# Help overclocking Phenom II X4 940



## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

Hi! :wave:

Soon after my first ever computer build, it's about time to experiment with the machine a little bit! :grin: I want your guidance in boosting this thing with the usual method of overclocking. I hope the unlocked multiplier will make the whole task easier. Note: I'm not seeking for some extreme overclocking, for now it is more of experimentation and taking gradual steps. I'm a total noob in OC and I don’t wanna fry parts up... 

So the basic idea according to:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-overclock-athlon,2161-6.html

is to raise the multiplier until errors or crashes take place after stress tests and the actions taken like increasing the FSB to find the “sweet spot” without increasing any voltages, or another option to play with voltages as well.

First of all, I would like to ask you, do you agree with this approach? For example, can I boost the system without touching any voltages at all, yet having a stable/reliable operation at high frequencies?

Also, will I have to enter the BIOS and change settings? For example System Voltage which is already set to Auto or anything like this? Also ANY other settings that we should touch?

I have already installed EasyTune6, AMD Overdrive, Prime95, and CPU-Z. If I will need any other application for the task let me know.

Btw, I’ve ran the Prime95 for about 2 hours today and the temp stabilized at 50 C, idle 35 C when the fan was at Auto, and 48 C and 30 C idle when Disabled (100%). I don’t know about you, but I can’t live with the Zalman working at max rpm all the time, it’s very irritating. :upset: So, would it be a wise idea to perform OC having the CPU fan to Auto, or the 2-5 C that I will benefit from max operation are more important than the noise? 


And because I already read your thoughts “Where the heck are his specs?” :laugh:, here they are:

1)	AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE
2)	Zalman CNPS 9700 NT
3)	Crucial Ballistix 4GB (2x2) DDR2 800Mhz Dual Channel
4)	Sapphire Radeon HD4870 1GB
5)	Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
6)	Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P
7)	Corsair HX1000W Modular Power Supply
8)	Western Digital 250GB WD2502ABYS RE3
9)	Sony Optiarc AD-7203S Labelflash
10)	CoolerMaster RC-932-KKN1-GP HAF Black

OS: WinXP Pro SP3 (32-bit)

I'm open to hear your ideas! ray:


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## HD_Monkey (Apr 16, 2008)

Hello Kovacevic, what is your goal? System looks to be oc friendly.

If the fan noise bothers you then you might want to reconsider. I would recommend leaving cpu fan at 100% on oc'd system. (You can try leaving on auto, just pay close attention to temps. , should not go past 60C)

Also, I would only overclock from within bios. With a little voltage tweeking you should be able to hit 3.6 GHZ easy.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

increase your "cpy host clock" by 10mhz 

and set your DDR2 voltage to 2.0 volts

then run orthos (i like OCCT better) make sure all four cores are getting stressed not just two !

watch the temps for atleast two hours 


I always prefer to set my voltages for cpu manually; auto leaves the cpu voltage up to the motherboard and can sometimes allow it to be set too high

watch your info from cpu-z after overclocking, in fact paste your cpu-z tabs from both cpu and ram settings into this thread


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

HD_Monkey said:


> Hello Kovacevic, what is your goal? System looks to be oc friendly.
> 
> If the fan noise bothers you then you might want to reconsider. I would recommend leaving cpu fan at 100% on oc'd system. (You can try leaving on auto, just pay close attention to temps. , should not go past 60C)
> 
> Also, I would only overclock from within bios. With a little voltage tweeking you should be able to hit 3.6 GHZ easy.


My goal is to get he max overclock, yet to have a stable/reliable operation. At what point you think we can boost it? You say 3.6 GHz easy, I guess we can reach 4.0GHz with some effort?


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

You suggest not to change the multiplier first and go directly to FSB and RAM voltages? Why?

OK, I will download OCCT as well, I thought Prime95 was the best....At least OCCT stresses in the same way as Prime95?


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

Linderman is correct. OCCT keeps all cores busy, it takes much much longer to open folders etc while running, whereas Prime95 is much "lighter".

However:

After 1 hour running OCCT with Zalman at 100%: 43 C

The same with Prime95: 47 C

So, would it be a good idea to run both of them for reaching conclusions?


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

dont run both at the same time, once you have reached your sweet spot raise the voltage and then stress test again.

You don't actually have to change the multiplier it's the FSB your interested in.

Once you get the cpu as fast as you can get it I reccomend stress testing for atleast 7 hours some people will stress test for 24 hours but I don't think that is neccesary


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

I agree; 7 hours of passing a stress test means you are golden


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## HD_Monkey (Apr 16, 2008)

Kovacevic said:


> My goal is to get he max overclock, yet to have a stable/reliable operation. At what point you think we can boost it? You say 3.6 GHz easy, I guess we can reach 4.0GHz with some effort?



After reading oc'ing threads and reviews with this chip, I found the max. oc achieved was at or near 3.8GHZ. Of course this may vary from chip to chip. This is why I think 3.6 is a reasonable goal.

You may be able to hit 4GHZ or higher. You never know until you start pushing it. Also, depends on your own comfort level.


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

Can someone tell me how to verify that all 4 cores are stressed in OCCT and Prime95? For example, both applications show that all cores (CPU#0, CPU#1, CPU#2, CPU#3) are stressed, but I was wondering if this is a clue really after what Linderman said above about "be sure"! :4-dontkno So I spent some time to read reviews and I found out that I have to create 4 shortcuts and run 4 instances of the Prime95?!?! 

Please confirm. I don't wanna risk anything.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

OCCT will run all four cores and I "think" there is a version of prim 95 which will run 4 cores.

there are two schools of overclocking

A) raise the cpu host frequency aka FSB / example your motherboard defaults to 333mhz and you keep the multiplier at max setting x 333= your stock speed / if you raise the CPU frequency to 400 x the highest multipler allowed will give you a faster speed

B) some guys like underclocking: which is lowering the multiplier and setting the FSB even higher; mainly this makes faster memory speeds


personally I am not as big a fan of option B ........


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

You should be able to look in task manager to make sure all the cores are at 100% during stress testing.

I'm not a big fan of option B either, found it less stable to lower the multi and jack up the bus speed.


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

So the question is: What does someone needs? Faster CPU or faster memory? 

Now I have achieved max stability at 18.5 x 200 = 3700 Mhz, 1.472 VCore and 55-57C CPU temp under full load. 19 x 200 = 3.8 Ghz requires more than 1.5 Vcore which pushes CPU temp at 60+ Celsius. (1.55 V - 62 C the maximum allowed).

The results so far aren't discouraging as the PC is much faster in Windows/Internet enviroment and in certain tasks, but it doesn't show lots of improvement in games, in fact I was only able to get another 2000 points in 3dMARK06....

I don't know whether it would be as worthy so to start from the beginning and take the FSB route...It seems a bit complicated and risky to me trying to balance things like CPU/FSB/Northbridge/RAM and their voltages and timings.

Also I couldn't find any reviews about FSB overclock regarding this CPU yet.

What would you do if you were me? :grin:


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

I am am sorry I could not have replied more in depth before now 

been insanely busy at work; gotta love this economy, downsize 1/3 of staff but still "try" to accomplish almost the same volume!


anyway; my take is (and I am sure you will find the majority of the internet in agreement) is the newer cpu's and chipsets are getting rather maxed out for their potential, therefore you will find most all new chipsets hit a front side bus wall at around 450-500mhz PERIOD

have you ever looked at your memory resource meter (ctrl/alt/delete erformance tab) while you are running multiple programs such as anti virus scan / play music / anti spyware scan / defrag / or even video encoding dvd stuff ?

if does NO good to add more memory speed "if" you are not using what you have thats running at stock speed !!!!!!

if your can only use 40% of your memory'; what is the value of adding more, or making your memory faster ?

same with overclocking really; if your CPU usuage never hits 100% what is the value to having more?

for conversation lets talk about my system - Intel E8600 = 3.3 ghz at stock speed

if I do a video encoding job at stock speed its common to see the cpu get used at 90-95% even if only for brief periods; so I cant really do too much else at the same time or my video encoding quality suffers (its waiting for cpu ) but when I overclock to 4.0ghz; now the same encoding job never uses above 75% of the cpu; leaving me plenty of muscle to check email; run MS office etc etc etc

but; if I overclock higher to 4.3 ghz, it doesnt really improve things enough to allow me to encode the same video and run anti virus scan or anti spyware scan; not that I would want to do all this simulatnously because programs like to fight with each other; anyway!!

my point= only overclock to the point that you NEED and can use, and dont mess with beyond that.

I see alot of systems that when playing a game like crysis or COD5 will choke the video card because the cpu cant keep up; overclock 15-20% that same system and the video card is totally freed up, and your FPS increases! thats the benefit to overclocking


I will say this in summary: as long as your OCCT testing doesnt give errors and your temps never exceed 60C while stressing = YOU are golden

watch your resources; most of the time you will find with a 15-20% overclock you can never use what you have, so dont stress your system too much by chasing more ?????????????

as for benchmarks = IMHO they are for people who are bored! :embarased

resource meter and watch the tasks which you like to perform in a REAL world environment and you should be content!


as for your question of why your thread is so slow getting responses; IMHO its because AMD has been getting their butt kicked for so long now that most users are using an intel platform for this generation; the AMD 940 Deneb and above are the first cpu's that measure up to the Intel line-up, but most builders have given up and already commited with an intel build, unfortunatley your system is VERY worthy, but their is not much company in your classroom as of this date :embarased


ask more questions are you get them; I will do my best to give an "opinion" time permits, now my JV basketball playing daughter is after me to go play some hoops; seems she enjoys making me look like Rocky Balboa chasing that chicken :laugh:


best regards


joe


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

linderman said:


> I am am sorry I could not have replied more in depth before now
> 
> been insanely busy at work; gotta love this economy, downsize 1/3 of staff but still "try" to accomplish almost the same volume!
> 
> ...


Thanks for this reply Joe  

I guess this is the end of the road, no need to push it harder....When the system will become obsolete in some years from now, I'll just go for the next. :grin:

Regarding stress test, OCCT (and OverDrive) give about 5-6 degrees C more than the EasyTune6!! What should I trust??  I have set an alarm in Bios as soon as the CPU temp reaches 60C, and indeed it works when the ET6 reads 60C but what about the others which are already 65C??

As for the rest, I know....AMD pays the price for their "inexistence" in previous years, and I expect from them to close the gap even more in their next releases!! I have been always using AMD based PCs, don't know why really, it is more like asking someone "why do you support this football team"? 

As for this thread, the replies - views ratio gives some answers :laugh:

Oh, btw I'm a killer 3-pointer shooter and hopefully soon I'll be promoted in the second team :laugh:


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

The bios readings are always the most accurate; so as long as you dont hear any siren type noises your system hasnt really hit 65C yet, although 65C isnt a melt the solder level heat; (70C is the real red zone) but I ALWAYS use the bios reading of 65C as my panic temp. 

in actuality you may well be able to squeeze another 200-300mhz out of your system "if" you want to mess with NB voltages / south bridge voltages etc etc etc IMHO once you enter that level of tweaking you have removed the pin from the grenade and you are carrying it John Wayne style. I have friends and customers that do; however they fry some parts now and then too, but I was under the impression you wanted overclocking without much risk, that you have achieved.

I seldom if ever see any real world improvements increasing from what you have achieved now by adding another 200 or 300mhz, but that's your call



not much of a shooter here; always earned my playing time thru defense & rebounding  >>>> not much glory but I played alot though LOL


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

linderman said:


> in actuality you may well be able to squeeze another 200-300mhz out of your system "if" you want to mess with NB voltages / south bridge voltages etc etc etc IMHO once you enter that level of tweaking you have removed the pin from the grenade and you are carrying it John Wayne style. I have friends and customers that do; however they fry some parts now and then too, but I was under the impression you wanted overclocking without much risk, that you have achieved.
> 
> I seldom if ever see any real world improvements increasing from what you have achieved now by adding another 200 or 300mhz, but that's your call
> 
> ...


Well, I cannot hold my self from playing around :embarased so now I'm stable at 18.5 x 202 = 3737 MHz, 57C hehe :grin:

Nah, seriously I have no intention to play with any voltages at all any more, and I was wondering where I could reach by just raising FSB frequency at 1.488 Vcore. By the way, when does the "pin of the grenade" really comes off?? I see the Northbridge default multi (x9) has added another 18 Mhz to NB, and I have another 8 Mhz to RAM. So as long as I do not touch NB and RAM voltages am OK or any increase in those frequencies requires more voltage??

I assume you are a fan of Dennis Rodman? :laugh: Were you a basketball player? Do you follow the sport? :smile:


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

I personally would not use "auto" for my cpu voltages or ram voltage (set those manually) many fellas get the wrong impression that "auto" is a safe default type voltage setting, in reality auto means the motherboard chooses whatever voltage it wants and will even use some that are not to healthy for your system

I personally would set your ram voltages to 1.9 volts if you are using DDR2 ram ? I dont remember your specs at this moment

and then run a stress test as you are set-up now; during the first 10 minutes of a stress test watch your cpu voltage from within easy tune or cpu-z / you will see the cpu voltage change slightly during the stress test

once you have seen the minus and the plus values of that aspect then enter the bios and set that voltage to the most voltage you saw during the 10 minutes fo stress test plus add .03 volts to compensate for V-droop

example ........if I see my cpu bounce from 1.22 -1.23 during a stress test; I would "manually" set my cpu volts in the bios to 1.26

then stress test again for one hour

if system stresses well, then drop to 1.25 and try again until you find you minimum volts needed 

the "hairy/ riskier " stuff gets to be when you "need" to jack up the NB and SB to get stable

keep us posted with your progress


I used to play basketball in high school, I loved to watch the "worm" although as a person wasnt to fond of him, but he sure did his part for the bulls without a doubt

my passion is watching college girls basketball .......the U-conn huskies / tenn lady vols etc etc etc its not all done by stuffing the mail box there! I like to watch a powerful but balanced team


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

Yeah it's DDR2 800 Dual Channel 4-4-4-12

Btw, I don't understand why I should mess with the Ram voltage in order to find the minimum CPU voltage required? :4-dontkno

I'm a basketball lover in general and I like to watch both Euroleague as well as NBA games. I support Bulls and Olympiakos from Greece (Childress, Wafer, Kleiza....) :grin:


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

overclocking is a "team" challenge


all aspects must work together, cpu, ram, motherboard etc etc etc

just a suggestion, sounds like you have things under control anyway, you will fill in the last few remaining pieces of your puzzle from your own trials and error / experience


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

linderman said:


> overclocking is a "team" challenge
> 
> 
> all aspects must work together, cpu, ram, motherboard etc etc etc
> ...


Well, an overnight test with OCCT revealed the weaknesses....i found it rebooted in the morning :sigh:

It cannot hold on to that extra 2 Mhz of FSB....The VCore cannot go higher from what is now, otherwise it exceeds 60C....

*Joe*, can I ask you two questions?

1) Now that the FSB is set back to 200 Mhz, do I really need to increase RAM voltage? Would it make any difference now that the memory is working on stock speed?

2) Based on your experience, I would like to know what kind of performance would the system give with 15 x 247 = 3705 Mhz instead of 18.5 x 200 = 3700 Mhz. You don't need to say in numbers, just to get the idea of how much faster the system would be working on the FSB instead :smile:


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

Kovacevic said:


> Well, an overnight test with OCCT revealed the weaknesses....i found it rebooted in the morning :sigh:
> 
> It cannot hold on to that extra 2 Mhz of FSB....The VCore cannot go higher from what is now, otherwise it exceeds 60C....
> 
> ...



almost ANY overclocking guide will advise you to set your ram voltage manually, chances are VERY good that will return your 15 x 247 to stable

you wont see a real noticible diff using either one of those two settings; but I am willing to bet you will prefer the higher FSB setting; it makes the ram run faster 


almost NO system can get successful overclocks with the memory on the stock voltage of 1.8 volts !

mine is set at 2.1 volts right now

if you can, give me a link to your ram where you bought it or give me the model numbers from the memory tab from inside cpu-z


best wishes


joe


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)




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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

your memory is rated for 2.0 volts (its guanteed to be able to run at 2.0 volts)

I personally would set your ram to run at 2.0 volts

then increase your FSB and reduce your multiplier

when checking on the net, what is the max voltage for your cpu ?


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

http://www.cpu3d.com/review/7104-11/amd-phenom-ii-940-black-edition-am2/overclocking.html



your HTT number looks to high in your cpu-z check the link above


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

linderman said:


> your memory is rated for 2.0 volts (its guanteed to be able to run at 2.0 volts)
> 
> I personally would set your ram to run at 2.0 volts
> 
> ...


http://products.amd.com/en-us/Deskt...&f5=&f6=C2&f7=45nm+SOI&f8=&f9=&f10=False&f11=

Will this process of increasing FSB and lowering multi will result in changing memory timings, ratios etc? I have a feeling this is going to be complex :sigh:


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

linderman said:


> http://www.cpu3d.com/review/7104-11/amd-phenom-ii-940-black-edition-am2/overclocking.html
> 
> 
> 
> your HTT number looks to high in your cpu-z check the link above


His number looks too low :grin: You can see the real number below in his memory tab.

940 has 1800Mhz at Northbridge and the 955 has 2000Mhz,


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

I would be shooting for the 240 fsb or higher

250 x 15 would be my goal



****edit = with DDR2-800 you wont be able to hit 250 FSB on a 1:1 ratio because that would put your memory speed at 1000mhz after the double data rate is considered .......you would have to use a memory divider to slow the memory to something not in excess of about 850mhz on the memory

thats why your 200 x 18.5 works 

but am rather confident the 250 x 15 with a memory divider in use would give you slightly better performance

http://www.cpu3d.com/review/7104-5/...ition-am2/test-setup-procedures-and-bios.html

they are using PC-9200 to get the 960mhz memory speed 

try it and see what you get ..........OCing = trial and error and stress testing


FWIW their NB speed as shown from cpu-z = 1920 mhz


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

linderman said:


> ****edit = with DDR2-800 you wont be able to hit 250 FSB on a 1:1 ratio because that would put your memory speed at 1000mhz after the double data rate is considered .......you would have to use a memory divider to slow the memory to something not in excess of about 850mhz on the memory


What is a memory divider?

Also, with 250 FSB and 1:1 that would set the memory to 900 Mhz dual, not 1000, wouldn't it?


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

Kovacevic said:


> What is a memory divider?
> 
> Also, with 250 FSB and 1:1 that would set the memory to 900 Mhz dual, not 1000, wouldn't it?



250 x 4= 1000

if you had your fsb at 240 x 4 = 960mhz


the FSB is doubled then dual channel memory doubles it again


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

linderman said:


> 250 x 4= 1000
> 
> if you had your fsb at 240 x 4 = 960mhz
> 
> ...


When I had the FSB at 202 on 1:2 the memory was at 808 Mhz, which is exactly what you say. But what about on 1:1? Wouldn't be 804? Sorry for these questions, I know they sound stupid sometimes :laugh:


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

Kovacevic said:


> When I had the FSB at 202 on 1:2 the memory was at 808 Mhz, which is exactly what you say. But what about on 1:1? Wouldn't be 804? Sorry for these questions, I know they sound stupid sometimes :laugh:




no such thing as stupid questions :4-thatsba

need for info is all that matters!

I have not had the opportunity to OC the deneb 940 so I am flying blind somewhat 


try some of the other settings; if you are unsure give me some pics of your overclock bios options and we can figure this out together


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

linderman said:


> try some of the other settings; if you are unsure give me some pics of your overclock bios options and we can figure this out together


Is there any way to take a bios info without using a cam? I have one but it's broken :upset:


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

Kovacevic said:


> Is there any way to take a bios info without using a cam? I have one but it's broken :upset:




cell phone camera ? other than that ?


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

linderman said:


> cell phone camera ? other than that ?


I've never used it to transfer data on computer....no equipment.

Tell me what bios settings you wanna know and I will copy them manually. :smile:


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

ram settings and cpu fsb settings


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

Here is the Tweaker Bios page

CPU Clock Ratio......................x18.5.......3700Mhz
CPU NB Frequency...................Auto........1800Mhz
Clock Generator Control...........Auto
x CPU Frequency(Mhz).............200
x PCIE Clock(Mhz)...................Auto
HT Link Frequency...................Auto.........1800Mhz
Set Memory clock....................Auto
x Memory Clock......................x4.00.........800Mhz
EPP Mode..............................Disabled
EPP Voltage Control................Normal
System Voltage Control...........Manual
DDR2 Voltage Control..............Normal
NB Volt Control.......................Normal
SB Volt Control........................Normal
CPU NB VID Control..................Normal
CPU Voltage Control.................+0.125v
Normal CPU VCore...................1.3500v


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

I think without using 1066mhz ram you wont be able to get to the ideal 250 x 15

if you are interested; I would be willing to swap you some 1066mhz (2 x 2 gig matched pair) for the ram you have now; or at least you could try them ?


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

linderman said:


> I think without using 1066mhz ram you wont be able to get to the ideal 250 x 15


I think the CPU temp is an obstacle to reach higher frequencies than 3700 Mhz anyway, so 1066 Mhz Ram would be useless....


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

btw: how does it handle gaming ? when you get into a real intense scene try hitting the escape key with the ctl/alt/ delete "performance tab running in the back ground and see how much cpu you are using 

if you cant use all you have, then its a waste of time to add more ?


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

I'm playing Colin McRae Rally 2005, Resident Evil 4 and Assassin's Creed. 
I've tried twice the other day the ctl/alt/del while running Assassin's Creed and the computer rebooted! Even after running each game for hours I didn't notice any hot air coming out of the case like when stress testing, so I guess the CPU is either walking or Jogging on XP :grin:

Btw, at factory system settings and maximum game settings these games were running like a charm, now the response when changing angles etc and the loading speed are bloody faster!  The gameplay feels smoother also, and it is very noticeable in the Rally game! But these games utilize only DX9 with shaders and are not as intense as COD, so the real test for the CPU/graphics will come when I'll somehow convince myself to give up those Windows XP for the sake of Windows 7 :laugh: Then I'll have the chance to test it on DX10 also.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

you are really going to be impressed with Win 7 I hated Vista but I love 7

you should try the Win 7 RC beta I am using it now; it will run good and free until june 2010

then you will have to buy it


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

So I guess we had enough with overclocking? If the difference in the overall system performance between FSB and Multiplier is negligible as you said before, then I see no reason to change route. The system doesn't seem to suffer in applications either....

A ram-related question: You said it would be better to increase the memory voltage when overclocking but I didn't undestand whether you meant I should do it ONLY if I increase memory frequency or whether the CPU overclock requires a memory voltage increase also.... What should I do? Will any increase in ram voltage help ram operation in any way, even at factory speed?


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

New info after final overclock at 3.7 GHz 

The CPU usage running Assassin's Creed at max settings with two Radeon HD4870 1GB each in Crossfire is somewhere 70%......Not bad huh?!? :smile:

With the singe card it fluctuates around 50%.....

So I would assume this processor at stock settings would still be able to feed both of these hungry video cards without choking them, approaching near its limits though.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

if you max out your cpu usuage at 70% what will adding more cpu power do for you ?


overclocking is only truely beneficial when you can use all or almost all cpu capability; then adding more speed helps


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

linderman said:


> if you max out your cpu usuage at 70% what will adding more cpu power do for you ?
> 
> 
> overclocking is only truely beneficial when you can use all or almost all cpu capability; then adding more speed helps


I believe you missed my point :grin: It is 70% after overclock, so it is beneficial since at stock speeds it would approach 100% usage in crossfire....Did you see the "final overclock" I said? :grin:


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

After an issue I had the last couple of days with the motherboard I decided to play a bit with the CPU so I said to underclock-undervoltage it to a "disgusting" point :laugh: just to see how it would perform in every situation. I got some really interesting results that I did not expect and I would like to share with you here :grin:

At 1000Mhz (lowest possible), 0.875 vCore (lowest allowed), it gave 20W power consumption (!), 30c max. CPU temp with Prime95 (like in idle :grin, but ran COD Modern Warfare 2 at max settings and 1680x1050 at about 30 fps!!!! I took me a lot of effort trying to make ANY game not running, but was impossible! 

At factory settings (3000Mhz, 1.35 vCore) it consumed about 34W, and ran the game at about 60fps.

At 3200Mhz and 1.35 vCore, it makes a massive jump in power comsumption to 58W....but at 3400Mhz and 1.35 vCore it only needs 2W more and runs the game at approx. 65 fps.

By taking as a fact that it can make a jump of 400Mhz without any voltage tweak, I would say these chips can give some really efficient results by lowering the voltages without necessarily sacrificing any performance (I haven't checked the lowest possible vCore at 3Ghz, which must be enough lower...!).

How about underclocking? Interesting and it doesn't seem to be as bad as it sounds :grin:

P.S This is how an "overclocking" thread gets resurrected and then finally becomes dead as an "underclocking"...


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

When a cpu is created they are all made on the same die, however a cpu made first might not be as good as the same cpu made last or a cpu made 3rd it all depends. The fact is all makes of the same cpu will yield different results and depending on the hardware (mainly the mobo and ram) that they are set with you can get very interesting results whilst messing about with them.

I know people with the exact same setup as me but can only get their cpu to 3.6 whilst I run at 4GHz without any issues. Underclocking can help although I never do it.


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

greenbrucelee said:


> When a cpu is created they are all made on the same die, however a cpu made first might not be as good as the same cpu made last or a cpu made 3rd it all depends. The fact is all makes of the same cpu will yield different results and depending on the hardware (mainly the mobo and ram) that they are set with you can get very interesting results whilst messing about with them.
> 
> I know people with the exact same setup as me but can only get their cpu to 3.6 whilst I run at 4GHz without any issues. Underclocking can help although I never do it.


I know and I agree :grin: Not even two cars of the same engine specs and chassis would behave in the same exact way....It's not necessarily about which is "good" or "bad", it's about the inevitable small variation found in hardware.

I just wanted to mention what results "should" someone expect approx. by having the same or very similar setup. Numbers should not be taken for granted :grin:


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

I found the "sweet spot" of my setup. After hours and hours of stress testing and performance testing by tweaking CPU, NB, HT, RAM speeds and their voltages/timings...phhh, I was able to determine what are the best settings on my computer.

Don't ask me why...but I have the fastest possible experience both in windows environment and in games, with the following settings:

Frequencies/timings:

Core: 15.5 x 227 = 3520Mhz
NB: 10 x 227 = 2270Mhz
HT: 9 x 227 = 2043Mhz
RAM: 4 x 227 = 908Mhz / 5-6-5-15-2T (26T for tRC instead of 24T)

Voltages:

vCore: 1.392
CPU-NB: stock
RAM: 2.0v

Some notes: OCCT peaked at 54C after 5 hours, which is very nice since above ~55C, Phenom II may become unstable due to the heat, despite being able to survive much higher temps. 

Also, any effort to alter the values in any combination would either give the same or lower results and/or cause instability...i.e higher NB (for example 2340Mhz) on same RAM speed was needless or would cause a crash, higher RAM (for instance 950Mhz) would do nothing more, and higher than that would cause problematic performance (BSOD, letter distortion..). Changing the HT would not help much, too low would slightly lower performance and setting it at 2270Mhz like NB, would yield the same performance like 2043Mhz.

Something else, about the voltage related to Northbridge. My worries about the NB temperatures proved to be totally unnecessary for two reasons. First, I did not need to increase the voltage for reaching at 2270Mhz, and also in case you would ever need to boost the voltage a bit (for 2400Mhz and above), you won't be tweaking the "NB voltage" which refers to the mobo chip, but the "CPU-NB Vid" voltage, which refers to the Integrated Memory Controller (IMC) which cools down along with the CPU! You just need to worry about the CPU temp. :grin:

As a conclusion, I'm pretty sure that a matched pair of quality DDR2-1066Mhz memory would help getting some more reliable juice out of such setup, with the CPU capable of operating at 2600Mhz Northbridge and 1333Mhz Ram.


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

I found the "sweet spot" of my setup. After hours and hours of stress testing and performance testing by tweaking CPU, NB, HT, RAM speeds and their voltages/timings...phhh, I was able to determine what are the best settings on my computer.

Don't ask me why...but I have the fastest possible experience both in windows environment and in games, with the following settings:

Frequencies/timings:

Core: 15.5 x 227 = 3520Mhz
NB: 10 x 227 = 2270Mhz
HT: 9 x 227 = 2043Mhz
RAM: 4 x 227 = 908Mhz / 5-6-5-15-2T (26T for tRC instead of 24T)

Voltages:

vCore: 1.392
CPU-NB: stock
RAM: 2.0v

Some notes: OCCT peaked at 54C after 5 hours, which is very nice since above ~55C, Phenom II may become unstable due to the heat, despite being able to survive much higher temps. 

Also, any effort to alter the values in any combination would either give the same or lower results and/or cause instability...i.e higher NB (for example 2340Mhz) on same RAM speed was needless or would cause a crash, higher RAM (for instance 950Mhz) would do nothing more, and higher than that would cause problematic performance (BSOD, letter distortion..). Changing the HT would not help much, too low would slightly lower performance and setting it at 2270Mhz along with the NB, would yield the same performance like 2043Mhz.

Something else, about the voltage related to Northbridge. My worries about the NB temperatures proved to be totally unnecessary for two reasons. First, I did not need to increase the voltage for reaching at 2270Mhz, and also in case you would ever need to boost the voltage a bit (for 2400Mhz and above), you won't be tweaking the "NB voltage" which refers to the mobo chip, but the "CPU-NB Vid" voltage, which refers to the Integrated Memory Controller (IMC) which cools down along with the CPU! You just need to worry about the CPU temp. :grin:

As a conclusion, I'm pretty sure that a matched pair of quality DDR2-1066Mhz memory would help getting some more reliable juice out of such setup, with the CPU capable of operating at 2600Mhz Northbridge and 1333Mhz Ram.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

seems like you got a good stable system now. As for NB I always set the NB and SB for that matter to the lowest possible voltage this always gives room for more tweaking elsewhere such as ram and cpu. Fortunately I always use asus boards and with them when your on a safe voltage for the NB and SB they show green, orange and red obviousley green is totally ok whilst red is pushing it.


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## Kovacevic (Mar 30, 2008)

Sorry for the double post, I don't know how it happened and i can't delete it either..:upset:


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