110 MAXIMUMPC APRIL 2006
We tackle tough reader questions on...
PMemory Dividers PConsole vs. PC
PPr emiere Elements PDying AGP
DIVIDING THE MEMORY
One thing you forgot to cover in your March 2006 cover
story (“Overclock Your PC”) is the memory divider.
Sure, an Athlon X2 3800+ can overclock to 2.6
GHz, but only if you use a memory divider, or if you
have some DDR533 memory (DDR500 if you’re
lucky). In fact, advising people to up their core volt-
age if they run into an overclocking wall might lead
people to the entirely wrong next step, because they
wouldn’t realize they might be hitting the wall not
because of their CPU, but because their DDR400
memory can’t run at 230MHz.
By selecting a different divider in the BIOS, they
can solve their problems without giving their CPU an
unnecessary voltage increase. If an overclock fails
to boot while increasing the FSB and using dividers
to keep the memory within spec, then give the CPU
more juice.
—Steve Stormont
SENIOR EDITOR JOSH NOREM RESPONDS:
You’re absolutely right, Steve. For read-
ers who aren’t in the know about memory
dividers, here’s the scoop: When overclock-
ing a PC, most people crank up the front-
side bus speed. When you do this, you’re
also overclocking your memory at the same
time. Most bargain-bin or value RAM won’t
overclock beyond its designed speed, so
this can create a bottleneck in a typical
overclocking scenario.
Enter the memory divider. It allows the
memory to run at an independent speed from
the actual FSB speed, so you can crank up the
FSB speed to overclock the CPU, while leav-
ing the memory at stock speeds. This allows
you to increase the speed of the CPU by itself,
leaving the memory out of the equation.
HYPERSPEED HYPERTRANSPORT
On the AMD platform, overclocking without lower-
ing the HyperTransport multiplier is a surefire way
to create an unstable condition. If you really want
to get the most out of your Athlon 64 overclock, you
need to know to manually tweak its speed.
—Albie Day
SENIOR EDITOR JOSH NOREM RESPONDS:
We’ve had good luck overclocking our Athlon
64 systems without changing HyperTransport
frequencies, but you can almost certainly
get more power if you do. The
HyperTransport link is the connec-
tion between the processor and the chipset
(but not the memory) on an Athlon 64 system.
By upping the FSB, you are cranking up the
speed of this interconnect, which can lead
to instability. The default ratio of this con-
nector is 5, which multiplies by the 200MHz
base clock to equal a 1000MHz interconnect
speed. Some motherboards let you crank
this multiplier up or down, so you can over-
clock the front-side bus while keeping the
HyperTransport interconnect running at stock
speed to maintain system stability.
Console
Games
Just Work
I read your article in the March
issue comparing Xbox 360 and a
PC (Head2Head). I mostly agree
with what you said, but you left
out a very important part. When I
insert a game in the Xbox 360, I know it’s going to work and I’ll be able to play immediately. On the
PC it’s not guaranteed! Drivers don’t always work. Unusual components or bugs in the game can
prevent me from playing. The Xbox 360 would clearly win the stability category. Also, in your price
comparison, I would make it a tie, because you do need a $1,000-plus HDTV to enjoy those nice
720p graphics!
—Steve Chapdelaine
EDITOR IN CHIEF WILL SMITH RESPONDS: While you raise some good points, bugs are by
no means a PC-specific phenomenon. There’s a well-known bug in the Xbox’s Dead or
Alive 4 that wipes out all your progress in the game. We’ve also heard reports of consoles
overheating, crashing, and mistaking game discs for DVDs. And while console games
have become buggier, PC games are actually getting better and easier to run. We still
detest long install times and clicking idiotic license agreements, but once the game is
installed, everything usually works for us.
in outYOU WRITE, WE RESPOND
CUTCOPYPASTE
An infographic in the February issue incorrectly
stated the speed of the crossbar in AMD’s dual-core
processors. The speed of the crossbar is the speed of
the processor, or 2.6GHz in the Athlon 64 FX-60.