In order to overclock your new PC, you'll need to install two utilities that came along with your motherboard and graphics card. In your motherboard's driver and utilities CD, you'll find a software called EasyTune and in your graphics card's driver CD, a utility called V-Tuner. Install these two utilities before you proceed.
Here's what you can do to quickly overclock your system in Windows without going into all the messy BIOS settings. The good thing with overclocking in Windows is when an overclock goes bad (i.e. your system hangs), you can always reboot your PC back into its original state. If you overclock through the BIOS, the system may fail to boot and you'll need to reset the CMOS to recover your PC. The two utilities will let you tweak various parameters, but we'll just point out the more important ones and let you have fun exploring the rest. Always keep these in mind when overclocking:-
Make sure your system is adequately cooled. Turn your CPU's fan to the maximum speed if you want to achieve the highest CPU frequency possible.
Always increase the frequency in small steps and see if the system is running stable at the new speed. Use benchmarks and stress test programs like Prime95, 3DMark03 or AquaMark to test the system's stability. If it's stable, proceed to push the limits a little further and retest the stability.
When overclocking, set one parameter at a time to get a good feel of what are some of its consequences, whether good or bad. Then re-adjust them accordingly to achieve the best settings.
Overclocking depends a lot on your luck, especially when it comes to the quality of the components. Some batches have good overclockability while others may not overclock that well. What is achievable on your friend's PC may be unattainable on yours. Overclocking is an added bonus, it's not, and never something that's given to you by default.
Finally, we assume you understand the risks involved in overclocking your components. Under extreme conditions, it can damage your hardware and they are not covered by the manufacturer's warranty. Overclockers always have this code of ethics with them, 'If they break it, they buy another to replace it'. Never attempt to return a damaged product due to overclocking as it's not ethical, not good for the economy and it brings a bad name to overclockers.
Gigabyte's overclocking utility for the graphics card known as V-tuner.
Make a default run of your favorite benchmark, such as 3DMark03 and get a base score for reference.
Next, tweak the frequency of your processor in small steps. In this example, we've increased the system bus to 205MHz. Although it's only an increase of 5MHz, it will give you a net increase of 12x5MHz=60MHz. Remember to click the 'GO' button after increasing the bus speed, or it won't be enabled. You can always try higher if you've ascertained that this speed is stable.
In V-tuner, you can also increase your core and memory clock frequencies. In this example, we've increased the core clock to 461MHz and the memory clock to 386MHz. Once again, remember to click the 'GO' button located under each of the speed adjustment bar to activate the settings. Again, these are just numbers we've chosen just as an example. You can always increase the clock speed once you're comfortable with its stability.
Re-run 3DMark03 and you should get a higher score. In this example, we managed to increase the system's 3D performance by more than 7%.
