Recent 3200+ E3 Venice OC-ing

[fbrdphreak]

Rig:

A64 3200+ E3 Venice (purchased from Ewiz a few weeks ago, OEM)
eVGA (rebadged Jetway) NF4 SLI
BFG 6800GT OC PCI-E
2x512MB Corsair 3200C2 (v1.1 or something?)
NeoPowerHE 550

Just following the OCing guide here (thanks guys!)
Using Prime95 w/Small FFT torture test

Max HTT: 255-260

Right now prime testing 270x10 @ 1.55V; I doubt it'll finish since my max HTT was 255-260, but we'll see! Then onto memory testing

More results to come

 

[fbrdphreak]

270x10 failed after 1 minute, but 260x10 went 10 minutes+. Right now I'm finding my mem max and we'll see from there!

 

[fbrdphreak]

260x10 failed @ 1.55V after an hour Re-started @ 250x10 @ 1.55V

Mem maxed out @ 230MHz no matter what voltage

 

[Muggy]

How abt loosening the timings for the memory ? Maybe 3-3-3-8. But don't compromise by changing to 2T from 1T. That would be a big loss especially when on an A64.

 

[fbrdphreak]

I'm not so worried about the RAM clock, but the HTT is too limiting. I think I'm gonna sell this and get a DFI

 

[lifeguard1999]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
I'm not so worried about the RAM clock, but the HTT is too limiting. I think I'm gonna sell this and get a DFI

I won't argue against buying a DFI as they are great boards (I own one). Still, I would keep testing using this motherboard. It takes time and tweaking to find a stable o/c.

 

[fbrdphreak]

I think I'm gonna sell the 3200+ and get an Opty 170, but that thing needs a nice HTT. From what I hear, the eVGA board doesn't do high HTT's.

I followed the OC guide exactly and with CPU multi @ 6, mem set to SPD & 100, I got 260 to boot but I don't know if it would've passed prime.

 

[Shimmishim]

yup, sounds like the board is limiting or you have a chip with a CRAPPY CRAPPY mem controller but i doubt that.

have you tried a different bios or even using 1 stick of ram?

 

[fbrdphreak]

I have the latest BIOS; all the other ones are supposed to be worse.

I've not tried one stick of RAM, but (A) with the RAM set to 100 @ SPD it shouldn't matter and (B) if the board can't do a decent HTT w/two sticks then it is of no use to me

 

[Leper Messiah]

Originally posted by: Muggy
How abt loosening the timings for the memory ? Maybe 3-3-3-8. But don't compromise by changing to 2T from 1T. That would be a big loss especially when on an A64.

Quit spreading FUD. That statement is quite simply not true. He could run 2-2-2-5 2T and be faster than 3-3-3-8 1T. 2T vs. 1T performance is maybe 5% TOPS.

 

[psYcon]

I myself just recently got the EVGA board and the Venice 3000+

Right now I have it overclocked to 2407Mhz (267x9) at 1.450 volts. Tested Prime95 for 8hrs. No errors. Idle temp is 37C and temp while running Prime95 is 53C

Memory is Patriot Extreme (2x1024MB) DDR400 at 2.5-3-3-7 and default 2.65v

I am waiting for my Zalman CNPS7000 cooler after which I will try going beyond 2.4Ghz. So right now its already a 600Mhz overclock for me but I think it can do better.

Did you get the BIOS update from the evga site? I think the most recent they have is date 9/30.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Yes I do have the latest BIOS, thanks.

It looks like if you want to OC on the eVGA you need a high multi, 'cuz the board itself topped out @ 260 HTT. Perhaps when my DFI & Opty 170 get here I'll see what this chip can hit, just for fun

 

[psYcon]

What is your Hypertransport running at? Mine is 3x267 = 801Mhz

 

[fbrdphreak]

I believe mine is still @ 4x, perhaps that's something to look at.

Another oddity: when running OC'd at all, during Windows boot my Seagate SATA drive (connected to port 3) it seems to operate very slowly. You can hear it spinning in short bursts, chugging along for a short period of time and then stopping. Windows boot takes several minutes due to that. However when non-OC'd, it boots a lot faster and there is no odd HDD activity. Thoughts?

 

[psYcon]

yes you need to make sure that your effective Hypertransport is < 1000Mhz. Anything over that would pretty much lead to instability.

I will be getting my Zalman cooler this afternoon and will post improvements on the overclock. By the way we both have the same EVGA NF4 SLI motherboard which is essentially a rebranded Jetway. I have heard that these can be flashed with the latest Jetway bios which improves overclockability.

 

[fbrdphreak]

I briefly saw something about people who flashed to the Jetway, these were older posts on another forum, and it didn't do much for them.

I'll play with the HTT multi this weekend, before my Opteron gets here