Overclocking FX-6300 on 990FXE Mboard (noob needs help)

[parablooper]

Hi. I just built my first computer for the purpose of gaming, and want to improve my CPU clocks. I've messed around in BIOS a little so far, but the only thing I can get stable is a RAM overclock (just latency drop, no actual frequency increase) and a north bridge overclock (2000 to 2400 MHz). Voltages were 1.6v (+0.1v) for memory and 1.225v (+0.05v) for NB. I've done some research already, but I can't do anything to the CPU without messing something up. The best I've gotten is 4.2 GHz, and that wasn't exactly stable. I've turned of Core C6, turned off the base AMD turbo, and turned on HPC, so those shouldn't be the problem. I'll give more information on my settings (they're a little odd with the 990FXE BIOS) with replies/edits, but this is just sort of a test to see if anyone is willing to help. I mean really step by step. My first question is this: What is CPU-NB voltage, and how should I go about setting it?


EDIT: SOLVED. See bottom post.

 

[inf64]

I don't recommend OCing NB on FX parts as it brings very little performance benefits (and makes your chip draw more power and generates excessive heat). In order to OC you RAM you need to lower your multiplier and go with HTT clocking. For CPU OC , at first use just multiplier and your default RAM speed divider (so if you have 1600Mhz DDR3 you select 1600MHz in DRAM options). Up the multiplier and see what kind of Vcore you need to get pass 4.2GHz. When you find this out you can start playing with HTT clocking and pushing your memory pass 1600Mhz mark (with lowering of CPU multi by one notch at the same time).

 

[KingFatty]

Can you elaborate on what you tried before that didn't work - how did you arrive at 4.2 GHz for the CPU, were you changing the multiplier only, or changing the base frequency only, or a combination of both?

 

[Kalessian]

CPU-NB is the CPU "Uncore", think of it mostly as the memory controller. As mentioned, uncore overclocking on FX parts is not worth it like it was with PhII, don't bother.

Regular "NB" voltage is the actual nb chip on the mobo if I'm not mistaken. No need to mess with that unless you have some serious bandwidth going through that chip, which you shouldn't unless you're OCing everything to the max.

EDIT: If anything it might be a decent idea to try to undervolt CPU-NB and see if you can save some heat?

 

[parablooper]

What exactly is HTT clocking?

As for the 4.2 GHz, I had the CPU Vcore at 1.4125v (+0.150v), the CPU-NB at (+0.100v), same memory, and same NB. I was really guessing with the voltages, and was shooting over rather than under. Something must've been wrong, though, because although temps were fine under prime95 I got crashes.

EDIT: Strangely enough, too, I have tried to replicate those numbers in BIOS but I can't get it to even boot anymore.

 

[KingFatty]

What combination of frequency and multiplier - all the other various factors besides voltage?

For example, you could have perhaps changed only your CPU multiplier, but I don't want to assume that because perhaps you instead did something different like changing the base frequency while leaving the multiplier unchanged.

 

[Kalessian]

Really you need to start at a more reasonable speed. 4.2ghz is where things begin becoming difficult. I run my 6300 at 4.1ghz around 1.4v. I would suggest starting at 3.8 or 3.9 ghz with 1.4v on the Vcore, only change multiplier and Vcore, leave everything else alone (ie default).

From there if you are stress-test stable for 10 hours or so, bump up the freq. Then if you fail a test, bump up Vcore until stable. Repeat until you are at a freq you are happy with and a Vcore your cooling can handle.

Then you can start the other things like overclocking RAM, changing RAM timings, finding ideal CPU-NB volts, etc.

The only other thing you need to look out for is Load Line Calibration (LLC) and be mindful of the droop on Vcore. Just to let you know, I run mine with Turbo off but all other power savings features enabled, I test this way as well.

EDIT: HTT is hypertransport, related to the memory controller. Leave it alone, overclocking it won't really give you noticable performance gains and can make things worse.

 

[KingFatty]

Kalessian, are you running your FX-6300 in that ASUS M4A89 board? I'm currently running an FX-6300 in an ASUS M4A89GTD-PRO-USB3 board, and was wondering your thoughts on whether to go higher on voltage, and if you are required to use offset voltages as I am due to the limitation of the beta BIOS for this motherboard. I'm still fiddling around with my setup, but I recently added a pair of 80 mm fans on top of the motherboard chipset/VRM passive heatsinks to see if I can in any way hit 5.0 GHz.

 

[Kalessian]

No, I considered it but I didn't think it was enough of an upgrade over my PhII considering the beta bios support and using vishera on random 890 boards is so undocumented. I'm glad to hear you are able to get it to work, what limitations do you have? No turbo? Power savings?

I run the 6300 in my HTPC with an ASRock Extreme4 and a vanilla 660. I get it up to 4.4ghz for CPU bound games but I don't like to run those volts to watch bluray rips. I'm limited by my HTPC case as far as cooling so I'm probably not the best to ask for hitting crazy ghz.

I'm still kind of PO'ed at ASUS for claiming to support these boards and then doing a half-assed job of it.

EDIT: I use offset voltages anyway, I found that without it I couldn't keep Cool-n-Quiet even for PhII. This board is quirky. I found it only supports certain features in certain multiplier ranges and FSB ranges, so I have my FSB at 264 or something weird. In case you didn't know you can get SLi to work on 890 with HyperSLi hack

 

[parablooper]

What combination of frequency and multiplier - all the other various factors besides voltage?

For example, you could have perhaps changed only your CPU multiplier, but I don't want to assume that because perhaps you instead did something different like changing the base frequency while leaving the multiplier unchanged.

Frequency is at the default 200 MHz, and the multiplier was x21.0.

 

[parablooper]

Really you need to start at a more reasonable speed. 4.2ghz is where things begin becoming difficult. I run my 6300 at 4.1ghz around 1.4v. I would suggest starting at 3.8 or 3.9 ghz with 1.4v on the Vcore, only change multiplier and Vcore, leave everything else alone (ie default).

From there if you are stress-test stable for 10 hours or so, bump up the freq. Then if you fail a test, bump up Vcore until stable. Repeat until you are at a freq you are happy with and a Vcore your cooling can handle.

Then you can start the other things like overclocking RAM, changing RAM timings, finding ideal CPU-NB volts, etc.

The only other thing you need to look out for is Load Line Calibration (LLC) and be mindful of the droop on Vcore. Just to let you know, I run mine with Turbo off but all other power savings features enabled, I test this way as well.

EDIT: HTT is hypertransport, related to the memory controller. Leave it alone, overclocking it won't really give you noticable performance gains and can make things worse.

So just clarifying, you say I just should set the voltage high on CPU Vcore to give a nice ceiling, touch none of the other voltages, and just inch up my CPU clock?

 

[parablooper]

To anyone who cares, about a month ago I got the OC right. Turns out the voltage setting (e.g. 1.2625V) and the voltage boost setting (e.g. +0.100V) were independent, and I was stacking them by accident. Also, voltage boosts only worked in multiples of 0.05, oddly enough. Now I'm at 4.4 Ghz stable with 1.5V. Thank you Arctic A30.

 

[daveybrat]

To anyone who cares, about a month ago I got the OC right. Turns out the voltage setting (e.g. 1.2625V) and the voltage boost setting (e.g. +0.100V) were independent, and I was stacking them by accident. Also, voltage boosts only worked in multiples of 0.05, oddly enough. Now I'm at 4.4 Ghz stable with 1.5V. Thank you Arctic A30.

Very nice! Thanks for the input.