AMD Overclocking Club

[bardacuda]

@Barracuda---So then how is it limited? Neo's RAM is 1866 MHz....So, yeah

Hey while you are out giving advice lol....is 1.35v CPU/NB too high? also 2600 seems to be the max on my HT Link which I have it set at ...so do I set NB freq to 2600 also?(which I allready have)?...Dram is at 1600 due to my 200 fsb setting.I am trying so hard for days now trying to get this OC right so I can finally post one of my best prime95 pix lol.

At least I finally got my vcore down from 1.55 to 1.488 now,lol.I can do anything but run prime95 for more than 10 mins.It raises my core temps past 120F and crashes to bios at no matter what i set vcore/multi/fsb to.I need to figure out what to set dram/NB/HT freq to.Also...when I try to print the TH OC Club table,only a graph lined paper comes out,it there any way to print the table with the numbers on it?(maybe just some wierd printer settings)if not, no big deal.I know this isnt going on the stable table but could you add my highest insane @ 4.247(vcore was too high at 1.56) I could get without crashing yet instead of the one I have on there now?Here is cpuz for that
http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1845779

He apparently said his RAM is at 1600 so that's probably OK. As you can see though he says he has tried raising vcore and lowering his multiplier and yet he still does not have a stable system therefore if the problem is not with his CPU freq/voltage it makes sense that it is his RAM that is causing issues. If it is set at 1866MHz then I can pretty much guarantee that his RAM frequency is exactly what is causing this stability issue. If you are referring to his RAM's specs then 1866 is great. The higher the better. It is the memory controller on the CPU itself that will cause instability at high RAM frequencies.

 

[lowjack989]

His board's IMC supports 2000 MHz RAM...I highly doubt that its his RAM speed...unless he messes with the FSB....

@Barracuda--So your telling me that RAM running at spec. is causing an issue...on that board....I now see he is OCing 1600 MHz RAM and you are correct that its the RAM

I have the same set-up and I have installed 2000 MHz memory on three of these ASUS M4A89GTD-PRO boards all of them ran 4 GHz Stable at 2000 MHz RAM

Now if his RAM is spec.ed at 1600 MHz and hes running at 1800 then ...Yes that would be a RAM issue..

 

[bardacuda]

Hello again Neo...I was gonna get at you on xfire, but I just seen this post and had to let you know that...Your problem lies with messing with the FSB....just knock it back to 200 and use the multi. as doing this will allow your HT to get to 2600 and your NB to 2800....Messing with the FSB totally screws up your OC on Black Edition cpu's

His board's IMC supports 2000 MHz RAM...I highly doubt that its his RAM speed...unless he messes with the FSB....

@Barracuda--So your telling me that RAM running at spec. is causing an issue...on that board....

I have the same set-up and I have installed 2000 MHz memory on three of these ASUS M4A89GTD-PRO boards all of them ran 4 GHz Stable at 2000 MHz RAM

Now if his RAM is spec.ed at 1600 MHz and hes running at 1800 then ...Yes that would be a RAM issue..

I'm not saying it's a RAM issue. I'm saying it could possibly be a RAM frequency issue. Which means the issue is with the CPU's memory controller, not the board or the RAM.

I agree though that he should set the FSB to 200 to make things easier and try 2600 or 2800 for NB freq as it should be OK, but I would suggest lowering the HT to 2200, and trying the RAM at 1600 while leaving the CPU at stock frequency. If that is not stable then it is obviously not a CPU freq/voltage issue and he can focus on what remains, which is the RAM frequency/timings voltages, the NB frequency/voltage, and the HT frequency...and at 2200 you can pretty much eliminate HT frequency too. After that the next step would be to try lowering either the NB frequency or raising the NB volts (though I can't see a problem with 1.3 NB volts @ 2600 MHz), OR lowering the RAM frequency. If the timings are 9-9-9-24 that should be fine too and I imagine they could even be tightened to 8 or 7 for some of them. 1600MHz should be fine too but you never know....overclocking is basically defined as running hardware above spec, and spec for the processor's memory controller is 1333Mhz. So I don't see how you can say that having a RAM frequency above that can not possibly cause a stability issue?

The other way would be to leave RAM/NB/HT frequency/timing/voltage at stock and find the max stable limit for the CPU frequency/voltage, and then leave it there and start raising the clocks/volts on other things. Either way...

I'm just tryin' to help eliminate the issue here with the process of elimination and it seems he has already eliminated the CPU freq/voltage as an issue.

EDIT: Oh and I forgot to mention that it could be the command rate too. Setting it to 2T instead of 1T might be all that you need to do. Are you in ganged or unganged mode neo?

 

[lowjack989]

@Neocloud---Set your RAM to 1600 MHz@1.55v-1.6v, Multi. to x20, vcore 1.488v-1.52v, FSB 200 MHz

@Barracuda---You are correct he's OCing that RAM, I got a bit confused due in part to answering a couple of question on his set-up and seeing this 1800 MHz over and over I just assumed it was a Typo and he had 1866 RAM...

 

[lowjack989]

All I am saying this stuff is not rocket science and it doesn't have to be so difficult to get it right...its a Black Edition for a reason

 

[Neocloud]

from bardacuda:
The other way would be to leave RAM/NB/HT frequency/timing/voltage at stock and find the max stable limit for the CPU frequency/voltage, and then leave it there and start raising the clocks/volts on other things. Either way...

I'm just tryin' to help eliminate the issue here with the process of elimination and it seems he has already eliminated the CPU freq/voltage as an issue

....lol you are exactly right there thanks.

Holy crap so much info Im going to try lower settings like you guys said this time.DRAM at 1920 set by fsb at highest level and is 1800 Kingston ram.So that might be my problem.Editing this when I get more results and thank you guys,you have given me alot to think about.You guys might be getting a little confused between the different ram I have set for different OC's.My ram is Kingston 1800 DDR3 and my bios dram is set at 1920 currently.If I set my fsb to 200 it automatically goes down to 1600.Then I may be able to achieve the stable settings you have lowjack.Going to try now Ill just post my final score when I get it cause I dont want to eat up this thread with a buncha OC questions lol.If you guys still wanna help here is my new post...
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/266893-29-asus-890gx-profile-help
I will greatly appreciate it.

 

[saint19]

Just a side note: If the RAM is rated at 1600MHz, that's not overclock.

 

[bardacuda]

Holy crap so much info Im going to try lower settings like you guys said this time.DRAM at 1920 set by fsb at highest level and is 1800 Kingston ram.So that might be my problem.Editing this when I get more results and thank you guys,you have given me alot to think about.

No problem. 1920 MHz on the RAM is probably what's killing you. I would start at 1600 and if that's stable go up from there but if you get above 1800MHz you are lucky.
You can probably leave CPU-NB volts on auto, but you may want to bump the NB volts to 1.25 or so. 1.35 is probably overkill/unnecessary.
If you can get everything stable with a 200MHz FSB then and only then should you try raising the FSB in small increments (2MHz at a time) to squeeze out that last little bit of performance.

@saint19
Anything above 1333MHz RAM frequency is an overclock, not of the RAM or the board necessarily, but of the CPU's internal memory controller. AM3 CPUs' memory controllers are all spec'ed at 1066MHz for DDR2 and 1333MHz for DDR3

AMD Phenom II X4 965BE

Bus speed (MHz)

667 MHz Memory controller (x2 for double data rate or DDR)
One 2000 MHz 16-bit HyperTransport link

The fastest supported memory is DDR2-1066 and DDR3-1333

 

[saint19]

So, we need use the proper word. That's IMC overclock and not the RAM overclock, both are different.

 

[lowjack989]

+1^---Indeed

 

[Neocloud]

So, we need use the proper word. That's IMC overclock and not the RAM overclock, both are different.

Also saint if you can(I know you are a busy man lol)...I would like you to update the format for specs either like below or with more info if you can please to clear up any confusion between RAM freq on mobo and manufacturer rated RAM speeds(is where I got confused) and make it easier for guys like me looking at this for the 1st time,lol.Also the CPU/NB voltage and NB voltage confusion(which is my next question in my post here if you guys want to help http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/266893-29-asus-890gx-profile-help ) in the current format is not helpfull when I have 3 ppl trying to tell me NB voltages and CPU/NB voltages making it very hard to decipher between the 2,lol.Its just this is exactly what my BIOS looks like below.No big deal though if you dont wanty to change it as I know you put alot of hard work into this and I really appreciate it saint.No wonder the name lol.
example,


Cpu: 965
Name: NeoCloud
Stepping: C3
Frequency: 4100
ref*multi: 200*20.5
DRAM freq: 1600
CPU/NB frequency: 2800
HT link: 2600
CPU voltage: 1.488
CPU/NBv: 1.3
CPUVDDAv(optional): 2.5
DRAMv: 1.65
HTv: 1.21
NBv: 1.21
RAM: 2x2GB 1800Mhz DDR3 9-9-9-24-2T
Motherboard: ASUS-M4A89GTD-PRO/USB3
Cooling: Air cooling/TT Black Widow V1
OS: 7 32-bit
GFLOPS: N/A

 

[bardacuda]

Well if it helps. What's important is that ppl should know that because their RAM and board support a certain memory frequency that they can't assume they will acheive even the lowest of those two frequencies.
Otherwise you can have ppl with their RAM cranked up to 1800 or whatever and assume that it is not a problem and spending time and effort tweaking other settings assuming the problem must be elsewhere and ignoring their RAM freq altogether.

EDIT: Ahaha ^ exactly lol

 

[bardacuda]

Participating in this thread again has caused me to re-think my own overclock....I thought the Vcore could be lower and I could squeeze more out of my RAM, so I did both of those and squeezed some more Hz outta the NB too.

Cpu: Athlon II X4 640
Name: Bardacuda
Stepping: C3
Frequency: 3543.7MHz Actual | 3528MHz set in BIOS
Ref*Multi: 253.1*14 Actual | 252*14 BIOS
CPU Voltage: 1.456V Unstressed | 1.488 Stressed | 1.446 BIOS
CPU-NB: Auto
NB Frequency: 2784.3MHz Actual | 2520MHz BIOS
NB Volts: 1.17V
RAM: 2x2GB 1687Mhz DDR3 7-8-7-24-1T @ 1.62V
Motherboard: MSI NF980-G65
Cooling: Air cooling/Hyper 212+
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
GFLOPS: 44.9

With a little tweaking I very slightly lowered my CPU clock and was able to lower the Vcore significantly. Before it would peak at 1.528 and idle at 1.488. Now it only peaks at 1.488 under stress and idles at 1.45 (Actually it idles at 1.1 cuz I put Cool n' Quiet back on). Just goes to show the law of diminishing returns when it comes to raising Vcore.
I had RAM voltage at 1.61 and it was causing a stability issue but I thought it was the Vcore or NB volts so I had raised those first. I am going to try keeping RAM at 1.62 and lowering the other 2 next and see if it remains stable.



I'd rather have this one in the table than the other one Saint if ya wanna update it pls

EDIT: Oh yes I meant to ask does anyone know what TMPIN1 is? I am thinking it is the MOSFETs on my voltage regulator module.
I know AMD socket MSI boards tend to have problems in that area (usually only with 125W TDP CPUs though) because they have some crappy 4+1 phase power delivery or something.
I am wondering if that is what it is, and if anyone has any experience/success re-seating the heatsink. I understand it has some crappy rubber thermal pad underneath and may not make good contact with all of the MOSFETs....So I am wondering if I should just take that off and put thermal grease, or use a pad if there are good ones you can buy, and which one to get, etc. Any thoughts?

 

[bryanb58]

Well I read these forums everyday and see all these folks with 4 Ghz. Saint19 helped me out a whole lot to get the 3.8 I posted on here already, but I have just been aching to get to 4 ghz. I tried playing around today and I just can't seem to get 4 stable. I havent tried everything, but I didn't have enough time to exhaust all changes, etc but I did up my OC to 3.9 Ghz which I am still really happy about, @ 1.45V with everything else basically the same minus the associated increase in my ram freqs. I did Prime for a little over 2 hours so thats a good starting point to establish this as my new norm, but I will wait to repost until I get 12 hours stable like my last oc.

I love this website for everything it has taught me!

 

[saint19]

@bardacuda: You last stable overclock was 3.576MHz that's better that the new one, but I like the girl

@bryanb58: I'll wait for that, if you post the new overclock and you don't get and answer in a week, PM me please.

 

[bryanb58]

Bah you know what I was watching a movie tonight and it bsod'd on me... I can't believe I had two hours of prime stable and a bloody movie crashed after maybe an hour. I think I'm stuck at 3.8 ghz . I'm really not happy. I upgraded all my fans and everything hoping I could bump it up further. I guess my chip is just limited. I dont know what else I could be missing. Oh well I guess 3.8 is still a nice OC for my first project. Im just going to stick with my 12 hour prime stable settings.

 

[mlcaouette]

Cpu: Athlon II x3 450
Name: mlCaouette
Stepping: C3
Frequency: 3408Mhz target
ref*multi: 213*16
CPU voltage: 1.344v
CPU-NB: Auto
nb frequency: 1917Mhz target
NB volts: Auto
RAM: 4GB (2*2gb) 713.5Mhz (1427Mhz) 9-9-9-24-2T @1.5v
Motherboard: Asus M4A88TD-V EVO USB 3.0
Cooling: Air cooling/stock risky i know
OS:Windows 7 64-bit

Link to pictures while testing:
http://s1213.photobucket.com/albums/cc465/caddylover72/Overclock%20testing%20one/

Link to pictures after two hours of testing:
http://s1213.photobucket.com/albums/cc465/caddylover72/Overclock%20testing%20done/

Sorry about having to do multiple photos but the resolution on this TV is only 720p so everything is quite large, and to explain the weird background this is the computer I built for my wife. Just gives me something to play on while I finish up my own build, you can check out the photos in the toms hardware member system gallery if you want.

Small overclock i know (only 200Mhz) but with the stock cooling it is as far as I am willing to take it. As soon as I get more adaquite cooling installed I will push this as far as I can

For now I am gonna just overclock the rest of the system a bit and repost once I get it stable, think I will try LinX this time since it only has to run for an hour.

 

[Neocloud]

Bah you know what I was watching a movie tonight and it bsod'd on me... I can't believe I had two hours of prime stable and a bloody movie crashed after maybe an hour. I think I'm stuck at 3.8 ghz . I'm really not happy. I upgraded all my fans and everything hoping I could bump it up further. I guess my chip is just limited. I dont know what else I could be missing. Oh well I guess 3.8 is still a nice OC for my first project. Im just going to stick with my 12 hour prime stable settings.

Same problem and It has been suggested that some chips don't leave the factory the same as all the others.Others suggest it really just has to do with a good LCS or Hyper212+ coolers that can take vcore being set to 1.488-1.5v to achieve higher multiplier/fsb settings..I have been through and through this subject with multiple certified techs and OC enthusiasts here and irl and they all mainly agree on those two possibilities.(provided everything else especially thermal paste is up to date and correclty installed.) I just built a friend the exact same setup as mine except he got a custom LCS and was able to achieve 4.2 stable no bsod after 10 hours of prime95.(He didnt want to participate in this forum)I then put my cooler on it and same thing except heat was up to 145F.Then I put my chip on his board with his cooler and was stuck at 4.0 not stable.I am no where near the level of tech as provided here and irl to me but this is hopefully usefull information for anyone else having the stuck at 3.9ghz problem.

 

[mlcaouette]

Just curious if any one could tell which setting is best of preferred for cpu LLC (load line calibration) and NB LLC. I know that they bumb up the voltage to counter the effects of voltage drop under load but all the sources online have conflicting suggestions for which setting is best (auto, enabled, or disabled).

Thanks

Edit: New overclock with LLC disabled

Cpu: Athlon II x3 450
Name: mlCaouette
Stepping: C3
Frequency: 3424Mhz target, actual @ 3439Mhz
ref*multi: 215*16
CPU voltage: 1.368v
CPU-NB: Auto
nb frequency: target 2140Mhz, actual @ 2149Mhz
NB volts: Auto
RAM: 4GB (2*2gb) 859.9Mhz (1720Mhz) 9-9-9-24-1T @1.56v
Motherboard: Asus M4A88TD-V EVO USB 3.0
Cooling: Air cooling/stock risky i know
OS:Windows 7 64-bit

Well I am now getting better temps off a slightly higher overclock with the LLC turned off, steady @ 57*C hit 59*C at one instance but dropped back down once the fan speed went up. Core temps also about 7*C lower than before and even the M/B dropped 5*C.

Screenies:
215*16 verification screenshot

 

[bardacuda]

Just curious if any one could tell which setting is best of preferred for cpu LLC (load line calibration) and NB LLC. I know that they bumb up the voltage to counter the effects of voltage drop under load but all the sources online have conflicting suggestions for which setting is best (auto, enabled, or disabled).

Thanks

Edit: New overclock with LLC disabled

Cpu: Athlon II x3 450
Name: mlCaouette
Stepping: C3
Frequency: 3424Mhz target, actual @ 3439Mhz
ref*multi: 214*16
CPU voltage: 1.368v
CPU-NB: Auto
nb frequency: target 2140Mhz, actual @ 2149Mhz
NB volts: Auto
RAM: 4GB (2*2gb) 859.9Mhz (1720Mhz) 9-9-9-24-1T @1.56v
Motherboard: Asus M4A88TD-V EVO USB 3.0
Cooling: Air cooling/stock risky i know
OS:Windows 7 64-bit

Well I am now getting better temps off a slightly higher overclock with the LLC turned off, steady @ 57*C hit 59*C at one instance but dropped back down once the fan speed went up. Core temps also about 7*C lower than before and even the M/B dropped 5*C.

Next gonna see if I can get 215*16 stable with tighter ram timings, I will just edit this post if/when I finish the next testing

Screenies:
214*16 verification screenshot

From what I can tell you are right about LLC. It adds input voltage when the CPU is under stress to counter-act the voltage drop. This means that it could potentially make your overclock more stable, however it also means it could apply dangerous amounts of voltage to your CPU when it is under a heavy load and therefore reduce its lifespan or worse. Therefore it's a personal choice about how long you want your hardware to last and how much performance you want out of it while you have it. If you plan on buying a new CPU every 1-2 years and want the most speed then you can probably enable it. If you would rather sacrifice a little speed/stability to have it last several years you should disable it.

It seems from the screenie that you are already at 215*16 according to CPU-Z's reporting of your BUS speed, HT link, and NB frequency, which are all 215, and 2150 respectively.

You can probably raise your NB multiplier to x12 for an NB speed of ~2.6GHz....maybe x13 even.

Max temp according to AMD is 62ºC so I wouldn't recommend pushing it any higher for now till you get better cooling. The general consensus is to keep CPU temp below 55ºC. If/when you do push it higher you may have to dial back your FSB : DRAM ratio to keep it stable.

EDIT: Oh I noticed your GFlops are lower than they should be too. You should be around 30 GFlops. I noticed it did that to me too sometimes when using "all" available RAM. If you go into settings in LinX under "Memory for OS" and add a few Megs it should correct the problem....then again it may be because you are using all 4 memory slots and you only have 2 lanes.

 

[mlcaouette]

I did have 215 reference clock I misread the cpu-z verification sheet cause it said 214.96, thanks for pointing that out, been playing around with this thing all day. For now I lowered it down to 214 with 1.353125 volts and retested just the five tests (it was still more than an hour) on LinX got GFlops of 27.6830. As for memory timings I couldn't keep it stable on anything better than 9-9-9-24-1T even when I pushed them up to 1.65v oh well on that I guess

Since it was only an eighty dollar processor I don't really mind if it only lasts a year, hopefully I will have something better by then anyways. Friday is payday and I'm thinking of getting the xigmatek gaia from the egg for just $28 or a hyper tx3 from wally world for about 18 with my wifes discount

I got the stock cpu fan up to 4500rpm didn't think it could go that high

 

[bardacuda]

Oh just checked and actually max temp for that CPU is 75ºC. For some reason it is higher on the Athlons....probably because you don't have to worry about your L3 cache overheating because there is none. I remember pointing that out to ppl when I first tried overclocking but still everyone said to keep it below 60ºC but they were used to overclocking Phenoms and couldn't really give me a good reason.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-Athlon%20II%20X3%20450%20-%20ADX450WFK32GM%20%28ADX450WFGMBOX%29.html

You should try raising your NB multiplier to 12 or 13 if your BIOS will let you...that will give you a healthy boost.

 

[mlcaouette]

You should try raising your NB multiplier to 12 or 13 if your BIOS will let you...that will give you a healthy boost.

Thanks for the suggestion unfortunatly my northbridge multiplier was at its max (i think 10x) already, here is the new GFlops data after some fiddling with the northbridge and ram etc 33.0960 GFlops peak. I did lower the cpu clock speed a bit (3.4Ghz) but for now I am leaving it at this because it is quick, stable, and decent temps. I also ran prime95 for over 2 hours without a hitch with these settings.

Some good news: I ordered a hyper 212+ from amazon this morning $29.xx with free super saver shipping I have yet to decide on keeping it for my new rig or sticking it into this one. If anyone is in need of one when you search it, the result is from another seller at $35, just go to other sellers to buy from amazon. Although I think there is a little wait on the shipping.

New screenshot:
http://s1213.photobucket.com/albums/cc465/caddylover72/

 

[saint19]

Hi guys, here is a little test that I did two days ago.

 

[mlcaouette]

Thats awesome Saint19! Was that with LN2, I think it was your post in another thread talking about OCing with LN2.