Intel FSB Overclocking Guide

Heat & Cooling

All processors run hot, even when clocked at default frequencies or even underclocked for that matter. When you overclock the processor, you cause the processors core and cache to operate faster and hotter temperatures then designed to. It goes without saying - "Heat is the enemy of all overclockers". The lower temperature you can get your processor running at the better. You will experience better overclocking results, less crashes and a longer processor lifetime. Enter the wonderful world which is CPU cooling. I could make this section around 5,000 words long, but I won't. There are a LOT of coolers designed for socket 370 and slot 1 processors. There are SO MANY which I could list, I will only list the few I recommend...

Recommended Socket 370 Coolers

- Thermaltake Golden Orb

- Global Win FKP32

- Alpha PAL6035

Recommended Slot 1 Coolers

- Thermaltake Golden Orb

- Alpha P312S

I have only had good experience with such companies as Thermaltake, Global Win and Alpha. I can safely recommend any cooler made by each company. All of the coolers mentioned above can be purchased from either CoolerGuys - Cold CPU - CrazyPC. We won't even begin talking about extreme cooling such as Peltier TEC and water cooling kits because it will need a complete guide covered just for itself.

It is also recommend that you use gray high quality thermal paste (goop). For more information on what I consider the best thermal paste ever, I suggest you read our Arctic Silver review as it WILL make a difference to your overclocking results.

I also think complete case cooling is very important when overclock your processor. There are many different case fans you can buy, but here are just three I recommend and have personally used in my systems before today...

Recommended Case Fans

- 2COOLPC Turbo

- GlobalWin CAF12

- The Card Cooler XT

Stepping

Each type of Intel processor has several different variations called "stepping". Stepping 0 cores are the original production run. When minor bugs (crashes etc) are discovered in the core they are fixed and the next batch of cores will incorporate the changes and thus be fixed. These batches are identified as Stepping 1. If another change is required later, the stepping number will be incremented again. As each change to the chip is made, the next higher stepping number will be assigned. In some cases one stepping higher may be easier to overclock than another (lower) stepping, but usually the highest stepping cores are the best and most overclockable.