Worth upgrading to Phenom II X4-975 or 1100T?

[daveybrat]

Since i have the same processor, i'm also very interested to see your OC results.

 

[WAZ]

It's running Prime95 at 3.4GHz now without breaking a sweat (so far), with just a simple multiplier boost. Haven't touched voltage or NB frequency or anything else yet.

200MHz x 17 @ 1.3V ... Load temps are 38°C.

So out of the box this may as well be a 3.4GHz chip with zero effort. This is actually my first "real" overclock, outside of boosting my old dual-core a couple MHz, so I'm kind of figuring all this out as I go. Not exactly sure when to start bumping voltage or messing with memory timings, Northbridge freq, etc (just doing multiplier for now; everything else on Auto), but I'm sure I'll have fun learning. Looking up some OC guides as I go and trying to figure it all out. If Prime holds up overnight I'll start trying 3.6 to 4.0 tomorrow.

 

[kongqueror]

It's running Prime95 at 3.4GHz now without breaking a sweat (so far), with just a simple multiplier boost. Haven't touched voltage or NB frequency or anything else yet.

200MHz x 17 @ 1.3V ... Load temps are 38°C.

So out of the box this may as well be a 3.4GHz chip with zero effort. This is actually my first "real" overclock, outside of boosting my old dual-core a couple MHz, so I'm kind of figuring all this out as I go. Not exactly sure when to start bumping voltage or messing with memory timings, Northbridge freq, etc (just doing multiplier for now; everything else on Auto), but I'm sure I'll have fun learning. Looking up some OC guides as I go and trying to figure it all out. If Prime holds up overnight I'll start trying 3.6 to 4.0 tomorrow.

Sweet! IS this with 6 cores or 4? Goodluck!

 

[KingFatty]

It's conceivable that you could reach a higher total overclock by actually lowering the multiplier but using a higher base frequency.

I don't really know a good way to determine the optimal setup, other than trying each multiplier by seeing how high you can get on the base frequency for that multiplier.

But keep in mind, you might want to exclude some of the higher multiplier options, as they may disable the power saving features. This would be particularly true in an example where you have two equal choices for an overclock where they both reach the same overall speed, but one uses a lower multiplier/higher base frequency thereby staying within the range of multiplier settings that still let you use the power saving. At least this is for Phenom II chips, I'm not absolutely certain that it also applies to the 960T.

 

[soccerballtux]

It's running Prime95 at 3.4GHz now without breaking a sweat (so far), with just a simple multiplier boost. Haven't touched voltage or NB frequency or anything else yet.

200MHz x 17 @ 1.3V ... Load temps are 38°C.

So out of the box this may as well be a 3.4GHz chip with zero effort. This is actually my first "real" overclock, outside of boosting my old dual-core a couple MHz, so I'm kind of figuring all this out as I go. Not exactly sure when to start bumping voltage or messing with memory timings, Northbridge freq, etc (just doing multiplier for now; everything else on Auto), but I'm sure I'll have fun learning. Looking up some OC guides as I go and trying to figure it all out. If Prime holds up overnight I'll start trying 3.6 to 4.0 tomorrow.

yawn.
crank it up n00b 3.4ghz is ezhat

 

[WAZ]

4 cores so far, and I don't know enough about this stuff to dive right in.

3.6GHz on just the multiplier x18 (everything else still on Auto) and still smooth sailing. 3.8Ghz (multiplier x19) and I got a hardware error in Prime95 on the 4th core in 7 minutes.

So now I'm following a guide and turning OFF the "Core Performance Boost/AMD CPB/Turbo" setting, and putting the voltage on Manual (it's been on Auto, and in CPU-Z looks like it fluctuates automatically from 1.3 to 1.45... gonna try messing with these a little). I'll see if I can get 3.8 or 4.0.

 

[Magic Carpet]

You need to up the voltage for 3.8 and above. Auto doesn't give it enough. Don't go above 1.5v.

Not sure, if your AM2 board capable of unlocking the other cores.

 

[sequoia464]

4 cores so far, and I don't know enough about this stuff to dive right in.

Here is a nice concise guide - just in case you want to check one out ... http://www.overclock.net/t/777378/o...uban-overclocking-guide-with-too-many-smileys

 

[WAZ]

Thanks, very helpful.

The 960T is currently up to 4GHz... actually 4.03GHz... posts fine, no crashes, no blue screens (yet) but can't quite make it more than 7 minutes in Prime95 before there's an error on one or two cores, so it's not there yet. I have the NB at 2400MHz, voltage at 1.45... can't quite get 4GHz to stay stable in Prime. I think it will settle nicely around 3.8 or 3.9, which is fine with me.

I do have one question, though -- since I've taken things off of Auto (and also realized my DDR2-1066 RAM was set to Auto @ DDR2-800), I now see that my core speeds are not exactly 200. CoreTemp says it's 201.34 MHz even though it's obviously set to 200 in the BIOS.. turbo should be off. And when booting it says my RAM is 1071 instead of 1066. Any reason for this? Just normal for an inexact science, or is something off?

 

[kongqueror]

Thanks, very helpful.

The 960T is currently up to 4GHz... actually 4.03GHz... posts fine, no crashes, no blue screens (yet) but can't quite make it more than 7 minutes in Prime95 before there's an error on one or two cores, so it's not there yet. I have the NB at 2400MHz, voltage at 1.45... can't quite get 4GHz to stay stable in Prime. I think it will settle nicely around 3.8 or 3.9, which is fine with me.

I do have one question, though -- since I've taken things off of Auto (and also realized my DDR2-1066 RAM was set to Auto @ DDR2-800), I now see that my core speeds are not exactly 200. CoreTemp says it's 201.34 MHz even though it's obviously set to 200 in the BIOS.. turbo should be off. And when booting it says my RAM is 1071 instead of 1066. Any reason for this? Just normal for an inexact science, or is something off?

What's happening is "normal". I'm not sure how accurate the readings are but as an example, I have my FSB as 260 in my BIOS but CPU-Z shows it as 260.9 and my memory @ 695.7MHz(DDR3-1391) . The difference you see in your memory speed is precisely because of the difference in your FSB in BIOS and what is measured by CoreTemp. It is probably calculated as follows: 201.34*8/3=536.9MHz (DDR2-1073).

 

[Neurotic_X]

Yeah try 955 for cheaper as previously mentioned.

Yeah, the phenom II x4 and X6 still hold up very well and they're only $100-110 respectively.

I'd go with those over the FX-Zambezi cpu's.

 

[soccerballtux]

I had ram speed divider issues at 260FSB. Set divider higher (ram now at 860ish Mhz) and no problems.