# K8 <-> NB HT Speed?



## WhiteFireDragon

so what is this setting in the bios? i have both K8 <-> NB HT *Speed* and *Width*, but i don't know what they are for. right now, the speed is set to 5x and the width is set to auto.

i OC'ed my X2 from 200mhz to 213mhz core speed, which is the max it will OC while at NB speed 5x and stock voltage. i want to keep the voltage stock, but want to increase the core speed higher but i noticed that 5x will not allow me to do that. when i decrease to 4x, it will allow me to bump it up only 3mhz higher. i want to go even lower, but what are the negative effects of doing that? and should i change the NB HT width or no? i don't even know what these options on the BIOS do.


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## hermeslyre

Lowering the HT multiplier (speed) will allow you to push the HTT higher, without sacrificing stability. Width should be left alone.

For most purposes, lowering the mult. to x4 should be enough to guarantee a hefty overclock. That you're stuck, doesn't have anything to do with the htt mult. Try finding the memory setting in the BIOS, you'll want to lower the speed of your ram to keep it from being a bottleneck and holding you back. You can also try bumping the voltage just a tad, to see if that will help to alleviate things.


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## WhiteFireDragon

so what exactly does the HT multiplier speed do? decreasing this from 5x to 4x only allows me to increase an extra *3mhz* higher. i also noticed that decreasing the memory speed from 800mhz to 667 or 533mhz doesn't affect how high or low my core speed is, so i'm just going to put it back to 800mhz. here were the setups i had and the highest core speed i got from it:

*NB HT Speed: 5x*
CPU frequency: 213mhz
CPU multiplier: 9.5


*NB HT Speed: 4x*
CPU frequency: 216mhz
CPU multiplier: 9.5

so does this mean that at this stock voltage, i hit the limit already since a decrease of NB speed hardly allows an increase of core speed? and btw, this is a crappy mobo (ECS) so it does not allow me to change the volate.


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## hermeslyre

The multiplier determines by how much the reference HTT speed is to be increased. Where the HTT is equatable to the FSB. There are differences however, an increased HTT doesn't equal a similar increase in performance. Also, the HTT needs to be kept at or very close to normal operating speeds, which is 1000mhz (200 (htt) x 5 (mult.)) in all newer K8 motherboards and chips.

Reducing memory speed isn't supposed to effect effective clock speed. It's only there as an advantageous feature that allows one to mitigate the potentially disastrous fact that RAM doesn't overclock as well as the CPU, and that to overclock the CPU, one innately overclocks the RAM. If you meant that lowering the RAM speed is allowing no further increase of the HTT, then the problem also lies elsewhere, as in the htt mult.

Last is voltage. It's possible it needs to be bumped to go higher (which you say can't be done). That would mean the motherboard is the bottleneck, nothing to be done then. Your situation sounds very similar to mine though.. I have a x2 3800, my motherboard is a Gigabyte Ga-k8nf-9. I cannot overclock from the BIOS for the life of me, i get similar results as you, except I CAN increase voltage, which does nothing. However I can set all the things in the BIOS before hand (x4 HTT mult, RAM divider, etc) then use an inside-windows application that is native to gigabyte boards to increase the HTT bus. It works perfectly, I can OC to 2.8+ when before I couldn't get much farther than you could (2.17-2.21) from the BIOS. (you can try to flash you BIOS up to it's latest revision if you want to try something other than the above)


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## WhiteFireDragon

ah ok that's good to know that there were other limitations and not me doing something wrong. what program did you use to OC from windows? and shouldn't raising the HTT by using the program in windows the same as doing it in the BIOS? wouldn't the limitations be the same?

also, since i get a tiny mhz clock increase by lowering the NB HT multiplier, then would it be any beneficial to lower it to 1x so i can have my core speed at around 230mhz? or would that be too unstable?


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## hermeslyre

WhiteFireDragon said:


> shouldn't raising the HTT by using the program in windows the same as doing it in the BIOS? wouldn't the limitations be the same?



The limitations should be the same, but it worked for me. Our situations are similar enough that it might work for you too. The app was easytune, but it'll only work for gigabyte boards.



WhiteFireDragon said:


> also, since i get a tiny mhz clock increase by lowering the NB HT multiplier, then would it be any beneficial to lower it to 1x so i can have my core speed at around 230mhz? or would that be too unstable?



Way too unstable. It wouldn't even boot into windows..


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