085 from the stock settings of 500/750Mhz, all stable and very good temps when benchmarked.

So will my Ballistix need to have the timings and voltage set manually or will the Bios recognise them when i fit them. If not, What would you recomend I set them to?

Also, does C.I.A.2 only overclock the processor or other things aswell.

I would like to overclock manually as I know C.I.A.2 is for softies  but even after reading lots of guides I find it sounds too complicated and I am wary of changing voltages. Ive yet to find a guide on overclocking my particular Motherboard and CPU to give me the confidence to 'have a go'. But, then again,  I am more than happy with the extra bit of performance I have achieved up to now.

Any advice would be most welcome

Thanks in advance

Wiggy

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

You might just get  away without having to set up memory timings and voltage manually but it is not  a big deal if you don't. Generally you will probably only need to increase the FSB voltage a little to compensate for the extra loading that you are putting on the memory controllers by having all the slots filled.

The CIA2 only pushes the CPU a little more and is fine as you say for what you need. Quick and easy. Just make sure that you keep an eye on your temperatures.

[wiggywinger]

Thanks for your reply DM
By the FSB I assume its the FSB OverVoltage Control as listed in my manual.

I have four slots filled at the moment with 4 x 512 sticks, my new ones are 2 X 2GB sticks which I shall place in DDRII 1 and DDR2II 3 slots only.

Before I insert them I'l unplug the power and press the power button to reset CMOS, Then load optimized settings then change the Sata ACHI mode and change HPET mode to 64-bit and reinstall Windows 7.

Once everything is up and running i'l go back into the bios and enable C.I.A.2

Is this the correct sequence to do?

[Dark Mantis]

Oh I thought that you were adding to your existing memory.  That's a little different then as you shouldn't need to make any alterations to the timing or voltage then. You can just leave the settings to Auto and they should be fine.

The sequence is fine as you have posted it. You are right to leave the overclocking until after everything is running smoothly and checked out. At least if there is any problem you know why.