phenom ii x4 965 Black edition should i overclock and how

[R4THOUSE]

More talk= More Clock

[R4THOUSE]

Overclocking for the first time any tips / best practices for a first timer

[ERSCreeper]

Make sure you have very good cooling and your computer is dust free :D Try youtube some overclocking videos for your cpu since I'm not the best overclocker :)

[Dave :)]

Install CPUz and HWMonitor for temp checking and clock settings.

Also install Prime95 to test for stability.

Once you have these 3 programs installed, you can begin to overclock. I would recommend checking you temps (in HWmonitor) before doing anything in the BIOS. Depending on your ambient temperatures, your load temps should be around 40-50 Celsius on an air cooler ( i would recommend you don't use the stock AMD heatsink that comes stock, if you want to overclock, get a decent air cooler or an All in One water cooling unit such as a Corsair H80.

You can overclock your 965 in various ways; the easiest is just increasing the multiplier. Push it up at .5 increments in the BIOS, leave the voltage. Go into Windows and run prime95 ( and HWMonitor and CPUZ for temps and speeds). Run the 'blend test' for about 45mins to an hour. This is only to ensure you don't have any obvious stability issues. If you do, say, run into an error, or a BSOD, then it's time to up the voltage. Return to the BIOS and increase the CPU Voltage, again using small increments and retest your overclock. If no errors are found, then you can continue to increase your multiplier or clock speed.

Once you have found a suitable clock speed ( i'm currently at 3.8GHz at 1.425 volts) you can fully test your overclock. To do this you need to run Prime95 for AT LEAST 12 hours. So, you need to set some time aside. If there is even 1 error which turns up throughout the 12 hours, you must reset and either increase the voltage, or decrease the clock speed. We want the overclock to be 100% stable, and this is the way to be sure it is. If all is well (no errors or BSODS), then you can save your overclock and now you have overclocked with it being stable :). If you incur any BSODs following, then it's most likely not stable and you will probably have to restart the process again. It's time consuming, but worth it in the end. Good luck, if you have any problems, you can always post here and loads of people will help you. :D

[R4THOUSE]

what should the max temp I allow the cpu to get to. Right now I am using the stock cooler but upgrading soon