Voltage guidance?

[Goldfish4209]

I'm trying to overclock, and I'm hitting a brick wall at 385FSB. Everything seems to be fine, the temps aren't off the charts and I have more than adequate cooling. So is the problem that I'm not giving the chips enough juice? I had the processor at 1.3 volts and that didn't make much of a difference. So what can I put into my hardware without frying it? I'm not interested in getting insanely high overclocks, I just want some decent free speed.

My goals are FSB 400, CPU 3.2Ghz, RAM 940 (960?) or 1000Mhz.

So what can I set my voltages at without frying anything?

Hardware:

C2D E6750 (should have gone with E4500)
ASUS P5K-E P35
Radeon 3870
Zalman 9500A 92mm fan HSF
More than adequate case fans
Corsair XMS2 4GB 2x2GB
Corsair VX450 PSU

Thanks in advance.

 

[genec57]

Your chip can take a whole lot more vcore than that. 3.2 should be easily attainable. Start bumping vcore a step at a time until you get stability. I wouldn't even start to get nervous until you get to 1.5. Temps with your aircooler are of far more concern than vcore. The Zalman is a bit weak but still should get you to 3.2

 

[Goldfish4209]

What about all the other stuff? RAM? north bridge? That's what I'm mainly worried about.

 

[Tempered81]

you should increase the voltage of the "other stuff" too when overclocking. cpu id say worry around 1.5 in bios, like the other fella said.
add .1volts to your nb pcie and .3 to your ddr2. You're regretting that 8x multiplier knowing an e4500 would be running around 3.6ghz on your cooling solution? heheh well you have the xtra cache which probably equals out performance.

 

[Phunk0ne]

For the E6750 to hit 3.2GHz, the cpu would suffice with stock voltage. I find it rather odd you are not able to hit 1:1 overclock fsb:ram (fsb @ 400:ram@400) with your asus P35 mobo.
What is your ram speeds rated at and what voltage does it use?

 

[XBoxLPU]

Originally posted by: genec57
Your chip can take a whole lot more vcore than that. 3.2 should be easily attainable. Start bumping vcore a step at a time until you get stability. I wouldn't even start to get nervous until you get to 1.5. Temps with your aircooler are of far more concern than vcore. The Zalman is a bit weak but still should get you to 3.2

Guess I am conservative too but it just seems that an extra CPU clock isn't worth it if the vcore has to increase a great bit too. My E4400 is stable at 2.8Ghz stock voltages (1.325). I am not stable at 3.2Ghz with 1.4V(bios) but stable at 3.0Ghz (1.350V).

 

[Goldfish4209]

What? DDR2 can't go 1600Mhz. Unless you mean 1:2, which it can do at 1.8V. What should I be putting into my RAM and northbridge? The RAM is rated for 800Mhz at 5-5-5-18. It's stable at 5-5-5-15, which the mobo decided it would do.

Does nobody know what to expect for the northbridge and RAM?

 

[XBoxLPU]

Rated FSB has nothing to do with memory

400FSB = 800DDR2 (1:1)

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Use 1:1 memory divider. Set Vdimm and timing per RAM's specs. Bump Vcore to VID plus 5%.

 

[Tempered81]

um would anyone agree that he needs to increase his ram voltage by .3 volts?

 

[LOUISSSSS]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
um would anyone agree that he needs to increase his ram voltage by .3 volts?

is his ram rated for 2.2vRam?

i think default for most mb's are 1.8, my MB was 1.8... i have a DS3. and yes u can bump ur vcore, intel covers it up to 1.5v

 

[Phunk0ne]

well he is running the E6750 (?)
so why should he up his vcore above stock voltage just to get 3.2?

Unless we do not know what his ram specs are, meaning @ what voltages it should run and supports, just suggesting bumping up his vcore by .3 might end up OP having his ram marked for death.

I still find it a mystery a brand such as Asus is not able to get his setup run @ a very mild overclock @ stock volts.

If possible, can you make screenshots of your BIOS and show us the settings you are using right now? that might help out a bit, and a link to the exact RAM you are using to see the specs, just in case you have missed something.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Phunk0ne


Unless we do not know what his ram specs are, meaning @ what voltages it should run and supports, just suggesting bumping up his vcore by .3 might end up OP having his ram marked for death.

not vcore by .3 volts. Then he would be at about 1.625 vcore. He should be able to adjust the voltage of his Northbridge, memory, Pcie, and Cpu separately. I increased everything by .1 volts except for the ram, which I increased by .3 volts.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: jaredpace

Originally posted by: Phunk0ne


Unless we do not know what his ram specs are, meaning @ what voltages it should run and supports, just suggesting bumping up his vcore by .3 might end up OP having his ram marked for death.

not vcore by .3 volts. Then he would be at about 1.625 vcore. He should be able to adjust the voltage of his Northbridge, memory, Pcie, and Cpu separately. I increased everything by .1 volts except for the ram, which I increased by .3 volts.

LOL... he would smoke his cpu.


2.0V is IMO too much for any ram chip whose normal stock default is 1.8V

Companys are overclocking the ram, shortening there life for the higher speeds. This leads to failed ram later on. I lost 4 pairs of crucial ballastix/tracer series because i was pumping voltage @ 2.0V for my speed in sig loaded 24/7. Had to throttle it down to 1.95V and its been working fine @ 415mhz.


If you honestly can see a difference in anything you do between 830mhz ram vs 1077mhz ram. Then your eyes can pick up things faster thn 60fps, which means your not human. Or superhuman.

 

[GundamF91]

Right now I'm running 2.9Ghz at 1.30v. It'll easily hit 3.2Ghz at about 1.38v. I think E6xxx should do this hands down.

By the way, I don't up vDimm since the memory speed isn't nearly as important as CPU, and also my memory's already running quite abit faster than CPU, so you wont' see any real world gain.

As for vCore, it's been said that 10% increase is no big deal, so that means 0.13v. I've driven E4500 up to 1.65 before, it definitely gets hot, I wouldn't recommend it for daily running, but it managed to hit 3.5Ghz stable.

 

[Phunk0ne]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
not vcore by .3 volts. Then he would be at about 1.625 vcore. He should be able to adjust the voltage of his Northbridge, memory, Pcie, and Cpu separately. I increased everything by .1 volts except for the ram, which I increased by .3 volts.

Jaredpace, you are right, I made a mistake with the addition of the .3 increase of the voltage.

GoldFish4209

My goals are FSB 400, CPU 3.2Ghz
ASUS P5K-E P35 <---- !!!!

You might want to look at his specs again? OP is NOT running 965P chipset. AFAIK, most people who overclock with the 965P had to increase voltages all over the board with the execption of RAM unless going beyond ram specs, but the P35 requires no such increase in voltages, unless you are aiming for an overclock beyond 3.2Ghz with the E6750 on the P35

I have a a few friends who are running similar specs as mine, except for the motherboard being a 965P chipset, and all of them had to raise the voltages all over the board. But ram should NOT require any increase of voltages if OP only wants to do a mild overclock of 3.2Ghz with the E6750. since he is going to run 1:1 @ ram specs (Goldfish4209 says himself: The RAM is rated for 800Mhz at 5-5-5-18.)
But even with raising .3v on his ram, if manufacturer states his ram should do DDRII 800 speeds @ 1.8V why should he up his vdimm?

Unless OP comes back with the exact specs of his ram, I would strongly advice against raising his vdimm.

 

[Goldfish4209]

Well, I got the processor to 3.2Ghz at 1.3125v and ran prime 95 overnight successfully, so I'm ok on that.

Now the problem is the RAM. It runs at 5-5-5-15 at 800Mhz at 1.8V, but even if I set the RAM to 2.2V it won't budge. Any ideas?

Thanks, guys.

 

[Phunk0ne]

so why exactly do you want to up the voltage of your ram?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I don't know whether he needs the voltage to increase the DDR speed, or to tighten the latencies and command-rate. It's not clear to me why he needs the extra voltage.

I don't know how he's over-clocking. I use a CPU|DDR divider ratio of 4:5. I can run my RAM that way at it's 800 Mhz spec with voltages lower than 2.1V. If I run the RAM at between 870 and 880, I need 2.125V for the RAM, with tight latencies and a 1T command-rate.

Different modules will have different specs. My Crucials have max recommended voltage of 2.2V. Other DDR2 modules have a lower maximum between 1.9 and 2.1.

The recommended (warranty) maximum is a good point of reference in discussing the amount of voltage needed or used for the RAM. Unless the people running the company are absolute idiots, they would ordinarily warranty something for replacement if they were near-100% sure that the part wouldn't fail. Or -- if production costs are too high with that approach, they could tolerate some small level of product-returns. But any out-of-control RMA requests are not prudent for long-term customer-relations, and some sort of quality-control effort would be the least costly and more convenient.

So you can feel assured that the maximum recommended voltage that limits the warranty is a number of some significance.

 

[Goldfish4209]

This is what I have right now:

FSB400 (1600) with the CPU at 3.2Ghz. I'm happy with this.

My RAM's set at 1:2 (or 1:1, however you look at it) at 800Mhz. It's running at 1.8 volts, 5-5-5-15, everything else is auto. (will go and change that, hopefully) I want it to go to 960Mhz with 4-4-4-12 ideally, but if that's not possible 960Mhz 5-5-5-18 or 800Mhz 4-4-4-12 is also ok. What kinds of voltages do I need to achieve this? The memory is Corsair XMS2 4Gb DDR2 800 5-5-5-18. ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820145176 , http://www.corsairmicro.com/products/xms2_dhx.aspx )

Being corsair XMS memory, I find it slightly absurd that I can't get it past stock. Either I'm doing something wrong that I'm not aware of, or I got a few bad sticks. I have a feeling it's me.

So, what are all the things I could have possibly set wrong to make these things not overclock?

EDIT: Also, why does running the RAM with some odd ratio reduce performance?

And to whoever it was that private messaged me for the specs, (the message vanished) here they are:

http://www.asktheramguy.com/v3/showthread.php?t=52351

 

[Phunk0ne]

Okay with your fsb quad pumped @ 1600 and cpu @ 3.2GHz, that is a 1:1 ratio overclock. which is 400MHz FSB x 8 multiplier. For this 1:1 overclock you do not need to increase your ram speeds. You already stated you wanted a mild overclock of 3.2GHz, so there is no need to OC your ram since its running at stock speeds to achieve the 3.2GHz OC.
remember, your cpu FSB is quad pumped, 1600/4=400 (which is your ram's specified speeds *DDRII-800).

again, you do not need to overclock your ram since you are @ 1:1 ratio now, your fsb is now running synchronized with your ram's stock speed.

if you are sticking to 1:1 @ 960Mhz, that will result in a 3.840 overclock (480 x 8) where you will have to increase voltages all over the board, including your ram. That is, if that is your plan, and possible you will need a more powerful cooling solution.

 

[Goldfish4209]

Well, 960 is 6:5, not 1:1. I'm ok with the FSB and proc right now, what about timings? Do I just have some bad RAM?

 

[BlueAcolyte]

The memory is specced to run at 5-5-5-18, which is JEDEC standard... Your RAM is meeting its required specs, I don't know why you would want the not-noticeable performance increase from 4-4-4-12... Maybe it just doesn't WANT to overclock.