Do you overclock?

I got my 2.6 GHz AMD Athlon 64x2 5000+ up to 3.1 GHz.

I have an ECS motherboard with an nVidia 7050M-M chipset in it.

By the way, does anyone know what the maximum voltage for the AMD 64x2 5000+?

Any processor should handle 1.6v without frying.
The thing is, if you're running stable at 1.3v there's no need to increase it.
Increasing the voltage will simply burn out pathways quicker due to the increased heat.

That's where the heat from OC'ing realistically comes from. It's not from the actual over-clock but rather the over-voltage required to make that OC stable and work.

I noticed very close to NO change in temperature on my C2D when i overclocked it.
Then again my voltage is up from 1.1 to 1.18...

To get a 40% OC like i've got, previous processors usually needed to push 1.4 to 1.6 volts.

Not every processor has the same maximum voltage, and no processor on the market should be run at 1.6v for extended periods of time.

The highest safe operating voltage for air-cooled CPUs is 1.5v, and that's on 65nm Core 2 Duos/Core 2 Quads.

I'd say 1.40-1.50 is at the maximum safe range for that specific CPU, and also assuming you have good enough cooler to keep temps at 65C or lower.

3.1GHz is a decent overclock for that processor, you won't get much more out of it.

Well, going back a few years 1.6v was the minimum you could run an athlon XP, X2 or Pentium 4 at any reasonable overclock. Any lower and regardless of motherboard, the system simply wouldn't boot.

These days 1.2v seems realistically like over-kill, i DO agree there.
However there have been many, many instances of people running 1.6v or even up to 2.2v for years. Safely.

A while back I started overclocking my Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300, but the thing just wasn't stable. Just got one blue screen after another. Turns out that I had some bad RAM -- now that I've upgraded to Windows 7 x64, I put 4 GB of fresh RAM in, and my system is running perfectly at 3.0 GHz. Maybe I could take it further, I don't know ... to be honest, overclocking is not something I am an expert at. But at least I figured out what the problem was, and now I have a fast, stable system.

These days there is only a few small things to worry about. If you want to maintain your intel warranty then you cannot go over a certain voltage & you'll have to find out what it is.

Secondly is wether the system will boot or not with your over-clocked settings. Obviously trial and error is the case here. Every system is different. Every CPU is different. There is a 10% odd margin for differences/errors in the intel manufactoring process.

Thirdly is temperatures / stability. Generally if your system is Blue screening or hard locking and restarting, your motherboard/ram is crap or you are over-heating. I have a Core2Duo e7300 running completely stable at 3.33ghtz up from 2.66 - on stock cooling & with no voltage mod.

EDIT: Your nVidia 780i chipset and 800mhtz kingston ram will be the limiting factors of your over-clocking. My ram is 1600mhtz OC ready and the g31 series intel chipsets are server chipsets. They're designed to perform & be stable. I sacrificed the potential to go to 4ghtz with my processor to get a decent chipset since i hate nvidia chipsets around the 700 generation.

NO, and I never will subject my CPU to this. Overclocking the CPU is bad in my book. I'm not even going to supply a reason, just my opinion.

I don't believe in overclocking, what you gain in performance, you lose in reliability and longevity. The last time I had an overclocked computer, it was an old Celeron that was 333mhz and was overclocked to 450mhz, and it had nothing but problems.

Where is the control to adjust these settings? I've typed in every hint that I can think of, but can't find them.