D.O.T. – Dynamic Overclocking Technology
As a rule, we do not pay that much attention to different mainboards technologies for automatic processor overclocking. Mostly because they usually limit the maximum overclocking by 20%-30%, while you can get much more flexibility in manual mode and can easily surpass these numbers. However, I made a serious mistake by not paying due attention to D.O.T. technology in MSI P35 Platinum mainboard review, which I admit today. So, let me make up for this frustrating omission on my part today, during our discussion of the MSI P35 Platinum Combo solution.
D.O.T. technology allows overclocking the CPU, graphics card or both by a certain value if the workload increases. When the workload reduces or disappears completely, everything returns to its initial state. When I saw 1%, 3% and 5% values I assumed that this was the best D.O.T. could do. In reality, these were simply the default values. The mainboard allows overclocking by up to 20%, which can be achieved in three steps, such as 7%, 14% and 20%, for instance.
The second mistake I made was a worse one. Until recently we had to choose between automatic and manual overclocking technologies, because they could only work if the CPU was initially at its default speeds. However take a look at the screenshot above: we are overclocking Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 and still can use dynamic overclocking technology!
Our practical experiments confirmed these functions first with Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor that could speed up to 3.4GHz. We reduced its clock frequency multiplier to x8, set the starting FSB frequency to 355MHz and then overclocked it by additional 20% using D.O.T. technology. As a result, the FSB frequency would increase from 355MHz to 424MHz every time the workload increased, and the CPU would run at its maximum speed of 3.4GHz!
However, this is not a typical example, we used an engineering samples of Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor with an unlocked clock frequency multiplier. So, will the D.O.T. technology work with a mass production CPU? Yes, it will! For the next experiment we took Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 processor that could overclock to 490MHz FSB. We set its starting FSB frequency to 408MHz and followed with a three-stage additional overclocking by 7%, 14% and 20%. Power-saving technologies worked fine that is why the multiplier would drop to x6 in idle mode and the CPU would run at 2.45GHz. The first frequency increasing stage took place very quickly, we couldn’t detect it, but we could clearly see successful overclocking by 14% to 465MHz FSB. The clock multiplier in this case increased to x7 and the resulting processor frequency equaled 3.25GHz. The system would run like that for 2-3 seconds and then the FSB frequency would jump to the maximum of 489MHz.
MSI was the one to invent dynamic overclocking technology. This time they took it further and D.O.T. can be applied not only to the CPU running in its nominal mode, but also to an overclocked one. It is very interesting to see if other mainboard makers will be able to replicate the same approach. The only thing we would like to draw your attention to is the fact that with D.O.T. involved the system works a little unstably with the same frequency and voltage settings that would pass all stability tests flawlessly in case we overclocked without D.O.T.. I believe, however, that we can certainly find an optimal set of parameters when overclocking and D.O.T. will work well together and ensure more comfortable and quiet operation without workload and maximum possible overclocking results under heavy workload.
However, you will need to adjust processor fan rotation speed to reduce the noise and CPU temperature. In our tests this time we used a CPU cooler with a three-pin fan connector, so the fan rotation speed management function didn’t work. However, the mainboard’s manual states clearly that it should work for both: four- and three-pin fan connectors. Maybe we will be able to get it to work with MSI’s brand name programs and utilities? Let’s find out!
