TI OMAP 850 Overclock
TI OMAP 850 is a CPU used in many pocket PCs these days. In fact, it’s also used in my new Orange SPV M600! It feels quite slow, much slower than my old QTek S110 which had an Intel Bulverde 416 MHz processor (quite faster than M600′s 180 MHz CPU made by Texas Instruments).
This affects the performance of such applications as iGO (a GPS navigation software), especially on 3D view. Zooming in/out was much, much smoother on the S110! Now i know this is good for your battery, but sometimes I don’t care about it! My phone rarely stays not connected to a computer for more than a day, so the battery is pretty much never reaching 60%.
Thankfully, there’s a way to increase the CPU clock frequency. There’s a program called OmapClock which can adjust the clock speed of your processor at the tap of a button. Start it, select a frequency, tap Action, and then Set clock. That’s it!
Unfortunately you need to do this every time the device wakes up. No, I’m not talking about a soft-reset - the frequency needs to be adjusted every freakin’ time the device wakes up after standby! But there’s a solution to this problem too – another program called OmapClockPlus (visit the page for instructions).
EDIT (18/Dec/2007): Actually, there’s a better program to do this - a Today plugin called “Battery Status” which is a lot easier to use, and also have other useful features!
I was able to speed up my OMAP from 180 to 264 MHz without any problems so far. iGO runs a lot smoother (not as smooth as on my S110 though) and the overall performance of the device is also much better. TCPMP shows 46.5% better performance (which is exactly what you would expect – 264MHz is 46.67% more than 180MHz). Here’s a chart comparing the performance measured by TCPMP in 3 cases:
- The OMAP 850 @ 180MHz (stock)
- The OMAP 850 @ 264MHz (stable)
- The OMAP 850 @ 288MHz (UNSTABLE)
- The Intel Bulverde @ 416MHz
The performance value is measured in % and means how quick can the device play certain video file than the normal speed. 110.48 means the device can play 10.48% quicker than normal. You can see how the stable-overclocked OMAP is way quicker than the stock-speed OMAP, but still nowhere near the Intel CPU. If OC-ed to 288MHz, it is getting closer to Bulverde, but TCPMP starts to give errors and after a few minutes of playback it refuses to recognize the video file. 264MHz seems to be the stable limit for this particular device.
An interesting note is that OMAP seems to perform better than Bulverde on the same clock speed. In order to reach the same performance as the Bulverde, the OMAP must be running at just 328MHz, which seems quite optimistic, but is way less than the stock frequency of 416MHz of the Intel’s chip :)
Well, I’m still happy with my 264MHz! 
Denis
27 February 2008 at 08:27
I have t-mobile sda. I just unlocked it today and tried to overclock omap850 processor from 195 to 240 Mhz. None of the programs listed here vorked
admin
27 February 2008 at 10:46
Hm… My guess is the fact it is a smartphone and not a PDA has something to do with it… I have managed to overclock every single PDA with OMAP850 I could get my hands on, but all of them were pda-phones (Qtek S110, Qtek S200, Qtek 9100)
paul
15 August 2008 at 22:26
This TI OMAP 850 Overclocked Processor on The HTC s621 is brillient… i can’t believe How much Faster this 48.5% System Gain is, everything finishs seamlessly! now this HTC s621 is a good Smartphone.. one of the absolutly best beyboard’s out there aswell, it is cool tho too put her on 288 After a fresh restart and let around with it with it at 288Mhz!!!!! But i Do agree 264Mhz is such a difference for this Phone’s Proformance, TI OMAP 850 Processor is CRAZY Overclocked!!
Цена на T-Mobile MDA Vario | Български форумен агрегатор
22 September 2008 at 00:22
[...] е процесора, но и това не е толкова голям проблем, ЕТО ТУК си пише, че работи перфектно "clock"-нат на 264 MHz. [...]
Carlos Cristo
16 June 2009 at 15:35
I am used to work with my HTC Touch (with uses the OMAP 850) and it’s working at the 286 Mhz for a year…
What I do is use the Battery status program… with it.. u can select what programs will do this overclock.. and i set the CorePlayer, GPS programs, some games… and like this the Touch uses overclock just sometimes… and not all the time.
1) Helps the processor life be longer
2) Don’t waste the battery with no needs
Hope this could help you all!
Best Regards!
Carlos Cristo – Brazil
Rosko
16 June 2009 at 17:07
Hey Carlos, that’s a very good suggestion
You seem to have one of the more qualitative CPUs out there, mine keeps freezing over 280MHz.
Carlos Cristo
12 July 2009 at 23:31
Success! i have successfully overclocked it to 630 mhz.. it is running smooth like hell now!
Rene
2 September 2010 at 16:06
I have been able overclock my HTC touch up to 260 Mhz without no problem, but above he becomes unstable. Use the program battery status. Greetings.