Overclocking Settings

Yay. More pretty tables. These tables show what the speeds you might be able to achieve, based on what I have seen as pretty common overclocked CPU speeds, and what the "dream"* speed is for these CPU's as well. Realize that for some of the very new CPU's, which there is not much data about, I'm not going to be able to say much. I'm trying to base these charts on personal experience, and factual statistics, not hearsay. As a result, I can't cover all CPUs, because there is a lack of information for some of them, as well as a lack of personal experience. The bus speeds that I used are the pretty standard ones, although there are other bus speeds that you may utilize to achieve intermediate speeds. Finally, these numbers are based on "recreational" systems. I've seen all sorts of overclocked CPU's - PII 300's running at 620 and stuff…but those systems are usually extreme in some way or another, usually with weird, powerful, and expensive cooling setups. The numbers below are supposed to be home PCs with more-powerful-than-standard cooling. All that means is heatsink/fan combos, and some case cooling. * : The "dream speed" is defined as the one that everybody thinks they can hit, within reason, as our Celerons aren't pushing 1 GHz anytime just yet. The format goes like this:

Overclocking settings
CPU	Multiplier setting	Bus speed	Resulting speed	Probability of success?

There's going to be a BRIEF commentary below each table.

I'm going to start this series of tables with the "honey" of the overclocking community, the Celeron.

Celeron 266	4.0	66	266	Default
	4.0	75	300	High
	4.0	83	332	Good
Dream speed-	4.0	100	400	Moderate
	4.0	103	412	Moderate
	4.0	112	448	Difficult

Number of CPUs tested/researched: 12
My information on this particular CPU might be a little bit off. I haven't dealt with this one too much and there's not a great deal of information out on it. I didn't tend to favor this chip because of its missing L2 cache, which did not suit me well among the various applications that I run. However, the lack of L2 makes this one a pretty decent overclocker.

Celeron 300 (A)	4.5	66	300	Default
	4.5	75	338	High
	4.5	83	374	High
	4.5	100	450	High
	4.5	103	464	Good
Dream speed-	4.5	112	504	Moderate

Number of CPUs tested/researched: ~120
This baby is the honey of the overclocking community. Low price and high success rates are a good combo. I don't know about the 300 without L2 cache. I don't know why anyone would get that one at this point. If you have one already, these numbers probably apply to you too. I rated 504 as "moderate" and not "difficult" because the old-school batches Celeron 300A's hit 504 with a decent success rate. Ok, so "old-school" only means 1998. That's a long time in the technology business! The newer batches don't seem to be as good at hitting 504.

Celeron 333	5.0	66	333	Default
	5.0	75	375	High
	5.0	83	415	High
Dream speed-	5.0	100	500	Difficult
	5.0	103	515	Difficult
	5.0	112	560	Rare

Number of CPUs tested/researched: ~15
Hmm…not as good a choice for overclocking as the 300A. Mainly due to the hard to reach speed of 500 MHz, whereas 450 on a 300A is a pretty safe bet.

Celeron 366	5.5	66	366	Default
	5.5	75	413	High
	5.5	83	457	Good
Dream speed-	5.0	100	550	Difficult
	5.0	103	567	Difficult
	5.0	112	616	Rare

Number of CPUs tested/researched: ~20
Celeron 366's aren't too bad. I STILL prefer the 300A. Why? It would have to be the success rate at 450, of course, coupled by the use of the 100 MHz bus, which eliminates the need to overclock or underclock the AGP and PCI buses. (More on this later.) The speed of 550 was given a "difficult" rating because of what I've seen of it, but I've actually heard that this speed has a surprisingly good rate of success that would have me think it's more of a "moderate" chance of success. I just haven't had the luck with dealing with those blessed Celerons.

I don't have much information on 400's and 433's yet. They need a little time to settle down and undergo a hands-on test from the overclocking community. On top of that, we need to see chips from several batches to make sure results can be noted with consistency. We'll keep you updated as more info becomes available.