Overclocked my mac mini!

[pscl227]

well i did it, i overclocked it to 1.5Ghz, and it runs like a dream, no heat or power issues at all, runs xbench perfectly smooth as well, here is a link if anyone is interested!

http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge.xhtml?doc2=98290

i'd reccomend this to anyone who is confident enough with surface mounted components, only took a matter of minutes to accomplish!

 

[Macman]

cool, could I over clock my g4 cube?

 

[pscl227]

cool, could I over clock my g4 cube?

yup you sure could you need to find the jumpers on the board tho.....google may be able to help with that! however you may want to put a fan of some sort in there since the cubes are completly passive afaik

 

[shaun89]

would that be the first mac overclocker here?

 

[pscl227]

would that be the first mac overclocker here?

i hope so! however i am a veteran "PeeCee" overclocker

 

[ed724]

OK, so what exactly did you do to overclock it.

ed724

 

[pscl227]

OK, so what exactly did you do to overclock it.

ed724

remove the 3 jumpers (r362, r358 and r355, since i have the 1.25Ghz edition) from the motherboard, and hey presto 1.5Ghz.....

.......a little update i have now been working on the graphics and have got the core speed up from 249.75Mhz to 315Mhz and the vram speed up from 190.13Mhz to 220Mhz, giving a nice noticble improvment to the graphics performance, no apprent heating issues yet, so i will try taking it up futher and keep you posted!

 

[mynameis]

I was going to do 1.42 with mine, but after looking at the points I would have to solder, I decided against it.

 

[gdestiny]

.......a little update i have now been working on the graphics and have got the core speed up from 249.75Mhz to 315Mhz and the vram speed up from 190.13Mhz to 220Mhz, giving a nice noticble improvment to the graphics performance, no apprent heating issues yet, so i will try taking it up futher and keep you posted!

how do you overclock the VRAM?

 

[pscl227]

how do you overclock the VRAM?

using ATIccelerater II, same program thats used to oc the gpu core

 

[Amen-Moses]

I've never quite seen the point in all this.

There was a huge article in a PC mag last month covering all the current overclocking kit (i.e the various Intel and AMD chips that are over-clockable, graphics cards, mobos, memory, cooling systems & software).

The conclusion was that if you already have the cutting edge stuff you can squeeze about 6% extra from the system, if you have an older system (XP2000 ish era) you can get up to 40% extra.

This translated in some cases to going from 50 FPS Doom III to 51.8 FPS with the same settings! What's the point?

Instead of mucking around with the CPU/Graphics/RAM clocks just go out and buy a SCSI 10K+ RPM HD with a decently sized cache and a fast PCI-X SCSI card and you'll easily increase you real-world performance by an appreciable amount, ok so you won't get an extra 2 FPS from Doom III but it will load 5 times faster!

CPU manufacturers have Max clock ratings for a reason and that reason has to do with MTBF figures driven by the manufacturing processes. If you are happy reducing the life of your components for an extra couple of percentage points in some weird ****-size league table then go for it, personally I'd rather have a system that will function for 5 years.

Amen-Moses

 

[pscl227]

I've never quite seen the point in all this.

There was a huge article in a PC mag last month covering all the current overclocking kit (i.e the various Intel and AMD chips that are over-clockable, graphics cards, mobos, memory, cooling systems & software).

The conclusion was that if you already have the cutting edge stuff you can squeeze about 6% extra from the system, if you have an older system (XP2000 ish era) you can get up to 40% extra.

This translated in some cases to going from 50 FPS Doom III to 51.8 FPS with the same settings! What's the point?

Instead of mucking around with the CPU/Graphics/RAM clocks just go out and buy a SCSI 10K+ RPM HD with a decently sized cache and a fast PCI-X SCSI card and you'll easily increase you real-world performance by an appreciable amount, ok so you won't get an extra 2 FPS from Doom III but it will load 5 times faster!

CPU manufacturers have Max clock ratings for a reason and that reason has to do with MTBF figures driven by the manufacturing processes. If you are happy reducing the life of your components for an extra couple of percentage points in some weird ****-size league table then go for it, personally I'd rather have a system that will function for 5 years.

Amen-Moses

the reason i do it is becasue its my hobby, and it allows you to compete aginst other people on sites such as the futuremark forums and cpucity forums, it also gives you a chance to better understand the technology you take for granted, as for having a pc system for 5 years that is never guna happen, as i own a pc shop and i upgrade my pc nearly every other day with what ever i have lying around in my shop

 

[Amen-Moses]

as for having a pc system for 5 years that is never guna happen,

Well hobbies aside, my PC was bought in 2002, still has same CPU. My iMac - 2003, ditto (of course!). Both are used daily, in fact I'm typing this on the iMac right now.

At work my PC dates from 1999 ish (although it wasn't exactly the pinnacle then, 800Mhz clocked P3 I think) and I use that daily to develop software on a system that is just being upgraded to PPCs from 590s. The 590's were an upgrade from 570s in about 2000 and the 570s were around when I started on the project back in 1995.

My first multi-tasking home system was purchased in 1984, it survived in daily use with same mobo and CPU (a 68008) until 1989.

My first fully multi-tasking GUI based 32 bit home system was purchased in 1988 (an Archimedes) and had one CPU upgrade before being retired (well actually handed down to my father) in 1995. (that machine came back in 2001 and was my daughters machine until 2004 when I bought her an eMac, currently it is still in working order and is in my PC museum in the loft).

My second ARM based system, a Strong Arm RiscPC, is also still in working order and was retired from daily use in 2003 when I bought the iMac. That also has it's original CPU and mobo, in fact that system was so good it survived 8 years with only a single RAM upgrade, additional U/W SCSI card and external SCSI HD. The only reason I'm not still using it is that it doesn't support USB ports.

I expect my twin G5 to last as my main machine until at least 2008 althogh it may be joined by a new server or three in the meantime.

As you can see I have a long history of using machines for long period of time although I've always been at the cutting edge so even my oldest machines are just as usable now as some machines only a few years old.

Amen-Moses

 

[Amen-Moses]

the reason i do it is becasue its my hobby,

Just as a matter of interest do you have a nitrous kit in your car?

Amen-Moses

 

[pscl227]

Just as a matter of interest do you have a nitrous kit in your car?

Amen-Moses

dont drive a car despite having the money and a license, mainly due to the fact my mountain bike can get me to everywehre i want, and for longer jounies i use the train.............call me an enviromental hippie or whatever but i don't need one therefore i dont have one...............however if i was to get a car i would get a pan head hot rodded model-T

 

[James]

Just as a matter of interest do you have a nitrous kit in your car?

Amen-Moses

A hobby is a hobby...People climb mountains because they are there. My last two gaming machines were a P4 3.0 overclocked to 3.5 and water cooled is still in operation and working just fine today for over 2 years now and my last one is an Amd 64 bit with Raptor drives and water cooled is also still going strong for over a year. It's just fun...

No, my car doesn't have nitrous on it, see avitar, but it does put out 533 horses on pump gas, so who needs it...

Over clocking teaches you a lot about computers and electronics. When done properly and with some common sense it doesn't hurt things. My P4 for example overclocks just fine at 3.5, and will probably last just as long as a stock 3.0 will. Going over that requires much more radical treatment because of heat so there is really nothing to gain except bragging rights and the knowledge you gain and the pride of building a system a little better than the average.

 

[pscl227]

A hobby is a hobby...People climb mountains because they are there. My last two gaming machines were a P4 3.0 overclocked to 3.5 and water cooled is still in operation and working just fine today for over 2 years now and my last one is an Amd 64 bit with Raptor drives and water cooled is also still going strong for over a year. It's just fun...

No, my car doesn't have nitrous on it, see avitar, but it does put out 533 horses on pump gas, so who needs it...

Over clocking teaches you a lot about computers and electronics. When done properly and with some common sense it doesn't hurt things. My P4 for example overclocks just fine at 3.5, and will probably last just as long as a stock 3.0 will. Going over that requires much more radical treatment because of heat so there is really nothing to gain except bragging rights and the knowledge you gain and the pride of building a system a little better than the average.

well said, it also allows you to save a few ££ or sometimes a few hundread ££ over the equivilent upgrade price!

 

[Padawan]

would that be the first mac overclocker here?

i hope so! however i am a veteran "PeeCee" overclocker

Sorry, but to the best of my knowledge, I believe I'm the first OC'er here. :robot:

I overclocked my Beige G3 AIO about 7 months ago. The process isn't as involved as on the mini due to the Beige's removable jumpers, but I was able to achieve a 29% boost in clock speed and it runs rock solid and reasonably cool (with the help of some Arctic Silver 5 on the factory heat sink).

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7915

 

[Amen-Moses]

The nitrous comment was the give away, if it's just a hobby then that is a perfectly good excuse just as putting nitrous in your car would be a hobby.

Hobby-clockers, that's got a nice ring to it.

Amen-Moses

 

[Amen-Moses]

Sorry, but to the best of my knowledge, I believe I'm the first OC'er here. :robot:

I was involved with various groups overclocking ARM chips back in the late 80's, it all got a bit silly when the core voltages reached 30V and people were seriously talking about liquid Helium because Nitrogen wasn't cool enough!

We were talking factors in overclocking back then of course, i.e if you couldn't get 10x the performance it just wasn't worth it.

(one of the most seriously bonkers home machines I saw had 30 processors in a liquid Nitrogen tank running asynchronously, that was about 1991 and it was at a show generating real-time 3D Mandelbrot "worlds" that you could fly through.)

As I said, as a hobby it's a grand way to spend your time.

Amen-Moses