What are people smokin'

[farscape]

After a week and a half of trying to get a decent OC (3.5 - 3.6) on my 720, I m beginning to think that everything has been nothing but hype.

Anandtech's 3.36 stock - BS ---- 3.2 maybe
3.8 - a real dream

WHAT IS EVERYONE SMOKING???????

I have never had so many lockups, prime95 shutdowns - haven't even tried graphics benches.
Checked and rechecked, reloaded, in and out of the case - I'm ready to throw it all in. Damn, I even tried the AMD OC software - 3.2 is my stable limit. I've tried every combination of settings that I've found and then some.

Stock is fine, stable, cool.

My Core 2 6750 at 3.6 - piece of cake
My old K7 2600 at 3.2 - stable as all heck

I AM NOT STUPID - I've been building PCs for 15 years - But this is throwing me for a loop....

ASUS 4A78T-E
Xigmatek Dark Knight CPU Cooler
AMD 720 BE
HIS 4890
WD 1TB Black
BFG 550 GS Powersupply
4 G (2x2) G Skill DDR3 1600
Vista 64



Rant over

Thank you for listening

 

[Marty502]

You do know you might have gotten a bum chip, no? It just happens.

I wouldn't blame people being delusional for a bad OC experience.

I used to have an Athlon 64 3000. Highest it would go was 2.4 Ghz. Couldn't avoid being jealous of everyone who was hitting 2.8 with it.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Its pretty crazy, but some chips were low binned for a reason. I had my s939 4200+ that only hit 2.4ghz. That's it. Other people on here got up to 2.9ghz. (Eerily similar to Marty502)

You have a good motherboard. I would recommend seeing if running 1 stick of ram with your overclock would help. See if its memory related.

Just a suggestion.

 

[richierich1212]

What mobo settings are you using?

 

[yh125d]

One of two things is happening

1) You are extremely unlucky and got a terrible binning

or, more likely,

2) You're doing something wrong

 

[SunSamuraix]

I would say from his attitude he is doing something wrong.

 

[alyarb]

do you perform other diagnoses based on attitude?

 

[Eureka]

What are your voltages? It seems like you're still on stock voltage on that chip, if so those numbers are actually reasonable.

 

[Schmide]

Can you fix it Diagnostic Repair Drone 1812?

 

[Idontcare]

Reading thru the replies in this thread - makes me so proud of this AT site, you guys all nailed this one.

Originally posted by: farscape
Anandtech's 3.36 stock - BS ---- 3.2 maybe
3.8 - a real dream

WHAT IS EVERYONE SMOKING???????

Impugning the site's owner/operator is probably not setting the kind of tone that is going to rally your fellow posters to come out of the woodwork in support of helping you get your rig into peak OC form...

Originally posted by: farscape
I AM NOT STUPID - I've been building PCs for 15 years - But this is throwing me for a loop....

OP - with your stated experience it really boggles my mind that you appear to have expected, as others rightly pointed out above, that ALL cpu's would reach comparable OC's and at comparable voltages and temperatures...

You could have a bum CPU, a bum mobo, a bum PSU, or a bum HSF install, or simply might not be "all that" yourself when it comes to tweaking OC setups to get the most out of them.

YMMV - your mileage may vary - applies to every conceivable overclocking situation and is oft quoted for this very reason.

 

[poohbear]

mine does 3600mhz max stable but im keeping it at 3500mhz cause the vcore increase needed doesn't justify the extra 100mhz. Most people have similar results, some even get one that does 3800mhz. you are in the minority im afraid, as if u check most forum posts 3500mhz is standard. Either u have a really bad chip or u're doing something terribly wrong. they overclock pretty good man.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
YMMV - your mileage may vary - applies to every conceivable overclocking situation and is oft quoted for this very reason.

Exactly. You gotta remember - you are pushing a chip past the point the manufacturer has rated it for operation. Some simply won't go as fast as others.

Now, instead of being confrontational here - let's see if there's anything we can do to help you push your OC higher. The suggestion above to isolate to a single stick of memory is a great place to start.

 

[SunnyD]

There's a reason I usually don't overclock - sure the extra performance would be nice, but when stock gives me everything I need without suffering for performance I don't have to worry about how far my CPU/Video Card/Whatever can go before I blow it up or it is deemed to suck.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: SunnyD
There's a reason I usually don't overclock - sure the extra performance would be nice, but when stock gives me everything I need without suffering for performance I don't have to worry about how far my CPU/Video Card/Whatever can go before I blow it up or it is deemed to suck.

The reason: irrational fear of overclocking damaging something

The result: stock performance


the Rest of us enjoy getting results like 4.0GHz from a 2.83GHz CPU - which is *drastic* but completely stable

and i understand the OP's FRUSTRATION that lead to this rant

expect one from me next week - as i try to unlock X550 .. and Overclock
- my *first* AMD system
:Q

New AMD build - *budget* high performance gamer for 19x12

 

[perdomot]

My 720BE is doing 3.4Ghz at 1.4v and could probably do more but I'm happy here.

 

[Stoneburner]

Originally posted by: poohbear
mine does 3600mhz max stable but im keeping it at 3500mhz cause the vcore increase needed doesn't justify the extra 100mhz..

Most people echo this sentiment... but I find myself wondering, if you can go safely up to 1.5 or 1.55 on air, as stated by somebody from AMD... why not? From my LAFFNER esque calculations, it doesn't equate to that much more in electricity bills.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: SunnyD
There's a reason I usually don't overclock - sure the extra performance would be nice, but when stock gives me everything I need without suffering for performance I don't have to worry about how far my CPU/Video Card/Whatever can go before I blow it up or it is deemed to suck.

The reason: irrational fear of overclocking damaging something

The result: stock performance


the Rest of us enjoy getting results like 4.0GHz from a 2.83GHz CPU - which is *drastic* but completely stable

and i understand the OP's FRUSTRATION that lead to this rant

expect one from me next week - as i try to unlock X550 .. and Overclock
- my *first* AMD system
:Q

New AMD build - *budget* high performance gamer for 19x12

There's nothing irrational going on here. I haven't run into anything yet that requires additional performance beyond what I already have. Of course, I'm plenty happy with 40fps, where 43fps isn't going to make much of a difference for the amount of effort to ensure a stable overclock (in some cases).

Now when I get to the point where I need more performance, then I'll consider it. Until then, it's just wasted effort.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: SunnyD
There's a reason I usually don't overclock - sure the extra performance would be nice, but when stock gives me everything I need without suffering for performance I don't have to worry about how far my CPU/Video Card/Whatever can go before I blow it up or it is deemed to suck.

The reason: irrational fear of overclocking damaging something

The result: stock performance


the Rest of us enjoy getting results like 4.0GHz from a 2.83GHz CPU - which is *drastic* but completely stable

and i understand the OP's FRUSTRATION that lead to this rant

expect one from me next week - as i try to unlock X550 .. and Overclock
- my *first* AMD system
:Q

New AMD build - *budget* high performance gamer for 19x12

There's nothing irrational going on here. I haven't run into anything yet that requires additional performance beyond what I already have. Of course, I'm plenty happy with 40fps, where 43fps isn't going to make much of a difference for the amount of effort to ensure a stable overclock (in some cases).

Now when I get to the point where I need more performance, then I'll consider it. Until then, it's just wasted effort.

i doubt you will get much support from the guys in OC'ing forum

yes it IS irrational FEAR
:lips:

none of us have it and we don't "blow up" our CPUs and DO get a LOT of *free* and extra performance

you can try to minimize your sour grapes all you want because of your trepidation, but we already know better

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: SunnyD

There's nothing irrational going on here. I haven't run into anything yet that requires additional performance beyond what I already have. Of course, I'm plenty happy with 40fps, where 43fps isn't going to make much of a difference for the amount of effort to ensure a stable overclock (in some cases).

Now when I get to the point where I need more performance, then I'll consider it. Until then, it's just wasted effort.

Depends on what games and settings are used. Sometime you can get 2 fps out of your oc, other times you can get 10 fps or make the difference between playable and unplayable.
Of course that when you have an i7 and two gtx 285, ocing will not give you a noticeable boost, because everything works perfect anyway.

But, overclocking came out just because some/most of us didn't had the money to buy the most expensive and the fastest hardware out there. Having an E7200 from 2.53 ghz to 4 ghz, makes a night to day difference in everything. An i7 950 taken from stock to 4 ghz will not give you such an important difference, because it's already fast enough to play everything you throw at it. Ocing is more for the budget hardware and done right will not damage anything. Done bad and you get all sort of restarts and issues like OP has.

 

[yh125d]

I wouldn't say its blind fear. When I got my current setup running the first thing I did was overclock the hell out of the GPU and CPU. I got 725/1800/1100 GPU, and 4.1gHz stable on CPU (although real high voltage, I backed down to 3.8). Then I did some benchmark tests and figured out that even at stock CPU speed my 9800 was still bottlenecking me and I got no improvement by OCing the CPU, so it's been running at stock for awhile. I just ordered a 4870 though, hopefully that wont bottleneck my CPU

 

[Rifter]

Sometimes you get a bad chip, intel is the same way it just happens sometimes. For example i just upgraded to a 940BE that hits 3.8Ghz no problem. But my old CPU was a 7750BE that would not go over 3Ghz even with 1.7V!

 

[jaggerwild]

15 years!
So figure it out? HT in the bios off? auto voltage to 3.8................... Probably the common thing is you think you know it all.
You do not have 15 year experience with an I7 were all equal there except me I have none. DOH!

Regards!

 

[Zensal]

It probably is just a bum chip or mobo. I had a Opty 165 that would not go past 2.35 GHz. It baffled me for months. I also tried it in another motherboard and with new RAM, but alas, nothing.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: SunnyD

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: SunnyD
There's a reason I usually don't overclock - sure the extra performance would be nice, but when stock gives me everything I need without suffering for performance I don't have to worry about how far my CPU/Video Card/Whatever can go before I blow it up or it is deemed to suck.

The reason: irrational fear of overclocking damaging something

The result: stock performance


the Rest of us enjoy getting results like 4.0GHz from a 2.83GHz CPU - which is *drastic* but completely stable

and i understand the OP's FRUSTRATION that lead to this rant

expect one from me next week - as i try to unlock X550 .. and Overclock
- my *first* AMD system
:Q

New AMD build - *budget* high performance gamer for 19x12

There's nothing irrational going on here. I haven't run into anything yet that requires additional performance beyond what I already have. Of course, I'm plenty happy with 40fps, where 43fps isn't going to make much of a difference for the amount of effort to ensure a stable overclock (in some cases).

Now when I get to the point where I need more performance, then I'll consider it. Until then, it's just wasted effort.

i doubt you will get much support from the guys in OC'ing forum

yes it IS irrational FEAR
:lips:

none of us have it and we don't "blow up" our CPUs and DO get a LOT of *free* and extra performance

you can try to minimize your sour grapes all you want because of your trepidation, but we already know better

I wasn't originally going to post a response to Sunny's original post above on the topic because I thought it would be sort of needless, but given how the thread iterated on his post I will go ahead and weigh in on my thoughts.

Folks here who know me know I was a bit of an extreme overclocker for a while, vaporphase with 4GHz Kentsfield in fall of 2006, etc. So my tolerance for risk probably needs no further elaboration.

That said, I run my desktop rig at stock 2.4Ghz (Q6600) at all times in which I am not expecting to do anything that involves heavy crunching for more than a few minutes (15min is about my patience threshold). When I know I am about to get into some heavy backtesting runs or some lengthy encoding/transcoding queues I OC the CPU to 3.3GHz.

Why do I clock my CPU at 2.4GHz instead of running balls-to-the-walls 24/7 all the time? For me it simply has to do with heat (power-consumption as well as ambient temp impact) as well as noise (the higher OC requires higher fanspeed to keep temps in check) combined with the fact that my computing experience is otherwise identical insofar as I can tell whether my chip is clocked at 2.4GHz or 4GHz when I am doing nothing more intensive than the simple office related application stuff that consumes most of my working time.

I would hardly characterize my personal OC'ing preferences as being driven by "irrational FEAR". And unless you happen to know SunnyD intimately well (heh, my wife doesn't even know my OC preferences ), I propose you can't be too sure about the basis of his OC'ing preferences either.

 

[magreen]

chicken

j/k :laugh: