Utterly boring overclocking experience (AMD)

[ctk1981]

Well, I recently built a "sale" computer. In other words, I wasnt buying a single part unless it was on sale or at least had a rebate....and there had to be free shipping involved regardless.

At any rate, I ended up with a Phenom II X4 965 BE, Gigabyte 990XA-UD3, Xion Predator 970 case, Seasonic X 650, 16GB Geil Corsa Enhanced 1600mhz, Evga GTX 570HD. My SSD's, HDD's, and bluray drive were reused from the previous system so that saved me some cash. Handling the cooling is a corsair H80. Case is equipped with 3 120mm slipstream fans (500rpm version), 200mm coolermaster megaflow is mounted in the side panel, and of course the two fans that came with the H80. The top two fans are exhausting, everything else is set to intake air.

At any rate, after all was assembled I booted up my ssd which was previously installed on a intel machine. I was set to do a clean install but wasn't paying attention and missed my chance to press any key....well whaddya know, that darn thing booted into windows all the way. Eh, I figured what the hell....I'll go ahead and muck with it now and that way if I crash it too bad I wont be so upset because its a dirty install anyways. All the appropriate drivers were installed of course.

Well, I didnt touch any voltages....managed to squeeze 4.2Ghz, 2400 HT, left the bus at 200mhz, ram set to 1600mhz like it should. Wow....boring. I'm going to prime test it overnight but its already 4 hours into it with no problems. OCCT reports temps around 55-58c loaded, vCore is bouncing around 1.477-1.5V. 4.4Ghz results in an almost immediate blue screen,

Next up was the GTX 570. I simply looked up the specs for the SC version from evga, went ahead and overclocked it to 797mhz on the core, 1594mhz shaders, and 3950mhz on the ram. Went ahead and stress tested that with furmark for a while and played Stalker: COP, no problems there either. BOOOORRRRRIIIIIIINNNNGGGGG

This was pretty boring as far as overclocking goes. Yeah I could go back and tweak the FSB, try to squeeze a little more, maybe bump the voltage up and this and that....but really, at 4.2ghz with no effort and an upgrade on the video card to an SC model....why waste anymore time....bring on the games!!!

 

[RavenSEAL]

So you're ranting about an AMD chip being too easy to overclock?

 

[ctk1981]

Hmmm.....Ranting no, Rambling...probably.

 

[nyker96]

I'm at lost here, since you bought a BE edition you aren't looking to work the FSB at all, why so surprised that you don't need to do much to OC a BE edition cpu? it's the way it should be.

 

[ctk1981]

Never said I wasnt willing to work with the FSB at all. In actuality, the ram is rated to pass 1700mhz so the only way to get there from the current divider is to overclock the FSB. And from there I could in theory actually try to take the ram past its 1700mhz rating and see just how far it would go as some have shown it to make it to 1900mhz. Right now finding out the maximum stable oc with the multiplier is just the first step typically. From here one would usually try to find the maximum FSB and maximum the memory would support. Then try to bring it all together so you have the maximum FSB/HT/Memory coupled with the highest OC you established by testing the multiplier. And of course along the way you could throw in some changes to NB voltage, CPU voltage, memory voltage etc to try and gain the maximum amount of OC.

Try not to imply that simply because someone buys a black edition the only thing they are going to do is raise the multiplier.

What I was surprised at....was the 4.2Ghz overclock with no changes in the bios other than shutting off cool n quiet and changing the HT and multiplier.

 

[RavenSEAL]

What I was surprised at....was the 4.2Ghz overclock with no changes in the bios other than shutting off cool n quiet and changing the HT and multiplier.

Not sure why you'd be surprised, most unlocked chips work like that, specially with AMD.

All i did for mine was set the RAM OC profile, increase the voltage up a notch, 5 hour IBT stable and call it a day, been running flawless since day one.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

You must have some good cooling to run that much voltage.

 

[ctk1981]

I guess Im surprised by the number of recent reviews on newegg that only hit 3.6-3.7Ghz. The farther back you go it seems 4-4.2 is common.

Actually I think I am going to go back in and lower the vcore down and see if I can keep it stable. Dont know why gigabyte defaults at 1.4V on this board.

 

[RavenSEAL]

I guess Im surprised by the number of recent reviews on newegg that only hit 3.6-3.7Ghz. The farther back you go it seems 4-4.2 is common.

Actually I think I am going to go back in and lower the vcore down and see if I can keep it stable. Dont know why gigabyte defaults at 1.4V on this board.

The default vCore for mine was actually 1.475 on the same board, god knows why...

I set it back to stock and went from there.

 

[thilanliyan]

So you wanted something to blow up?
That would be exciting.

 

[RavenSEAL]

So you wanted something to blow up?
That would be exciting.

A little bit of fire would've been nice.

 

[ctk1981]

Hmmm....well there was that time my home made water cooling unit failed.....the peltier/water block on the Radeon 9800 pro didn't like that and set the card on fire.

Well at least it got to be a little interesting. Disabled C1E support, set LLC to High. Vcore is now running at 1.4-1.42V under load. Unfortunately my 4.2Ghz OC wouldnt hold up under that setting, doing fine under 4.0Ghz. Temps dropped 7C under OCCT linpack load also.

I do have one gripe against the board. For some reason when set to ACHI mode for the sata, it doesnt see the SSD or my WD caviar black in the bios. It sees the hitcachi drive which is the oldest of the three. In the previous system they all worked fine in ACHI mode.

Edit: Okay Im an idiot, figured out the sata ahci problem.

 

[superccs]

Congrats, looks like an easy win

 

[LoneNinja]

The default vCore for mine was actually 1.475 on the same board, god knows why...

I set it back to stock and went from there.

I don't know the exact model, but I've got a Gigabyte board that defaults my Athlon II X4 640 at 1.475V, thing runs stable stock speed down around 1.25V.

 

[ed29a]

Well, I recently built a "sale" computer. In other words, I wasnt buying a single part unless it was on sale or at least had a rebate....and there had to be free shipping involved regardless.

At any rate, I ended up with a Phenom II X4 965 BE, Gigabyte 990XA-UD3, Xion Predator 970 case, Seasonic X 650, 16GB Geil Corsa Enhanced 1600mhz, Evga GTX 570HD. My SSD's, HDD's, and bluray drive were reused from the previous system so that saved me some cash. Handling the cooling is a corsair H80. Case is equipped with 3 120mm slipstream fans (500rpm version), 200mm coolermaster megaflow is mounted in the side panel, and of course the two fans that came with the H80. The top two fans are exhausting, everything else is set to intake air.

At any rate, after all was assembled I booted up my ssd which was previously installed on a intel machine. I was set to do a clean install but wasn't paying attention and missed my chance to press any key....well whaddya know, that darn thing booted into windows all the way. Eh, I figured what the hell....I'll go ahead and muck with it now and that way if I crash it too bad I wont be so upset because its a dirty install anyways. All the appropriate drivers were installed of course.

Well, I didnt touch any voltages....managed to squeeze 4.2Ghz, 2400 HT, left the bus at 200mhz, ram set to 1600mhz like it should. Wow....boring. I'm going to prime test it overnight but its already 4 hours into it with no problems. OCCT reports temps around 55-58c loaded, vCore is bouncing around 1.477-1.5V. 4.4Ghz results in an almost immediate blue screen,

Next up was the GTX 570. I simply looked up the specs for the SC version from evga, went ahead and overclocked it to 797mhz on the core, 1594mhz shaders, and 3950mhz on the ram. Went ahead and stress tested that with furmark for a while and played Stalker: COP, no problems there either. BOOOORRRRRIIIIIIINNNNGGGGG

This was pretty boring as far as overclocking goes. Yeah I could go back and tweak the FSB, try to squeeze a little more, maybe bump the voltage up and this and that....but really, at 4.2ghz with no effort and an upgrade on the video card to an SC model....why waste anymore time....bring on the games!!!

Cool story bro.

 

[KingFatty]

I'm not sure if you already addressed this, but consider also overclocking the CPU-NB. It can have really big benefits. Even though you already have a good overclock on the cores, you will be slightly handicapping the chip without also overclocking the CPU-NB. Note that there may be a sweet spot around 2400-2800 MHz, you may not need to go much over that. This might raise the overall heat generated by the CPU slightly, so you may need to re-work your core overclocks.

However, I think you will come out ahead (perhaps 10% boost overall) if you slightly reduce your main overclock to say 4.1 GHz to enable you to overclock your CPU-NB to say 2800 MHz.

Take a look at these example charts/numbers, I know that games like Starcraft II really love when you overclock the CPU-NB of a Phenom II:

http://www.overclock.net/t/816159/phenom-ii-cpu-nb-overclocking-review

 

[ctk1981]

I'm not sure if you already addressed this, but consider also overclocking the CPU-NB. It can have really big benefits. Even though you already have a good overclock on the cores, you will be slightly handicapping the chip without also overclocking the CPU-NB. Note that there may be a sweet spot around 2400-2800 MHz, you may not need to go much over that. This might raise the overall heat generated by the CPU slightly, so you may need to re-work your core overclocks.

However, I think you will come out ahead (perhaps 10% boost overall) if you slightly reduce your main overclock to say 4.1 GHz to enable you to overclock your CPU-NB to say 2800 MHz.

Take a look at these example charts/numbers, I know that games like Starcraft II really love when you overclock the CPU-NB of a Phenom II:

http://www.overclock.net/t/816159/phenom-ii-cpu-nb-overclocking-review

Thanks. I have the CPU-NB set at 2400 right now, didnt go any farther with it. I ended up at 4Ghz to run the 1.41vcore, under load its running right at 51C so Im pretty happy with that. Right now Im running the GTX 570 up in speed and testing that. So far Im at 850/1700/1975 but that seems like a normal or even mild OC according the evga forums.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Nice. I did a similar strategy recently with a low cost build. Care to share a price breakdown on this "sale" compy?

 

[Vic Vega]

OP I had the very same boring experience with my 965.

My system has been utterly and completely stable for over a year now. This may be the most stable PC I've ever built. It basically runs 24/7 with nary a hiccup.

Enjoy your new rig!

 

[ctk1981]

Well I guess I get to have a little "fun" trying to figure out how to get the CPU-NB into the 2600-2800mhz range. Any recommendations on what a safe voltage for the NB and NB VID is?

I'd have to go and look at all the receipts, but some of these items were common newegg shell shocker deals.

115 for the processor
55 for the case after rebate
139 for the motherboard
275 for the evga gtx 570 HD
36 dollars for 3 slip stream fans and 1 cm megaflow fan
75 16GB ram
85 for the cpu cooler
100 seasonic x 650

 

[BD231]

I'd leave it alone and focus on getting your voltage down.

 

[ctk1981]

I'd leave it alone and focus on getting your voltage down.

Seems to be a lot of people running more voltage than I am for the same or even lesser OC. What do you think is a good voltage for my cpu/oc? Amd says 1.4 is max, for some dumb reason gigabyte runs that as the default voltage also.

 

[slayernine]

Hmmm.....Ranting no, Rambling...probably.

lol your title suggests otherwise

 

[BD231]

Seems to be a lot of people running more voltage than I am for the same or even lesser OC. What do you think is a good voltage for my cpu/oc? Amd says 1.4 is max, for some dumb reason gigabyte runs that as the default voltage also.

The lower the better. Say you can run at 1.4v @ 4ghz, I'd take that over 4.2 at 1.5v. Aim for the sweet spot. I degraded an x4 @ 1.475v in just under two years.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Why 4GHZ? Pushing the 955 and co past 3.6Ghz dont do much performance wise