Unlocked 960T. Overclock it?

[craftech]

I just picked up a 960T from Newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103995

The unlock feature had already been enabled in the BIOS from the Phenom II X3 740 I removed. The board is a GIGABYTE GA-880GA-UD3H
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128444

So when I booted into XP Pro and checked CPUID it showed up as a 1600T at 3.4GHZ running 6 cores.

I ran the Intel Burn Test and it seemed fine. No core was over 51 degrees C with an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 cooler (ditched the stock cooler). I also have a COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus, but I didn't want to move the ram over to slots 2 & 3 to make it fit. G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231274

Then I searched for information about overclocking it when it is unlocked and it seemed that the general consensus was not to do it if it is unlocked to six cores. Only do it if you leave it at four cores.

1. Does everyone agree? I'm not much of an overclocker so maybe there is an easy to follow guide if you think I should overclock. I had overclocked the unlocked 740 by simply increasing the multiplier and ended up with a stable 3.6 GHZ four core.

Stability is my number one priority.

2. Is there a test to see if the two unlocked cores are performing as well as the other four? I do video editing so six cores are useful to me as long as they all work well.

Thanks,

John

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Disagree. My impression is that a good percentage of 960t's running with 6 cores enabled do still have some overclock headroom.

The big question is: Is it worth it? If you cannot afford instability or the possibility of a crash then leave it alone. If you are willing to take a chance then go for it.

The risks associated with overclocking become lower if you are using a good testing process. Your testing process seems fairly sound, in that you are loading the CPU and checking for high temps/crashes. If you do decide to increase the multiplier and/or FSB I would suggest using a couple different stress test. I use Prime95, then OCCT, then intel burn, back to back, for about 15 min each. Each has unique properties and certain overclocks will fail in one or the other but not all.

 

[lOl_lol_lOl]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1189945/amd-zosma-960t-1600t-1605t-cpu-club

Some of them are running 24/7 unlocked OCs ranging from 3.6-4.3 Ghz. Stability there however is not actually a priority. Long term degradation...hard to find online. It only appears as failure of the cpu to maintain an OC at the initial voltage.

Start with [Mult: X18 3.6Ghz][NB: 2.4Ghz][Voltage: 1.45][RAM at 1333 and proper timings] and go forward from there. But only at your own risk and after reading a proper OC guide.

 

[craftech]

Thanks to both of you for the quick responses. I'll read the thread you posted carefully. I did try a multiplier of 18 and got a BSOD during the Intel Burn Test, but I didn't make any of the other changes you recommended. There are also other BIOS settings I have to familiarize myself with such as C&Q, C1E, and Turbo among others.

Thanks again.

John

 

[Magic Carpet]

2. Is there a test to see if the two unlocked cores are performing as well as the other four? I do video editing so six cores are useful to me as long as they all work well.

Thanks,

John

Well Josh, it's very easy to perform these checks. Just run everything you would normally do and if nothing crashes or exits with a bizarre error, then everything is fine and peachy.

 

[craftech]

Well Josh, it's very easy to perform these checks. Just run everything you would normally do and if nothing crashes or exits with a bizarre error, then everything is fine and peachy.

I meant is there a utility that tests each individual core's performance and shows the results?

John

 

[monkeydelmagico]

prime and occt both show each core's performance but it's listed as pass/fail. Not really any more useful than running the benchmark and watching microsoft performance monitor.

 

[blckgrffn]

Over the past week I have unlocked my 960t and then verified it at 10% OC via FSB to get the northbridge up to 2200 mhz, for a total of 3.3 ghz on the cores, all at stock voltage and cooling. For the $109+free motherboard I am calling it good - I did modestly upgrade the cooling to an Alpine Pro 7 to get the fan whine under control.

I would do some FSB OC'ing as it seems getting that NB (and therefore the L3 cached) sped up seems to provide good returns versus simple multiplier OC'ing. I think the really serious folks use a combo of both to get the NB up to ~2400+ mhz and then stabilize the core speed via multiplier after that.

This guy will be running 100% with Distributed Computing projects, so 100% stability was a concern of mine too. Awesome value chip!

*edit*

Either check the guides stickied in this thread or run something like Prime95 with round off error checking enabled. You should seriously be able to run that for ~24 hours and memtest clean for ~24 hours if you are really serious about checking your OC. I usually shortcut that to ~4 hours each myself because I don't have that kind of patience

Turbo is basically broken in Thubans, so I would just disable it to make the configuration more straightforward. My $.02.

 

[Magic Carpet]

I meant is there a utility that tests each individual core's performance and shows the results?

John

Benchmark tools like LinX, wPrime, Prime95 are meant for these purposes. I would also have Turbo Disabled if you intend to overclock your processor.

 

[tulx]

I unlocked my 960T as well and set the turbo multiplier to 18x (that's 3,6 GHz I think). Left the base clock on stock. Runs very stable so far. I had some problems when increasing the FSB, even by a little bit, but I'm still getting used to the Sabertooth UEFI. Will keep testing.

 

[craftech]

OK,

What I learned from that thread was that V Core should not exceed 1.475 and no temperatures should go past 60 degrees C during testing.

Whereas my setup crashed by simply setting the multiplier to 18 X, when I followed lol's recommendation, ..............:

[Start with [Mult: X18 3.6Ghz][NB: 2.4Ghz][Voltage: 1.45][RAM at 1333 and proper timings] and go forward from there. But only at your own risk and after reading a proper OC guide.]

................. it didn't crash. And it went from 3.4 GHZ on six cores to 3.6.

EDIT: It did crash after all.

But I have some questions.

1. I monitored the CPU usage with SpeedFan and Windows Task Manager Processes and when using Orthos or Prime 95, it only shows two cores being used even tough I set it to 6 threads. SpeedFan Temperature for Core 3 goes to 51 degrees C max. That's the highest.

2. With the voltage set to AUTO in the BIOS, it shows 1.475 volts in the BIOS yet several hardware reporting utilities in Windows say that the voltage is 1.49. They indicate that V Core 1 is 1.33 and V Core 2 is 1.49. Probably basic stuff, but I am confused.

3. Intel Burn Test ran 10 times with no errors at Standard. Cinebench showed higher performance than when it was at stock settings (17 X 200 = 3.4GHZ).

John

 

[blckgrffn]

I think vCore2 comes in with turbo. One of the reasons I would disable turbo when OC'ing.

 

[craftech]

I think vCore2 comes in with turbo. One of the reasons I would disable turbo when OC'ing.

I think it is disabled. Here is what is listed in the Gigabyte Intelligent Tweaker in the BIOS:

CPU Performance Boost [Enabled] and under that listing it says
CPB Ratio [AUTO] 3400 MHZ
Turbo CPB [DISABLED]

Doesn't that mean Turbo is disabled or do I have to disable CPU Performance Boost?

Thanks for the help - much appreciated.

John

 

[blckgrffn]

I think you do have Turbo off... we'll have to get someone more experience with AMD OC'ing to chime in on the vCore stuff then

 

[craftech]

I think you do have Turbo off... we'll have to get someone more experience with AMD OC'ing to chime in on the vCore stuff then

What's also confusing is that the CPU is listed as 3.00 GHZ / 3.400 GHZ which to me means 3.00 (Turbo Off) / (3.4 (Turbo On). Since without overclocking it shows 3.4 GHZ I wonder if Turbo is enabled automatically in the chip no matter what the BIOS says (for some reason). Not sure.

Maybe I should list the other relevant setings in the BIOS (the ones with numbers next to them):

CPU Clock Ratio [X18] 3600 MHZ
CPU Northbridge [X12] 2400 MHZ
HT Link Frequency [AUTO] 2200 MHZ
Memory Clock [AUTO]
X6.66 1333 MHZ
***SYSTEM VOLTAGE OPTIMIZED***
System Voltage Control [AUTO]
Normal CPU Vcore 1.45 v

If I set the System Voltage Control to [Manual] then it shows the Normal settings as follows:

CPU PLL Voltage Control 2.5v
Dram Voltage Control 1.5v
DDR VTT Voltage Control 0.75v
NB Voltage Control 1.2v
NB/PCIe/PLL Voltage Control 1.8v

Thanks,

John

 

[Magic Carpet]

Doesn't that mean Turbo is disabled or do I have to disable CPU Performance Boost?

Thanks for the help - much appreciated.

John

You have a giga-byte mobo. Disable Perf. Boost otherwise it defaults to your turbo clocks.

 

[craftech]

You have a giga-byte mobo. Disable Perf. Boost otherwise it defaults to your turbo clocks.

Actually it just crashed with a BSOD running Intel Burn Test again. I noticed that if I set the CPU clock Ratio to Auto it says 3000 MHZ to I guess Turbo is enabled. When I had it set to 17 X originally it was overclocked and I didn't realize it. But it didn't crash.

So I guess I'll try it as I listed above with Performance Boost disabled and the .4% overclock of both the CPU and the Northbridge and see if it is more stable.

Thanks.

John

EDIT: If you know anything about the voltages as I listed them I would appreciate any input regarding how I have them set [AUTO].

Follow-Up: Crashed (BSOD) with those settings. I went back to 17X and Performance Boost enabled with the Northbridge set to AUTO. Even on AUTO Northbridge says 2400 MHZ??

What's it supposed to be?