Propus examined

[DrMrLordX]

TL;DR summary: My Athlon II x4 635 was good for 3.7 ghz, and it sucks at memory overclocking. So far.

edit: Bios v1.10b2 has been a joy. I've started from scratch on overclocking, and have easily stabilized 3.8 ghz. Working on 3.85 now . . . it may take 1.51v vcore to do it, but the chip is priming at 49C with those volts so I'm not too worried about it just yet. 3.9 ghz seems to be a no-go (will not prime for more than a few minutes, even at 1.52v vcore). Will work on NB/RAM speeds once I get this sorted out.

edit edit: It's been easy to stabilize the cores at 3.8 ghz isolated, but in a consolidated overclock with OCed NB and memory, it is not stable. Even 3.744 ghz has been a pain-in-the-ass to stabilize. At least I can boot past 3.7 ghz, but getting it prime stable is another matter altogether . . .

Nice try bios rev 1.10b2, but you can't fix Propus. Well, not entirely.

Not many people around here talk about Propus overclocking, and apparently that is for good reason. While all the AMD OCers are atwitter about C3-stepping 965BEs or unlockable x2/x3s, I went and got myself an Athlon II X4 635 and paired it with an MSI 790FX-GD70 and G.Skill Pi series DDR3-2200.

Yes, I know its a bit silly, but I had my reasons that I'll ramble on about sometime in the future once I finish playing with beta BIOSes and suchlike on this board.

Back to the chip.

First impressions:

1). The HSF that shipped with my retail box Athlon II x4 635 is physically identical to the HSF that came with my s754 Sempron 2800+ (Palermo core, 256k l2) from 2005. I used the poor little thing for a bit and the temps were so high that I underclocked the chip and undervolted almost everything I could to get temps down to a managable level. Ridiculous.

2). When lapping the 635 (yes, I lapped it), it became readily apparent that the copper IHS was horribly uneven. Even more interesting was that AMD managed to "level off" the IHS by laying down extra nickel plating on the recessed pits present on the copper IHS. So, the unlapped chip was (mostly) flat, but the nickel plating had variable levels of thickness. My x2-3600+ had both an uneven copper and nickel surface, and was much harder to lap.

I also cut myself on the corners of the CPU and bled on the sandpaper . . . it didn't seem to make lapping any easier though. Imagine that.

3). It's a C2-stepping chip. Here I was thinking that one of AMD's most recently-released quads would *have* to be a C3-stepping chip . . . but noooooooo. Grumble grumble. Had I done proper research I would have known this in advance.

Overclocking:

The chip runs pretty cool until you start playing with vcore. Lapped 635 + Shin Etsu x23-7783D (still going after 3 years in storage) + Noctua nh-d14 = 27-29C idle, 36-37C load. Ambient is about 26-27C. Got the same temps at 3.35 ghz @ stock vcore.

At maximum overclock (3.7 ghz, 1.43 vcore, some other voltages jacked up, 2.85 gz NB, DDR3-1520 6-7-5-15 1T), Prime gets it up to about 46C.

All that extra cooling doesn't seem to do much to compensate for the fact that a). it's a Propus and b). it's a C2-stepping chip. At stock vcore (1.3v), it tops out at around 3.35ghz. It takes 1.43v vcore to reach 3.7 ghz.

The Northbridge can be stabilized at speeds as high as 2.95 ghz, which sort-of proves my theory that Propus should have a NB that is more overclockable because it doesn't have any L3. Sadly, the lack of L3 means that NB overclocking does a lot less for Propus than it does for Deneb. It also has a maximum NB multiplier of 10x which certainly makes life interesting.

Then there's the RAM . . . good old Propus can't post at RAM speeds higher than DDR3-1700, which is fantastic when you've gone out and bought DDR3-2200. Timings go straight to hell past DDR3-1620 or so (9-9-9-28 or worse). I'm told that BIOS rev 1.10b2 for the GD70 helps with RAM speeds but I have yet to test anything other than the stock BIOS (1.7).

As an added bonus, my chip's IMC refuses to POST if you:

Use the 1:2 (DDR3-800) RAM multiplier
Use CAS 4, 5, or 12 memory timings

As you can imagine, this chip is just a barrel of monkeys. And to think, I BLED FOR THIS CHIP!

In reality, though, I shouldn't be too bitter. Compared to my x2-3600+ I get:

twice as many cores
twice the l2 cache per core
500 extra mhz per core
improved ipc

And I have a pretty good ready-for-Thuban(Bulldozer?) platform set up in case I decide to replace this balky little thing.

Maybe once I try some new BIOSes and play with suicidally-high voltage levels, I'll try benching it, but for now it's nothing particularly wonderful. Alas. I *did* beat Anand's 635 OC by 200 mhz though . . .

 

[manimal]

Have you tried different ram in there? The difference between 3.7 and the 3.8-9 that most people get on the better chips isnt all that great. The extra cache on the other hand.....

 

[DrMrLordX]

Have you tried different ram in there? The difference between 3.7 and the 3.8-9 that most people get on the better chips isnt all that great. The extra cache on the other hand.....

No, I have not. From what I've heard, the DIMMs I have feature Hyper ICs which play along well with K10.5 memory controllers (generally speaking). I can do DDR3-1600 7-7-7-18 pretty easily (many struggle to do better than CAS 8), so the RAM seems to play along as well as can be expected with the IMC.

And you are right, the clock speed difference on the cores of my chip and C2 Phenoms (even some C3 Phenoms) isn't great . . . I had hoped to use heavily overclocked RAM to overcome the absence of L3 cache, but with the IMC being as cranky as it is, that does not seem possible.

 

[BD231]

Any c2 chip is going to be a PITA at or above 3.7ghz. 3.8ghz is doable but never typically stable and the c2 stepping always needed between 1.45 to 1.50v for that overclock.

Try keeping the memory clocked at the same frequency as your north bridge and you should get more out your ram.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Sadly, 1.5v vcore gets me around 3.75 ghz . . . not really worth the trouble.

Synching the NB with the RAM's DDR3 rating, loosening all the timings, running it ganged, and disabling interleaving gets me DDR3-1720 (11-11-11-30 2T). Definitely not worth it.

Of course this is all under BIOS rev 1.7 so we'll see what other versions can improve, if anything.

Also, I've been having a weird problem with LinX where it says it's running but will not load any cores (this is running the 64-bit version under Win7 x86-64). No real skin off my nose (I just use Prime95 instead) but still odd.

 

[heyheybooboo]

... Sadly, the lack of L3 means that NB overclocking does a lot less for Propus than it does for Deneb.

. . .

I think if you run Everest you will find the exact opposite.

Latency improvements range 4-5% in the Athlons for each 10% you increase the NB/IMC speed as opposed to 3-4% with Deneb.

Bandwidth increases seem to be about the same for each: 3-4% for each 10% increase in speed of the NB/IMC.





--

 

[Hyperlite]

I can definitely confirm your conclusions on memory. But that thing is a helluva lot better OCer than mine, regardless of the multiplier. 1.5v only gets me 3450mhz. I'm running it at 3.2ghz 1.4vcore currently.

 

[nyker96]

I have a propus 620, running at 3,25ghz with default volt (1,4 I believe). You can do more but the chip needs much more volts making lousy performance/watt. anyhoo, I don't use it for heavy duty work much so 3,25 seems to work fine. you 635 seem to do better with less voltages.

what cooler did you say you use with yours? I use a hyper 212+ the temp is about 15-20 over ambiant. in the 40s I think using occt burn.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I think if you run Everest you will find the exact opposite.

Latency improvements range 4-5% in the Athlons for each 10% you increase the NB/IMC speed as opposed to 3-4% with Deneb.

Bandwidth increases seem to be about the same for each: 3-4% for each 10% increase in speed of the NB/IMC.--

I did notice latency reductions on the system memory from NB overclocking, but on a Deneb, NB overclocking has an enormous impact on L3 performance (which, obviously, it does not on Propus).

Still, that is an interesting point.

I can definitely confirm your conclusions on memory. But that thing is a helluva lot better OCer than mine, regardless of the multiplier. 1.5v only gets me 3450mhz. I'm running it at 3.2ghz 1.4vcore currently.

You have a 635? Or do you have one of the other Propus'?

I have a propus 620, running at 3,25ghz with default volt (1,4 I believe). You can do more but the chip needs much more volts making lousy performance/watt. anyhoo, I don't use it for heavy duty work much so 3,25 seems to work fine. you 635 seem to do better with less voltages.

3.25 isn't far off from where I go at stock vcore, so that's not bad at all, especially for a 620. But yeah, the chip I got seems to top out about at the upper limit of where Propus can go on air, which doesn't make me too sad or anything.

what cooler did you say you use with yours? I use a hyper 212+ the temp is about 15-20 over ambiant. in the 40s I think using occt burn.

I have a Noctua nh-d14, unlapped, with its stock fans. I didn't lap the base on the advice of people who seem to be in the know (apparently it is designed well to make for good paste imprints when installed).

Yeah, it's major overkill.

 

[formulav8]

Propus is a good cpu. I'm not sure why you wouldn't be happy with it. I don't know of many people knocking it?? Maybe gamers since thats where the L3 Cache makes the biggest difference.

3.7ghz is a very good oc. I can get a Sempron140 unlocked to Dual core @ 3.807ghz 1.52v but thats only 2x cores. You've got a good chip with all 4x cores able to get to 3.7ghz.

I definitely think you went overkill on the ram. You should have gotten PC1600 mhz ram and not the high-end stuff. PC1600 its a very good match for the quads and the extra ocing bandwidth of PC2200 is not all that measurable and especially not real noticable.

All in All you've got a good cpu that can oc quite nice and performs very well. Very good bang for your buck!


Jason

 

[DrMrLordX]

Propus is a good cpu. I'm not sure why you wouldn't be happy with it. I don't know of many people knocking it?? Maybe gamers since thats where the L3 Cache makes the biggest difference.

I am happy with it, but at the same time I'm not. The machine was intended to be a research/benchmarking platform to examine the effects of low-latency system memory on Propus; namely, I wanted to see how low I'd have to push the latency to get overall system performance on par with a similarly-clocked Deneb.

If anything, I'm irritated that it isn't a C3-stepping chip. C3 would have given me more memory OC headroom and probably another 100 mhz of core speed headroom. Can't complain about the NB speeds though.

3.7ghz is a very good oc. I can get a Sempron140 unlocked to Dual core @ 3.807ghz 1.52v but thats only 2x cores. You've got a good chip with all 4x cores able to get to 3.7ghz.

It is, compared to other Propus chips out there. I fully expected 3.7 ghz to be the upper limit for this chip . . . just didn't expect the IMC to be so difficult.

Btw that's a good OC on a Sempron 140.

I definitely think you went overkill on the ram. You should have gotten PC1600 mhz ram and not the high-end stuff. PC1600 its a very good match for the quads and the extra ocing bandwidth of PC2200 is not all that measurable and especially not real noticable.

The whole point to the RAM was to get Hypers and shoot for something like DDR2-1800 6-6-6-15 or what have you. I had no expectation that I would be able to run the RAM at DDR3-2200 since even Denebs do not like to go that high, but I wasn't expecting to be so limited on memory timings and clockspeed.

All in All you've got a good cpu that can oc quite nice and performs very well. Very good bang for your buck!

It's a good system, it just didn't quite get where it was supposed to go. Of course, this beta BIOS is supposed to open up RAM overclocking a bit so I'll keep my fingers crossed. If it would let me boot CAS5 then I'd be in business.

 

[BD231]

The phenom two only officially supported DDR3 1333 to begin with, so even at 1600 you're already running out of spec. I have some GSkill DDR3 1600 that some people are getting 2000 out of and I can't go a single step past 1600 myself either.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desk...ges/phenom-ii-key-architectural-features.aspx

 

[LoneNinja]

Should of done a little research on the stepping, unless I'm mistaken no Athlon II is C3 stepping yet and some of the Phenom II are still C2 stepping as well.

I've got an Athlon II X4 630, it's running at 3.5Ghz with 1.45V, haven't tried pushing it any further. Although it's overclocked, I almost always have it below stock speed using k10stat since I don't need the extra horsepower, it's just overclocked because I could.

As to the IMC, I'm using DDR2 memory clocked at 500mhz, this cpu was a replacement for an Athlon X2 7750. I also dropped the hyper transport and northbridge multipliers so that with the overclock, they both run at the stock 2.0Ghz. Without dropping those, my chip needed 1.5V to be stable, and I've seen no loss in performance dropping them so I could reduce vcore.

 

[DrMrLordX]

The phenom two only officially supported DDR3 1333 to begin with, so even at 1600 you're already running out of spec. I have some GSkill DDR3 1600 that some people are getting 2000 out of and I can't go a single step past 1600 myself either.

I'm just hoping for better memory support in Thuban and Zambezi. Not sure which one I want to get, but I'll probably spring for one of those sometime in the future.

Should of done a little research on the stepping, unless I'm mistaken no Athlon II is C3 stepping yet and some of the Phenom II are still C2 stepping as well.

It was just an assumption on my part. The Propus reviewed in Anand's 635 review is a C2. So yeah, that was my fault there.

 

[Dadofamunky]

I think 46C under Prime with those specs is excellent.

 

[formulav8]

I should have mentioned that i've got alot of data i'm finishing up on the effects of a cachless northbridge using the 3807mhz sempron.

I have numbers from 3x different northbridge clocks. I purposely kept the memory clock @ 282mhz to see what raw imc speed can do without increasing raw bandwidth.

Testing NB @ 1410mhz

Testing NB @ 2256mhz

Testing NB @ 2820mhz

I have all of my data finished and just need to finish up the charts since i'm redoing them to add 2820mhz results to them. Some might be surprised by the results

Similar benching with your quad would be even more interesting than my dual core results. I would like to see how much influence the imc has when its 4x cores fighting for access instead of just 2x.


Jason

 

[nyker96]

I have a Noctua nh-d14, unlapped, with its stock fans. I didn't lap the base on the advice of people who seem to be in the know (apparently it is designed well to make for good paste imprints when installed).

Yeah, it's major overkill.

D14!? nice ... but that's capable of cooling it at 5ghz!! well better supersize it than not enough :]

 

[DrMrLordX]

I think 46C under Prime with those specs is excellent.

Thanks. It was a bit of a hassle getting the cooling all set up, but it worked, and that makes me happy. It's fun being able to set voltages all willy-nilly and watch the chip stay under 50C.

Sadly, with all these processors being released on smaller and smaller processes, one often finds oneself hitting various clockspeed walls instead of thermal limits. My Brisbane was worse in that department, though.

I should have mentioned that i've got alot of data i'm finishing up on the effects of a cachless northbridge using the 3807mhz sempron.

Hmm, interesting. I'd be happy to produce some of my own numbers for comparison once I finish messing with settings (still got a BIOS update to do after I finish posting here). I haven't even done any of the standard benchmarks yet, except for SuperPi 1M as a quickie test to see how memory/NB settings were affecting overall performance.

Also, I'll do some screenies eventually to back up all these temperature claims.

D14!? nice ... but that's capable of cooling it at 5ghz!! well better supersize it than not enough :]

All I can say is that the nh-d14 is an excellent hsf with the highest quality base I've ever seen. The fan clips were a pain because I kept having to switch around my fan positions to make everything work right (and I kept losing the rubber clip mounts), but otherwise it was not hard to install. Not having to lap the base reduced my build time considerably.

 

[DrMrLordX]

BIOS update! Bios version 1.10b2 was recommended to me as a good overclocker's BIOS, so I flashed it without incident (thanks MSI forum BIOS flash tool) and have already managed to stabilize 3.8 ghz @ 1.46v vcore. Attempting to stabilize 3.85 @ 1.51v vcore (3.9 ghz is a no-go, since I don't feel like feeding THAT much vcore to the chip. Maybe 1.55v? Hmm). Haven't touched NB or RAM overclocking under this BIOS, but that will come next . . .

edit: 3.85 ghz stable @ 1.53 vcore. Will attempt to isolate maximum NB speed next. This BIOS rocks (so far).

NB speeds still limited to 2.95 ghz. Not a big deal. RAM next . . .

RAM overclocking does not seem to be significantly improved. I have more timing flexibility at DDR3-1700, but it's very difficult to use that setting in a unified overclock at this time. More testing will have to be done.

Attempting consolidated overclocks over 3.7 ghz with no success. It is more stable than it was before (that is, it will boot into Windows), but it crashes Prime in all manner of interesting ways. Basically, BIOS rev 1.10b2 bought me extra core clockspeed when isolated from RAM/NB overclocks, but not in a consolidated overclock. I could not even stabilize 3.744 ghz with the NB and RAM properly tuned. I got close, but no cigar. Le sigh. 3.7 ghz it is!

edit edit edit: got a little higher thanks to more cpu-nb voltage, but not much. Something like 3.74 ghz. Yippee. At these speeds in a consolidated overclock, the cores and Nb like to take turns causing problems so balancing voltages is difficult.

 

[planes12]

New member here. hope you dont mind me chiming in. Microcenter had a deal I couldn't pass up. Propus 630 and a GB MB for 106 after 10$ rebate. Basically, the MB was free.
Just finished OCing and have it at 3.5 GHZ.

It would not pass Prime with anything but the voltage at about 1.465 which is the setting the MB put it at. RIght now i have the memory under clocked to 667.

I think its pretty impressive for a 99$ cpu.

 

[DrMrLordX]

New member here. hope you dont mind me chiming in. Microcenter had a deal I couldn't pass up. Propus 630 and a GB MB for 106 after 10$ rebate. Basically, the MB was free.
Just finished OCing and have it at 3.5 GHZ.

It would not pass Prime with anything but the voltage at about 1.465 which is the setting the MB put it at. RIght now i have the memory under clocked to 667.

I think its pretty impressive for a 99$ cpu.

For the money, I can hardly complain. Mine was more expensive thanks to me not having a Microcenter within an acceptable driving distance. You might be able to squeeze more speed out of it if you manipulate some of the other voltages (CPU-NB for example), but whether or not that is worth it is up to you. I would definitely check out NB overclocking if your board permits it since it can have a notable impact on overall performance.

It's just interesting to see how Propus is more than just a Deneb with no L3. It has extra limitations built-in, some of which I would ascribe to the stepping and others . . . well I'm not so sure.

 

[planes12]

For the money, I can hardly complain. Mine was more expensive thanks to me not having a Microcenter within an acceptable driving distance. You might be able to squeeze more speed out of it if you manipulate some of the other voltages (CPU-NB for example), but whether or not that is worth it is up to you. I would definitely check out NB overclocking if your board permits it since it can have a notable impact on overall performance.

It's just interesting to see how Propus is more than just a Deneb with no L3. It has extra limitations built-in, some of which I would ascribe to the stepping and others . . . well I'm not so sure.

I assume you mean Northbridge? I am somewhat a newbie at OCing.
I wouldnt mind getting to 3.7 or 3.8. I bumped it up to 265 FSB and it would not boot. Was able to get the memory up to 800 MHZ and ran fine on Prime. 3.7 would boot but failed Prime on first pass, so I bumped the voltage .025 and thats when it wouldnt boot. So I figured that was my
limit. Temps were right at 48 to 50 c with 212 heat sink.

What did you OC to?

 

[DrMrLordX]

I assume you mean Northbridge? I am somewhat a newbie at OCing.
I wouldnt mind getting to 3.7 or 3.8. I bumped it up to 265 FSB and it would not boot. Was able to get the memory up to 800 MHZ and ran fine on Prime. 3.7 would boot but failed Prime on first pass, so I bumped the voltage .025 and thats when it wouldnt boot. So I figured that was my
limit. Temps were right at 48 to 50 c with 212 heat sink.

What did you OC to?

Yeah I meant northbridge.

Using a beta BIOS for my mobo, my top CPU overclock was 3.85 ghz, but that was with NB and RAM not overclocked much at all. Overclocking all three, I am sort of limited to either 3.8 ghz or 3.75 ghz depending on how stable I want to be and how much voltage I want to pump through the chip.

Given your temps, yeah, you may be at your limit. I don't know what OC features your board has so it's a little hard for me to give you additional advice on how to stabilize your system at 3.7.

Do you have the option to change your CPU-NB or NB voltages, and can you change your NB multiplier? The default multiplier should be 10x for this chip.

 

[Spikesoldier]

try setting dram speed to < 1600mhz and shoot for lowest latencies possible.

i would try getting just less than 1600mhz and go for 6-6-6-18.

 

[DrMrLordX]

try setting dram speed to < 1600mhz and shoot for lowest latencies possible.

i would try getting just less than 1600mhz and go for 6-6-6-18.

That's pretty much what I had to do. At speeds higher than DDR3-1600, the IMC becomes a less-than-happy camper.

My ideal timings turned out to be 6-7-5-15 1T which is good up to about DDR3-1560 or so. Kind of sad considering that my DIMMs are rated for DDR3-2200 7-10-10-28, but it's the IMC holding me back, not the RAM.